Cancel Culture, or Accountability Culture?

Is the trend actually holding people accountable for their actions?

It is impossible to ignore the impact cancel culture has on dividing our country. Classic Disney movies and TV shows have been canceled numerous times for “racist and sexist remarks.” Dumbo and Peter Pan are now age restricted on Disney+ for those under seven years old. Dr. Seuss’s books were canceled for portrayals of Asian and black characters. This is strange because his books are about non-human, fictional characters. Another beloved children’s author, JK Rowling, was condemned for her beliefs about transgender individuals.

Individuals are also being canceled for things they said in the past, even when their current views have changed. For example, Niel Golightly, an executive at Boeing, wrote an article in 1987 in a US naval magazine where he objected to women taking place in military combat. In 2020, one of his employees found it and demanded his resignation. He apologized and said his views had changed but was forced to resign anyways. “As youngsters, we’ve tried out ideas; we’ve done things that we look back on and say, ‘That was kind of silly, but boy did I learn from that,’“ Golightly told the New York Times. “I think that’s what we want from leaders in society and politics and business.”

James Bennet, a former editor at the New York Times, published an opinion piece by Republican Senator Tom Cotton about the Black Lives Matter riots. Bennet’s colleagues were outraged that he allowed Cotton’s opinion to be published and demanded that he step down or be fired. Even though Bennet apologized and explained how he wanted the readers to be exposed to a different point of view, he was still forced to resign.

But is cancel culture a force for good? According to Aja Romano, a reporter for Vox Magazine, cancel culture “began as a tool for marginalized communities to assert their values against public figures who retained power and authority even after committing wrongdoing.” It’s underlying goal is often to drive social change. It’s a belief that if there is enough public outcry against something or someone, we will positively move society forward toward a “better” ideology.

Now cancel culture has evolved to something more sinister. It now seems cancel culture is mostly about people wanting everything they see in society to reflect their own values. Take the recent Bud Light controversy as an example; the right boycotted the company to end their business sponsorship of TikToker Dylan Mulvaney. It wasn’t done for malicious purposes; the consumers of Bud Light didn’t see themselves as individuals who wanted to associate with a brand promoting what they saw as a political ideology different from their own. After Bud Light separated itself from Mulvaney, LGBTQ+ activists and businesses started their own boycotts against the brand. In the end, who wins?

While both the left and right now feel they're on a successful path to drive social change, the end result is only fueling further divide in our country. And while both sides feel the cancellation was done with good reasons, there appears to be no path to a positive outcome.

Is it really worth it to cuss someone out online and call them monsters? All it appears to be doing is driving more division and hatred toward our fellow Americans.

Many public figures on the right and left have said there’s a big difference between making real social change versus simply cursing someone online. President Barack Obama stated, “Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, cause, ‘Man, you see how woke I was, I called you out… 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.” Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter, also added, “People don’t understand that [social activist] organizing isn’t going online and cussing people out or going to a protest and calling something out.”

According to Pew Research Center, 14% of adults described cancel culture as a form of censorship. They also stated that it was a violation of free speech and destruction of our history. And another 12% said it is “mean-spirited attacks used to cause others harm.”

Even if an individual or company apologizes for saying or doing the “wrong thing,” it doesn’t mean they’ve actually changed. It’s not uncommon for people and companies to say things they don’t believe when they think it boosts their reputation. Think about when people posted black squares on their Instagram in support of black lives. Do most people really believe the people behind those posts care about driving social change? Taking someone's words at face value ignores the underlying risk if that same person or organization were to say the opposite.

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

Alongside the idea that cancel culture doesn’t truly drive social change, the most crucial downside is that it incentivizes people to stay silent and prevents them from expressing their views for fear of being fired from their jobs and becoming socially exiled. Some who have been “canceled” have received death threats from strangers online. Steven Mintz, Professor Emeritus at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, puts it this way: “We need to become a more tolerant society not only in matters of differences in sex, sexual preference, race, religion, and nationality but also in showing the willingness to allow the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with and not seek to harm the offender.” 

In a country that prides itself on our first amendment, being offended or attempting to cancel every person we disagree with is dangerous. It’s a way of thinking more commonly found in totalitarian societies and the opposite of what those in a democratic republic must strive for.

Cancel culture also denies forgiveness to past “offenders.” As a result, individuals are permanently judged for mistakes in their past without any chance for redemption and growth from their past selves.

"Just because you did something wrong in the past doesn’t mean you can’t advocate against it now. It doesn’t make you a hypocrite. You just grew. Don’t let people use your past to invalidate your current mindset.” – attributed to many.

To conclude, not only does cancel culture not drive the social change many strive for, but it also forces our society to live in fear. It offers no room for forgiveness and no room for growth. For those reasons, we should stop cancel culture to uphold our country’s universal values of respecting our differences and protecting everyone’s right to free speech.

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