Cancel Culture & Messaging of Books and the Digital Damnatio

Picture credit; Moray's Muse Robinson Crusoe is close to being cancelled

The issue of this months edition is called Message in a Bottle. We have spoke about languages, we have spoken about how sailors messages have been lost to time and we have spoken about how languages have gone through oppression and discrimination, but we have haven’t yet spoke about how messages in books have changed through time. 

As a person who loves the ‘maritime aesthetic’ on a banal level and a historian in training Robinson Crusoe should be on the top of my book reading list. However I am nervous to read it, because of all the critique it has gotten over the last 10 years. The book is filled with colonist undertones however does that mean I shouldn’t read it?

I come from Gen Z, that means we are the first generation in history who can block anyone at the click of a button, therefor growing up with without really having healthy and constructive debates with others of a differing opinion. We are the generation who are notable for tearing down statues and throwing soup at paintings when the art gallery is sponsored by oil magnates. N

In my study of Classics, I’ve encountered the concept of damnatio memoriae, or the 'condemnation of memory'. Back in the days of ancient Rome, this practice involved systematically erasing a person’s memory from monuments or historical records; even speaking of them could result in exile or death. Numerous emperors, including Nero, Aurelian, and even Geta (featured recently in the newest Gladiator film), suffered this fate. The frequent survival of their stories, however, suggests that the practice was less effective than intended. 

Today, we see parallels to this ancient form of censorship in modern society. Films are removed from streaming services, Roald Dahl’s books have been rewritten, and web browsers with blocked keywords limit access to information. This contemporary censorship can be quite effective. Some critics have drawn comparisons between damnatio memoriae and 'cancel culture,' a term that emerged in the mid-2010s. In this modern phenomenon, groups demand the public condemnation and boycotting of individuals on social media for perceived wrongdoings. Even more subtle practices, like online content cleansing or search result removals, could be viewed as a kind of ‘digital damnatio’. Even the idea of young people and their trigger warnings has also been complained about by critics, calling us words like ‘snowflakes’.

Recently, the edited language in books like those of Roald Dahl has left me uneasy. Instead of softening or altering the language of the past, we might benefit more from understanding these attitudes in their original context, ensuring we learn from them rather than risk forgetting. Have we forgotten how certain books from across the pond, such as Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give and Art Spiegelman’s Maus, are censored in some U.S. school districts. They say that history is written by the victors, but perhaps it is up to all of us to confront and judge it. 

Mary Beard one of my favourite writers wrote something akin to how its important when we study artefacts not only to look at the artefact but look at the time it was dug up and analysed because the time period wherein the artefact is analysed is just as important as the artefact itself. The Renaissance marked a resurgence of interest in Greco-Roman art, but with Christian ideals layered over it. For example, Greek and Roman statues of gods and athletes, which were originally pagan symbols of physical perfection, were reinterpreted to align with Christian values.

Will we look back at the ‘digital damnatio’ of the modern era and these edited books and see the way we are sanitising these pieces of media is not allowing us to have critical thinking skills? Wouldn’t it be better if dialog was encouraged or even a notice in a book or before a movie about how the issues in the piece of media were of the cultural norm before it was created. 

Throughout history, societies have reinterpreted, redacted and  destroyed material deemed offensive or morally unfit for the prevailing culture, whether through Christian reinterpretations of pagan art, Victorian-era censorship, or the removal of ‘unsuitable’ themes in 20th-century media and rarely it works. Look at the prohibition. Look at the damnatio memorae for goodness sakes!

As a Gen Z historian in training I’ll take my trigger warnings and I’ll take my block button as sometimes the world is too noisy and too traumatising, but I do acknowledge that our generation need to have more critical thinking skills. And I will read Robinson Crusoe.