WHEN COOPERATION BREAKS DOWN.

A dean of students at the University of Alabama had some, shall we say, controversial social media statements on his permanent record that came to light.   (These were not youthful Usenet posts, by the way.)  He is no longer dean of students.

Because of the way the more vocal elements of the conservative insurgency brought the dean's statements to light and because of the outcome, there are those among the libertarian and conservative commentariat who are clearing their throats and tut-tutting, "This is not who we are."

Brad Polumbo is representative.  "Conservative hypocrites," he writes.

Conservatives, after all, ought to know better than to engage in the outrage-mongering and cancel culture we so often decry on the Left. Whether it’s gun rights activist Kyle Kashuv getting hounded out of Harvard over old racist comments dug up by angry liberals, the use of old high school yearbooks to smear conservative Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the liberal media's insane targeting of Trump appointee Leif Olson, or any other of the innumerable instances of cancel culture gone wrong, conservatives have seen firsthand the injustices wrought by the Left's outrage-mongering.

Yet some are still apparently unprincipled enough to forget this all when an opportunity to “own the libs” presents itself. Breitbart reporter Kyle Morris is the latest conservative to embrace leftist tactics, after he reported on old, supposedly offensive tweets from University of Alabama Dean Jamie Riley, with the clear goal of jamming up the left-wing academic.

Mission accomplished. After amplification from right-wing pundits such as Laura Ingraham, an outrage mob quickly pounced. Just a day later, Riley was out of a job.

Reason's Robby Soave is of similar mind.

But as long as the right is perfectly willing to enforce its own version of political correctness, it is difficult to to believe that they really agree in principle that you shouldn't do this kind of thing. If you only defend the cancelled when you agree with them, then you're not actually against cancelling. You're just protecting your tribe.

Conservatives, please condemn Breitbart for this hit job and demand the immediate reinstatement of James Riley.

His call would be correct if the social norm was that nobody does this kind of thing.  But when the principle is honored only in the breach, and a long train of abuses and usurpations by the cancel culture of the left signifies a desire to subject anyone who disagrees to absolute despotism, that principle is no longer valid.  We are in a grim strategy situation, and it's clear to the culture warriors that offering the other cheek no longer elicits cooperation.  Restoring the old social norms of disagreeing without being disagreeable is going to be difficult.

Hot Air's Allah Pundit elaborates.

The response would be that de-platforming the left is a form of deterrence. If you want them to stop taking scalps from the right, start taking them from the left until they think better of their tactics. One problem with that logic, though, is that you’ll never deter everyone; another problem is that taking scalps in unjust circumstances could backfire by generating greater enthusiasm on the other side for even more ruthless scalp-taking. Although the stakes are obviously way lower, the conflict considerations here aren’t much different than they’d be for a group that’s trying to decide whether to engage in terrorism to advance its cause. Will you gain more for your cause or lose more by responding to violence perpetrated against you with your own violence? Will that violence frighten the enemy into suing for peace or radicalize him into committing to your destruction? As a moral matter, should you be as bad as your enemy or insist on being better and prove how cutthroat he is by the contrast with your example?

More to the point, responding to cancel culture with cancel culture is simply reverting to the grim strategy. The Nash equilibrium of a repeated prisoners' dilemma game can be rational cooperation, provided players understand that deviating leads to a lengthy spell of punishment.

Perhaps the original practitioners of cancel culture will catch on.  What The Hill's Madison Gesiotto (via Ed Driscoll) sees as a bug well might be a feature.

The liberal media have made an art form out of digging up controversial tweets in order to attack ordinary Americans who support President Trump, and now that they’re being given a dose of their own medicine, they’ve discovered that they don’t like the taste. What goes around comes around, though, and those who live by the social media “gotcha” game shouldn’t be surprised if their eventual undoing comes by the same means.

Perhaps it is necessary to take down a few deans to encourage the others.