Cancel Culture is one of those phrases tossed around anytime someone is called to account for what they’ve publicly said and done. To be accused of Cancel Culture has become its own form of condemnation, so what’s going on here?
Before it was called Cancel Culture, it was Call-Out-Culture, a college student form of publicly ostracizing someone for what they said or did that was deemed to have seriously violated campus norms. Bullies, sexual abusers, and professors with views contrary to the dominant politics of the school have been targeted most frequently. Calling out behaviors assaulting human rights and dignity has been an effective tool for exposing what has too long been tolerated on too many campuses. Calling out professors and invited speakers for positions contrary to dominant norms has too easily become a tool of emotionally driven self righteousness powered by a little learning and less wisdom. When calling out degenerates into “off with their heads,” it becomes its own violation of academic freedom.
Calling out entered the larger public arena as Cancel Culture by way of campaigns to boycott persons, products, and organizations for words and actions deemed by boycott organizers to have been egregiously unjust, oppressive, cruel, or prejudicial. Some have been well thought out for good reason. Some have born the marks of emotional self righteousness. On the whole, it’s been good to shed light on bad behaviors long condoned as if the public had no right or interest in them.
Is Cancel Culture a left wing thing? Let it not be forgotten that intimidating tea party and armed right wing militia protests are a from of Cancel Culture declaring zero toleration of other views. The intransigence of the congressional freedom caucus follows close behind. But it didn’t take long for right wing media to complain that Cancel Culture is the exclusive tool of left wing extremists. To conservative media, concerted opposition to any right wing view is an example of Cancel Culture. They claim it demonstrates intolerance of alternative opinions, intent on shutting them off from the public arena. They say it’s part of the extreme left’s agenda for limiting the First Amendment rights of anyone who disagrees with them.
Accusing someone of Cancel Culture has become a way to dodge accountability for words and deeds. ‘It’s just a difference of opinion,’ they say, ‘and we have a right to express our opinions;’ and so they do. Tolerating differences of opinion is essential to the health of a democracy like ours, but there are limits, the most of important of which is mutual agreement on facts. Legitimate differences of opinion depend on mutual agreement about the central facts in question. For example, the car in we’re both looking at is a Chevy. That’s a verifiable fact, and we can mutually agree it’s a Chevy. You like Chevys and I don’t; that’s a difference of opinion. We can argue the various merits of our opinions about Chevys. You say it’s black and I say it’s navy blue. That’s not a difference of opinion. It’s one or the other, and one of us is wrong. It’s a trivial example, but one replicated in matters far more complex and of great community wide importance.
Genuine differences of opinion require mutual agreement about the verifiable facts from which differences emanate. Calling out someone for stating as fact something that is verifiably not true is not denying their right to free speech, nor is it being intolerant of differing opinions. If someone’s claims of fact are Q Anon fantasies, allegations of massive voter fraud, denial that an insurrection happened, that it was a false flag operation, that white rights are being taken, etc., calling them out is not denying their right of free speech, nor is it intolerance of differing opinions. One can claim whatever one wants to claim, but they are not immune from the consequences of their words. If their words are demonstrably untrue, their actions harmful to others, calling them out and holding them accountable is not Cancel Culture denying their right to free speech.
Of course, one could trivialize calling out and holding accountable by dwelling on incidents of exaggerated story telling or the dozens of unverified talking points littering daily conversation. It would be a crude red herring leading down a rabbit hole – a way to avoid being held accountable for words and deeds of importance. What’s at stake with claims of Cancel Culture that make it into the public arena are often matters of national importance. It’s imperative in a democratic society to boldly challenge arguments that do not emanate from mutually verifiable facts. To argue that my facts are as good as your facts, my opinion is as good as your opinion, is untrue and undermines the integrity of the public debate.
Ours is a society that treasures freedom of speech. It’s a freedom more fully cemented into our laws than in any other democratic society. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speak or of the press, or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (Amendment I of the Constitution)
Freedom of speech does not extend to avoiding consequences proportional to the effects of speech. Can those effects rise to a level where access to generally available public platforms should be denied? We’re testing that now. It’s not the same as college students demanding a professor be fired or speaker denied entrance. It’s a matter of testing the boundaries of threats to public safety and the foundations of our democracy. It remains to be seen what the outcome will be.