Should the survivor define accountability?
When discussing the nebulous concept of ‘accountability’ with people, many have asserted that they don’t feel comfortable defining what accountability should or shouldn’t be. The ‘consequences’ (another vaguely defined term often used interchangeably with ‘accountability’) should be decided by the survivor. This logic is used both with accusations of abuse and also with the more general accusation of ‘harm.’ Sometimes it’s used to say that an individual survivor is the only one who can decide what ‘accountability’ should be, and sometimes that responsibility is granted to identity categories, like ‘only bipoc’ or ‘only trans people’ can say what’s an appropriate ‘consequence’ for racism or transphobia.
Many people believe this quite sincerely, and see it as the only way to be on the side of the victimized, to mete out ‘justice’, and I suppose, to hopefully prevent future abuse. I don’t think most people think much deeper about it than that, and I’m sure it feels good to not have to think about it further. This stance allows us to wash our hands of the responsibility for deciding whether something is ethical or not. Afterall, ‘it’s not our place to decide.’
I have seen this position be taken to disturbing extremes, up to and including murder. I have seen people argue that if the survivor wants murder, that’s justified (I’m not kidding). Sometimes this murder might be carried out through vigilante ‘justice’ (I know of one case where this actually happened) or it might be carried out by the state in the form of the death penalty. Of course, the state (when it allows the death penalty at all) reserves it for very specific crimes (usually exclusively murder), but in ‘social justice’ culture some people will make the extreme argument that murder can be justified in cases of abuse (or even totally unproven accusations of abuse).
Most people, admittedly, won’t go this far and would stumble if you asked them ‘what if the survivor wants murder?’ They might say that’s too far but other than that, it’s up to the survivor. What about physical assault? There are quite a few people, I think, who would argue that assaulting accused rapists or other accused abusers is justified if it’s what the survivor wants. There’s a whole aesthetic of patches that say things like ‘queers bash back’, ‘make racists afraid again’, and ‘kill your local rapist’, with violent accompanying imagery like a baseball bat. I know of several cancelled people who have been physically assaulted, and many more who have been threatened with it and live in fear of it.
What if the survivor wants permanent social exile? What if the survivor wants to control the sex and dating life of the person who has been abusive, saying for example that they aren’t allowed to date or aren’t allowed to date certain types of people? What if the survivor wants the person who has been abusive to be fired from their job? What if they think they should lose their housing? What if the survivor thinks the person who has been abusive should never have anything fun, meaningful, exciting, or joyful in their life ever again? What if the survivor sees anything positive in the life of the person who has been abusive as an affront to justice and an attack on them? What if the survivor doesn’t believe that the person who has been abusive is actually capable of changing?
What if the survivor doesn’t think ‘accountability’ has happened until they feel better?
All of these things are common features in cancellation campaigns and ‘accountability’ spectacles. Other ones I’ve heard include wanting access to the person who has been abusive’s therapy sessions, banning them from 12 steps meetings, or demanding that they stand up before they play a show and announce to the crowd that they are an abuser.
The ‘consequences’ can mean complete social exile, a total attack on the accused’s material security, a total ban on joy and meaning in the accused’s life, no right to personal boundaries or autonomy, and no defined end point for these ‘consequences’ regardless of the changes the accused person has made in their life.
It is very obvious that our current insistence that only the survivor can determine the ‘consequences’ is giving people free license to abuse and dominate other people, with no checks and balances, no questions asked, no oversights, no limits, and no end point. We don’t even have to determine if the accusations are true (or even likely) to accept this state of domination, because we are not allowed to question accusations.
We can’t hand over our responsibility to think critically and clearly about whether something is ethical or not. Being a survivor does not grant anyone the right to abuse and dominate another human being, even if that human being abused them. We will not come up with ethical ways to intervene on abuse, protect survivors, and encourage abusive people to transform their behaviour for as long as we allow abuse to happen in the name of ‘justice.’
We can’t end abuse by creating more of it.
Beautiful words! I think something I struggle with is that it is actually abusive people who tend to do the most “cancelling” through things like triangulation, lie-spreading, exiling children from their families, dividing and separating family members, encouraging people to cut off their friends and families, parental alienation, domestic violence which in my country leads to extremely high rates of femicide, etc. So I always wonder… what should people who’ve been victimised like this do? Whilst the person who ruined their life usually continues to live a life full of community and family, their victim languishes in solitude knowing there are people who hate them for no reason and/or being continuously abused and shamed by the rest of their family etc. It’s all so complicated.