Should We Cancel “Cancel Culture”

Cancel culture is a term that has seen a rise in public use in the past ten years. Dictionary.com defines cancel culture as “the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.” One of the most notable specifics of this definition I want to poin

t out is that the choice to cancel someone is determined by what is “considered” offensive. This means that being canceled is based on the subjective decision of a group of people. Now, many of the times when people are canceled there is substantial evidence to support the decision. However, there comes an issue when the internet’s mob mentality takes over and targets average people with little evidence, other than one quote, to support their full cancelation.

When it comes to canceling famous people and people in power, they have the ability to fall back on their money and connections to keep their lives afloat. When it comes to canceling an average person (say they get fired for posting a politically controversial tweet) they usually don’t have a nest egg to fall back on and are put in a place of economic and social isolation. This begs the debate as to whether or not cancel culture is limiting our freedom of speech. We pride ourselves on living in a country where you are given the freedom to speak your mind without persecution. Except now if someone says something that goes against public opinion they face persecution. Now of course using public discourse to limit aggressive and hurtful speech is a net positive for most people. But it can leave some people feeling like they have to walk on eggshells, afraid of saying something that gets misconstrued and ruining their lives.

Personally, I think cancel culture has its place, but it may have gone too far. The use of public voice to make decisions with social ramifications is nothing new and can be very beneficial. However, with the internet, everything moves faster and the “truth” can become easily muddled amongst the noise. Another downside of the internet is the level of anonymity and social disconnection it allows. While the internet connects all of us in a manor never seen before, it also allows people to interact anonymously and with little real-world consequence. It becomes much easier to call for someone's head when you never have to look them in the eye or consider that although you get to go on about your life, their life is fundamentally changed forever.

This power we hold to destroy people's lives is kinda scary. In reality, no one is a perfect person and people will say offensive comments, regardless of whether they consider it offensive or not. However, nowadays if that comment gets recorded or found online that person's entire career, everything they’ve worked years for, can be brought down in a matter of hours. In my eyes, this fuels the overall feeling of conflict that’s developed over the past two decades. Calling people out on their bullshit is important in many cases. But again, if that means we as a community are going to lower our level of tolerance then I’m not sure if it’s worth it all the time.

Tolerance towards marginalized groups, or lack thereof, is the common source of cancellation. Although, in the same vein, tolerance goes both ways. The fact of the matter is, the world isn’t a perfect place and neither are the people who live in it. There has to be a certain level of tolerance all around in order for us to not tear ourselves apart from the inside. Cancel culture likes to place people into categories of either right or wrong when in reality both sides are partially right and partially wrong. We as humans live in the grey area between good and evil so trying to pretend like we shouldn’t make mistakes is naive. Accountability is important, but taking time to understand the other party and having an open line of communication can be more important at times. Without the ability to have a civil discussion about controversial topics, we lose some of the ability to make progress in bridging the gap.

Overall, I think cancel culture has hurt more than it’s helped. Keeping people accountable is an amazing ability the internet has awarded us. But, the overuse and abuse of this power has created a whole nother set of problems. It’s my belief that open discourse where thoughts can be shared and expressed without fear of retaliation is important for a healthy community.