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SW-User
It’s hard for me to ever see it as helpful, but the problem is that some things get labeled “cancel culture” that really aren’t. “Cancel culture” to me is a concerted effort to remove someone from the culture; it isn’t simply not finding them funny or disagreeing with them or otherwise criticizing them publicly. It involves an attempt to erase them, to end their career, to ensure that no one else can have access to them. People who “cancel” often seem to be busybodies whose own morals could undergo a cancelation if they were further scrutinized.
We think of it as a recent phenomenon, but I’ll remind everyone to consider the Dixie Chicks, who were canceled in 2003 for their public opposition to the Iraq War. Mild by today’s standards, but in the peak of post-9/11 jingoistic fervor, coming out against the Iraq War, especially as country singers, was anathema. The idea was that they had forfeited their place in the culture by expressing an unacceptable opinion. It’s a quintessential example of cancel culture to me.
Sometimes people deserve to be called out or criticized (and some deserve further prosecution like Harvey Weinstein) but cancel culture is problematic because it’s a mass movement that doesn’t allow room for nuance, it implies that people can never change or redeem themselves, and it proposes shutting someone down as a solution rather than a dialogue, something I will always consider harmful.
We think of it as a recent phenomenon, but I’ll remind everyone to consider the Dixie Chicks, who were canceled in 2003 for their public opposition to the Iraq War. Mild by today’s standards, but in the peak of post-9/11 jingoistic fervor, coming out against the Iraq War, especially as country singers, was anathema. The idea was that they had forfeited their place in the culture by expressing an unacceptable opinion. It’s a quintessential example of cancel culture to me.
Sometimes people deserve to be called out or criticized (and some deserve further prosecution like Harvey Weinstein) but cancel culture is problematic because it’s a mass movement that doesn’t allow room for nuance, it implies that people can never change or redeem themselves, and it proposes shutting someone down as a solution rather than a dialogue, something I will always consider harmful.