Anyone who has used or been exposed to social media for a while is familiar with concepts such as lynching culture and lynching. Let’s be encyclopedic though and summarize it briefly.
The collective and violent reaction that a person or group sees when it skews the prevailing acceptances and understandings of the order is called lynching. We can call the lynching culture, that this whole process has become the bronze law of society with the clarity of boiling water at almost zero degrees.
The origins of the lynch culture and the concept of “cancel culture” in the west:
It is possible to say that this phenomenon, which is mostly conceptualized as cancel culture in the West, works as a kind of adjustment mechanism to the objectionable ends of the society with the power of the crowds.
Although social media has experienced and conceptualized its golden age, it should be underlined that the so-called lynching culture is as old as human history.
Even thousands of years ago, when humanity consisted of hunter-gatherer societies, there was a sense of lynching culture. Black sheep, who contradicted their companions and had dissident ideas, were banned from the community at the end of the day, and these people, who were unlikely to survive in harsh natural conditions, had to face death. 2400 years ago, Socrates was forced to drink hemlock by the Athenian government, claiming that he was confusing the youth with his objectionable ideas.
Contrary to ancient times, it is not so often that the so-called lynching culture takes a life these days. Instead, the reputation of the perpetrators in the eyes of society is thrown away for a while or indefinitely, depending on the scale of their crimes. This returns to the perpetrator as material and moral damage.
So why is the lynching culture spreading?
There is no single factor that makes it so attractive. The first things that come to mind are that we live in a time when mass communication is as fluid as breathing, and that it is extremely effortless to react to things on social media. However, the survival instinct and people’s distrust of the justice system and institutions can be mentioned as possibly stronger reasons.
As people are afraid of being harmed like every living thing, they are concerned that those who act against the norms of the society increase their chances of being harmed. They worry that such anomaly will break the bonds that form the social fabric. All this often happens on an intuitive level.
Although it is mostly the responsibility of the state to maintain order in a society, there is always the possibility that institutions will not function or be inadequate (or in some cases, institutions do not concern them). At this point, people want to take responsibility and establish order themselves, if necessary.
The angry lynching crowds that poured into the streets of a time, and the ever-vigilant account-takers of social media today are examples of this behavior. A single person is not capable of radical change, but a group of like-minded people can even change the course of history. Again, this is just one of the countless lessons that history has taught us.
Again, what history shows us is that every condition produces its own solutions. Like Batman:
Batman had quickly become one of the world’s most beloved superheroes, after the first issue was published in 1939. So what made Batman so important? Would a man in a bat suit beating a bandit at night be this popular if he appeared in today’s world?
Undoubtedly, what makes Batman attractive to justice can only be understood by looking at the conditions of the period in which he appeared. The 1930s represented a period when the USA was trying to heal the wounds of the Great Depression, the crime rates were at its peak, and the big cities surrendered to the mafia. The police were weak both technically and operationally. Maintaining security was not as easy as it is today.
Such an environment made it possible for a judge to be loved very much, just like Batman, who is fair, strong, and has cool toys and weapons, and can operate fearlessly in dark corridors and alleys at night, unlike the police force, which does not even have a seat belt in his car. What society needed back then was Batman.
Today?
No need for Batman today. Thanks to the developing technology, our communication facilities, and the intelligence and surveillance capabilities of the states, there is no need for masked characters like Batman. Crimes are handled somehow. Often all it takes is a group shouting out “wrong” loud enough to fix what’s left. The rest comes naturally…
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