The Problem with Cancel Culture

BY SOFO ARCHON

This is the transcript of a spontaneous talk.

In theory, cancel culture sounds like a very, very good idea. It sounds like a very positive movement that is about holding individuals accountable for their actions. It’s supposedly about shedding light on the bad behavior of some people in order to protect others and to stop a bad behavior from being repeated.

But in reality, as cancel culture plays out, it’s quite different—at least for the most part. In reality, cancel culture is about bullying, accusing, blaming, and judging, as well as harassing people for mostly things they said that are perhaps unpopular, controversial, or offensive.

So you have a lot of individuals who have been canceled just because of a thought they shared, without it inciting violence, but just because most people disagree with it. They’re like, “You said that! We’re going to shut your mouth because we don’t like what you’re saying.”

And people gather—a lot of bullies—and attack those individuals, not only harming them and their reputation, career, and livelihood, and so on, but even worse, what they achieve by such behavior is to suppress the freedom of expression. They cause collective harm. Because when many people see others being attacked and ostracized like that, they themselves become afraid to speak their mind, to say what they think, what they believe—out of fear that they might be attacked, punished, and ostracized for simply expressing their views.

And what does that mean? That social progress is being stifled. Because progress—true social and cultural progress—depends on how well people can communicate and exchange ideas, opinions and beliefs.

Disagreement is not something bad; it is something very positive to society. Disagreement helps us to strengthen our arguments, but also to reconsider what we think, to consider new perspectives, and to change our minds when we are presented with new or conflicting information. Disagreement makes us think, better analyze things, and better understand ourselves and the world we live in.

So, cancel culture is not a positive force.

And the other thing that I find to be very ugly and toxic is that it turns people into monsters. They say, “You said that, which we don’t like, therefore you are an evil person. And no matter what you say from now on, you are unforgivable.”

Sometimes people are being canceled for things they said a decade ago. Since then, those people might have changed a lot. Some might have not, but a lot have. And many of the things people express right now, they might not express in the future. So, cancel culture does not give people space for improvement. It does not see that people are changing.

And yes, they might have done something wrong in the past, but perhaps they could change. Yet by canceling them, by trying to remove them from public discourse, we do not help them to see what they have done that is wrong. So they cannot learn.

Yes, perhaps there are some exceptions where some people should be banned, let’s say, from social media platforms if they say things that incite violence. But just because somebody disagrees with something that most people believe in does not make them bad.

But people like to demonize others. Bullies like to hurt others because this way they themselves feel superior. It’s an egoistic thing. Putting others down helps them feel more important.

They’re trying to fight monsters, and they themselves turn into monsters in the process. And those monsters that they are fighting against are usually just a projection of their own minds. They see in others the suppressed parts of themselves.

Cancel culture is, for the most part, negative. It does have some positive aspects. It is important to hold people accountable—especially those who are in positions of political and economic power. But for the most part, it’s about hurting people, punishing people, and preventing discussion and critical thinking.