9 Semi-Brief Thoughts on “Cancel Culture”

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I’m not going to solve all the conundrum about “cancel culture” with this one little post, but I wanted to provide some nuances and perspectives to the conversation. Let me be upfront: I’m not against cancel culture, but against some of its uses. Liberals and conservatives both have some things wrong with this practice.

By the way, my working definition of cancel culture: “a group collaboration to de-platform and/or urge disassociation of a person for committing a social or moral taboo.” When I mention “cancel culture” this is what I mean. You might disagree, but this is what I’m talking about for this blog.

  1. Cancel culture isn’t a “culture” but it is a cultural phenomenon. Whatever action being condemned must be widely considered culturally inappropriate. Because America’s media, technology, and entertainment tend to be run by progressives, it can be said that America’s “culture” is left-leaning. Thus in its current form cancel culture is largely done by the Left. But it is not an exclusive tool of the Left.
  2. Cancel culture didn’t just pop up a few years ago. I believe its origins actually lie in religion, which proscribed taboos that weren’t exactly illegal but were frowned upon, and often had certain extra-legal punishments. Religions have been using disfellowship or disassociation for millennia to police taboo-breakers.
  3. As mentioned in point one, cancel culture is generally a Leftist phenomenon today, but that’s because liberals are generally in power in this nation’s cultural centers. But we can trace a kind of cancel culture back to 1950s McCarthyism which was largely a conservative phenomenon to rid the world of anyone with communist-sounding ideologies. Perhaps we can even go back further to witch hunts, which honestly were less about witchcraft and more about getting rid of strange or progressive women.
  4. Cancel culture is usually directed toward people with influence or power. So if people get mad at your racist Uncle Fred on Twitter who has 80 followers, it’s not cancel culture. It’s just people thinking he’s racist. Most of you reading this actually don’t have to worry about cancel culture. My definition of cancel culture includes the term “de-platforming” because cancel culture assumes that someone has some kind of platform, which is why group collaboration to de-platform the person gets any kind of attention.
  5. Cancel culture is really just a way to communicate disapproval of actions. It in itself is not bad. For instance, it’s been used to tell Hollywood not to give money to sex offenders in the form of casting and producing–that’s pretty good. The problem typically arises because people don’t think what is canceled is actually that bad.
  6. Cancel culture is inherent to capitalism. Free market capitalism encourages businesses to compete by appealing to what consumers want. Most of the “woke” things businesses do is not out of any moral conscience. It’s just people doing capitalism. It’s business, baby! They are trying to appeal to the majority culture by disassociating with canceled people and ideas. You can think it’s dumb to cancel someone but it’s just capitalism. Corporations are going to follow the money–and as explained, the majority culture (or the loudest, most influential voices) is liberal so that tends to be the crowd they go after. Whether it’s a chicken sandwich or a brand of ice cream, corporations in a capitalist system appeal to certain values and positions in order to differentiate themselves in the market. Also, people boycotting or canceling something or urging something to be taken down for whatever reason is an intrinsic part of capitalism, no matter how dumb the reasoning. It’s just what you signed up for.
  7. Comedians almost deserve special protection from cancel culture. Things get real dicey when it comes to comedy, and I think things done in the format of comedy are often unfairly criticized. However, I don’t think comedians should totally be off the hook, especially when they break one of the cardinal rules of humor by “punching down” instead of “punching up”. [Briefly, more people can relate to joking about people with power and influence because we generally recognize that they deserve to get knocked down a few pegs; conversely, joking about historically marginalized groups or minorities is taboo because these groups have suffered enough already.} Side note, check out this video about the differences between conservative and liberal humor.
  8. We ought to consider what redemption looks like in cancel culture cases. If someone says something discriminatory, what does real change look like? When do we “platform” them again? How can we determine a genuine response? I hope there is always room for redemption, yet, I do believe that in cases of abuse (of any kind) that the perpetrator needs to be permanently removed from authority for the sake of everyone–it’s a trust and safety thing.
  9. The free exchange of ideas is good. But some ideas are harmful to people–it’s good to not want people to be harmed. “Guilt by association” can be dicey, but it makes sense that people would want to cut ties with others for their words or actions in order to show they don’t endorse that. Even the Bible talks about not associating with bad people (though, oddly, there are many examples of followers of God doing just that). People who have caused lots of harm should not be in power or in a position of influence. It’s a hard place to be in, but there does exist a murky world between “complete and total free speech 24/7 with no consequences” and “complete government-mandated censorship of all speech.” Hopefully, we can carve out a healthy community in the middle.

The original title of this post did not include the word “semi” but it became clear that I wasn’t keeping it very “brief” in areas. But there you go. My thoughts on cancel culture. All out there for you to read.

Hope I don’t get canceled for this….

Jake Doberenz
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