Toxic Aspects of Woke Culture #2: "Believe the Accusers Without Question."

I am going to comment in this and in several other posts about "woke" culture and some things I find problematic about it.  Like many words, the word "woke" has a complex history, but I am using it in the sense in which it is coming commonly to be used in modern American social-political discourse, where it basically refers to an ideology of social justice coming from the "far left" of the political spectrum (but which has entered more and more into the mainstream in recent years).  It's hard to describe in a nutshell, but if you've been paying attention to American culture and politics in recent years you'll recognize it from the descriptions in these posts.

In my opinion, woke ideology is a mixture of good and bad.  That's true of a lot of ideologies, but with woke culture the good and the bad are usually related.  There is typically some good and valuable point that is made, but then that point is taken to an extreme that turns it into something harmful and irrational while other, balancing concerns are pushed aside, ignored, or rejected.

These posts will be informal, just musings based on my own observations and experience.  And it should be remembered, of course, that I am commenting on general trends of a culture.  Not everyone who identifies or thinks of themself as "woke" or who promotes certain aspects of woke ideology necessarily embraces all the good or all the bad elements I will be calling attention to.

For the whole series, see here.

Believing Accusers Without Question

Consciously or unconsciously, human societies and institutions tend to develop mechanisms that protect members of the group from attacks from both those in the group and those outside it.  It is notoriously difficult to challenge members of the in-group and those in power in any human society.  When a leader or a member of a group is well-known, well-respected, feared, and/or has a lot of power and influence, the tendency is to respond to challenges or accusations against such a person with suspicion, incredulity, scorn, ridicule, and instant dismissal.  There is a tendency to put so much trust in the known and respected figure that evidence of wrongdoing is ignored and dismissed out of hand, especially when it comes from someone who is not as well-known or well-liked, who does not have the political leverage of the person being accused, or who is not part of the "in-group."  Thus, in human history, it has been very difficult for women to make successful accusations against powerful men.  It has been difficult for racial and cultural minorities to make accusations against those in the majority group.  Accusations against people in established positions of power and influence have typically not been taken as seriously as they deserve.

Sometimes there is an outright refusal to listen to a claim or to examine the evidence to see if the claim has any validity.  Other times the dismissal of the claim is more subtle--such as when the bar of evidence is set so high as to be unreasonable, so that the claim is ignored even when there is plenty of evidence to take it seriously and consider it substantiated.  If a significant number of witnesses come forward and make independent accusations that confirm each other, for example, this can be a good basis for determining the evidence to support at least some of these accusations, provided due diligence has been done to check out the testimony and independence of the witnesses, etc., even if more concrete proof is not forthcoming.

Woke culture calls attention to this problem and exhorts us to listen to the stories and claims of those who make accusations of wrongdoing against people of power and influence, and to get over our tendency to just dismiss such accusations as absurd or to under-value them or explain them away, especially when the accusers lack social-political clout.  This is an exhortation we need to hear.  We need to take this problem seriously and work diligently to reform our thinking, our practices, our policies, and our institutions, in order to make sure we are listening and taking seriously all claims and evaluating them objectively according to the evidence and not according to our natural biases, prejudices, what is comfortable to us, what "party" we affiliate with, etc.

But then, characteristically, woke culture goes on to turn this valid concern into an irrational extreme.  We are not only called to give special care to taking seriously accusations against the influential, but we are required to give unquestioning trust to the accusers.  If the accuser is a member of a "protected" group with victimhood status (and provided they are in line with woke ideology), we must believe this accuser's claims without question, regardless of whether there is any actual evidence to support the claims.  For example, I had a friend once who said that if we are dealing with a conflict between a black man and a police officer, we should always believe the black man's account and condemn the police officer as guilty even if we have no evidence to support this, because the black man is part of a minority group that has a tendency to be unfairly treated by police officers.  We have seen in recent years a tendency in some circles to say that if a woman accuses a man of rape, we should always believe the account of the woman and immediately condemn the man who is accused, even if there is insufficient evidence to back up the woman's account.  We have seen a tendency to vilify people simply because they are accused of rape, abuse, sexual harassment, etc., even before there is sufficient evidence to draw an objective conclusion.  The accused are fired from their jobs, blacklisted, drummed out of the public square, etc., simply because we must "believe the victims" (even before they can prove themselves to be victims).

But this is a very, very dangerous direction to go in.  It amounts to an undermining of the fundamental principles of justice in society, for one of the most foundational pillars of social justice is "innocent until proven guilty."  Until just a few years ago, pretty much everyone would have agreed with this.  I would have been shocked to find someone who would have denied it ten years ago, and yet, today, woke culture seems to be increasingly encroaching upon it and calling it into question.  "Innocent until proven guilty" gives the benefit of the doubt to the accused and puts the burden of proof on the accuser--no matter their level of power, their victimhood status, their minority status, or whatever.  Some balk at this.  If X accuses Y, and there is no evidence to tell who is right either way, we should assume the innocence of Y?  But doesn't this amount to assuming that X is lying?  What it amounts to is assuming that we don't have enough objective evidence to determine the case.  We do not say that X is lying, but we cannot, in practice, endorse X's claim unless X can prove that claim.  This is not because we trust Y more than X, but because justice requires the practical assumption of the innocence of the accused, no matter who the accused is and no matter who their accuser is.  If you think about it just a little bit, it is not hard to see why this must be so.  If we deferred to the accuser rather than the accused, then anybody could accuse anyone of anything for any reason and destroy that person's reputation, call down civil or legal penalties on the person, etc.  None of us would be safe.  If someone doesn't like me, he could destroy me in an instant simply by making up a false charge.  (Or, if we don't give everyone this unlimited power but only women, or racial minorities, or woke ideologues, or whomever, then we are putting everyone else in society at the mercy of people in those groups, without any recourse for defense.)  No, if we are to be protected in society from these kinds of arbitrary accusations, proof must be demanded upon accusations of wrongdoing.  Now, again, we don't want to go to the other extreme of setting the standard of evidence unreasonably high so as to protect people from well-substantiated charges; but we must require an objectively reasonable standard of proof before accepting the claims of accusers.

"But that means that there will be people who will get away with horrible things like rape, child abuse, etc.!  Some victims will be telling the truth but won't be able to provide substantial evidence to back up their claims!  The only way we can be sure that all abusers are punished is by always believing the accusers!"  Yes, that's true.  "Innocent until proven guilty" will inevitably amount to some people sometimes getting away with crimes.  We should acknowledge this.  It is terrible that this is the case.  But it doesn't change the fact that "innocent until proven guilty" is the right way to go, for the harm done to innocent people if we abandon this principle will be far, far worse, than any harm that comes from following it.

So we should reject the woke call to simply "believe the victims" (at least when that means we should accept the claims of accusers with or without evidence) as a way to decide guilt.  But we must not make a knee-jerk reaction in the other direction either, and use our rejection of woke extremism here to ignore the legitimate call to reform ourselves and our institutions to do a much better job at listening to the weak and the underprivileged and those with little influence, and allowing even the well-liked, well-established, and powerful to be called to justice if the evidence truly warrants it.  We must be sure to take into account how individuals (including ourselves) may be biased and institutions may be unjustly skewed to give more weight to the testimony of some people than to others, simply because of the accuser's (or the accused's) race, social status, gender, worldview, etc., so that we can be sure that all people in our society can get a fair, equal, and objective hearing.  "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour" (Leviticus 19:5; see also Exodus 23:3, 6).

Published on the feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist

ADDENDUM 10/18/24:  For more, see here.