Cancel Culture: A Broken System
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In 2019, Amélie Wen Zhao was preparing to publish her first book— a young-adult novel, Blood Heir. Yet, Zhao’s budding career almost ended at the hands of literary critics and authors: “In a world where the princess is the monster, oppression is blind to skin color, and good and evil exist in shades of gray… comes a dark Anastasia retelling that explores love, loss, fear, and divisiveness and how ultimately it is our choices that define who we are.”
According to her critics, the phrase “oppression is blind to skin color” and Zhao’s depiction of slavery in the story’s dystopian setting reflects internalized racism and anti-black racism. Consequently, her critics followed up by “cancelling” Zhao and encouraging others to not preorder her book. Zhao, a Chinese immigrant, stated that she drew her depictions of slavery from human trafficking and indentured labour issues across Asia, and not from American issues. Despite this, Zhao was forced to postpone her book’s release and was effectively “canceled.”
The term “cancel culture” has gained momentum at a tremendous pace. Cancel culture refers to the practice of canceling a public figure by personally withdrawing support while simultaneously encouraging others to boycott or attack that public figure, usually in response to an objectionable or “unacceptable” opinion. Canceling usually occurs on social media, especially on the Twitter and Instagram platforms. J.K. Rowling, Shane Gillis, Hartley Sawyer— these celebrities and others have been cancelled for “unacceptable” opinions expressed in old tweets or texts. The nature of their “cancellation” varies: Some individuals who have been cancelled truly deserved the social condemnation, and others have been cancelled for a harmless blunder made decades ago. Some argue cancel culture uplifts the voiceless, yet others believe cancel culture leads to a lack of dialogue. Contemporary America is more polarized than ever, and it is important that we address the topic of cancel culture.
First, it is crucial to establish the existence of cancel culture. According to congresswoman Alexandria Occasio-Cortez, “The term ‘cancel culture’ comes from entitlement— as though the person complaining has the right to a large, captive audience, & one is a victim if people choose to tune them out.” People like Amélie Wen Zhao, individuals cancelled for trivial reasons, did not demand a right to a large or captive audience— Zhao’s novel clearly garnered a strong audience by its own merit, as her captivating storytelling subsequently generated a bidding war over her book. Despite this reality, Zhao’s career was jeopardized by her attempt to shed light on the issue of human trafficking in Asia, ignorantly interpreted as a denial of African-American oppression in the United States. This destructive behavior is indicative of a culture that may well have good intentions, but this culture unfortunately also has the propensity to carelessly ruin innocent lives in its quest for justice.
"... But this culture unfortunately also has the propensity to carelessly ruin innocent lives in its quest for justice."
Cancel culture’s roots seem to have been established in good faith. Indeed, quite a few cancelled people have demonstrated that they lack tolerance and respect for others. Because of this, many participants of cancel culture believe that they are helping society by rooting out oppression and even giving voices to disenfranchised groups. As a society, we must strive to uplift and stand beside disenfranchised groups in order to promote equality and tolerance throughout America. However, while cancel culture does have ostensibly good intentions, its methods encourage mob mentality over individual thought and responsibility. On a social media platform like Twitter, it’s easy to quickly admonish someone or drop a quick one-liner on a person’s allegedly despicable character without waiting for evidence. However, doing so does not require a person to take responsibility for their own words. Because most people who participate in cancel culture use almost identical diction, it is impossible to hold individual people accountable for their words. Additionally, when people disagree with the majority, they themselves are often “cancelled,” which discourages healthy debate from occurring. In response to this growing concern, a letter signed by 153 public figures and academics was recently published in the Harper’s Magazine criticizing cancel culture’s curtailing of free speech. One of the signers, author J.K. Rowling, was subsequently attacked on social media by proponents of cancel culture for signing the letter. Participating in cancel culture is extremely attractive: With only a few template words, the average person can feel as if they have contributed to the betterment of society without taking any real personal responsibility for their own actions. This inevitably leads to people co-opting cancel culture for their own personal gain, deliberately or otherwise.
When society provides a system for people to easily feel righteous at the expense of others, no matter how well-intentioned, the system will ultimately be abused. When society cancels someone who has done nothing wrong, it is often a result of people who have no interest in bettering society and care only about feeling self-righteous. An extreme example of such a system can be found in the “struggle sessions” of the Cultural Revolution. During struggle sessions, peasants would shout their grievances, targeting everyone from oppressive to innocent people. Many participants of struggle sessions only wanted to ruin the lives of innocent men and women. While cancel culture is clearly not as extreme as struggle sessions, the similarities between the two systems is unnerving. No amount of good intentions can excuse a system from allowing people to easily abuse the system for their own personal gain. As a result, cancel culture, a system meant to promote tolerance, eventually allows and propagates intolerance.
As the youngest generation, compared to the Millennial or “Baby Boomer” generations, we have been relatively immune to cancel culture’s effects. However, as time progresses, moral standards will continue to evolve— definitions change rapidly, and the words we say in this decade might destroy careers in the future. The harsh quips we make in our quest for tolerance don’t affect us now, but when we end up on the receiving end of these quips, do we really want to be held accountable for things that were acceptable a few years ago— just because a stranger dug up tweets from our past? Even for individuals who hold intolerant beliefs, cancel culture only incentivizes them to issue insincere apologies for self-preservation. The only way to truly promote tolerance is to have a culture of forgiveness and dialogue. Because in the end, it doesn’t matter how ardently we try to cancel our way to tolerance— according to previous president Barack Obama, “That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.”
"The only way to truly promote tolerance is to have a culture of forgiveness and dialogue."
