Canceling Cancel Culture

To Preface: The banning of Cancel Culture, paradoxically, violates freedom of speech; however condemning it promotes the Constitutional rights of the people, and the safety of the people. Hence the reason for this piece's publication.

Cancel Culture is a social phenomenon that has recently grown through the increased use of social media and the increased attention to social reform movements. When one is ‘canceled’ they are subjected to extreme ostracism as a result of being ‘called out’ by large groups of people, typically online. Frequently, the target faces severe consequences such as the loss of employment, boycotting that individual's products, and forced removal from public online spaces.

Canceling Cancel Culture.

Cancel culture consistently infringes on the central American value of Free Speech. Freedom of Speech is one of the United States citizens' most significant constitutional rights that allows citizens to be able to say whatever they want with no legal repercussions and without fear of intimidation or harassment regarding what they choose to express. Regulating one's opinions in any way is simply an infraction on their freedom of speech, which is completely unacceptable regardless of what they choose to say. Regardless of the controversiality of them, an individual is entitled to their own opinion and the expression of that opinion. Freedom of expression is an indisputable constitutional right presented in the first amendment. If the United States is not allowed to police speech, the general public certainly has no authority to do so either. Especially since a lot of the things people get canceled for are misinterpretations over intricacies in speech. The public should not be able to condemn individuals over subjective perceptions of pieces of writing or figures of speech, even if it may appear to be hate speech.

Although hate speech isn’t a positive thing, it still falls within free speech. Hate speech is another example of subjective speech. However, blatant hate speech, like the use of racial slurs still falls in one's right to freedom of speech. The argument being made is that banning any type of speech is still a direct violation of the Constitution. Banning speech of any form will lead the country down the rabbit hole of further regulation of speech, resulting in a state that is no better than if it were in war. In the famous words of George Orwell: “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

The right to a fair trial was established early on in American history and for good reason. Before this was written into law, people would often face public ridicule in which the public determined the outcome of the trial without a standard of proof and claims being thrown left and right. Sound familiar? Cancel culture is replicating the public square trial online, throwing allegations against individuals with no standard of proof and basing claims on false assumptions. The punishment is a variety of cruel punishments that ultimately result in a decrease in quality of life. Everyone is entitled to happiness, which is why the right to a fair and speedy trial was originally introduced, yet society continues to ignore these rights and further expand and normalize cancel culture.

Canceling individuals over societal norms that they may not conform to is working against the Constitution and its principles. Societal norms are constantly changing and will continue to change, just because someone isn’t aware that certain norms exist does not warrant exile from the public. At some point in time, radium was considered to be a healing element that cured various illnesses, it wasn’t until many years later that it was discovered to be detrimental to health. Radium can be used as an analogy for societal norms, what may be considered normal now may not be later on and society cannot expect everyone to be up to date.

Cancel culture forces people in a society to conform to the majority's morality. Breeding a society of sheep not a society of individual thinkers. No one who has done anything great in their lifetime has conformed with societal norms, or what is considered to be true by a general audience. Forcing people with controversial thoughts or thoughts that are not necessarily true is not just regulating speech, it's regulating people's ability to think. The ability to think for oneself is the most significant power someone can have, and as a society cancelists are breeding out that ability in exchange for conformists. Everyone should have the ability to take political stances and support them using their logic without fear of ridicule.

Celebrities already have a harsh burden of maintaining images, this frequently means that they are unable to express their own opinions without fear of retribution. However, they are still expected to share political opinions. There is no winning in scenarios like these and cancel culture only fans the flame of criticism. In light of recent occurrences, celebrities have been pressured to pick between two controversial angles on a topic. For instance, Elon Musk published his opinion regarding free speech and faced backlash for simply expressing himself publicly. Another issue relating to public figures has to do with the inherent nature of cancel culture where individuals jump to conclusions without fully hearing out the issue at hand. Johnny Depp during the Depp vs Heard trials was accused of committing acts of domestic violence against his wife Amber Heard. These trials were very public and the internet gravitated towards Amber Heard. Johnny Depp was getting canceled, resulting in the loss of various multimillion-dollar contracts and a risk to his employment and well-being; however, this all occurred as the trials were ongoing. After the damage had been done it was discovered that Depp won the trial and was released from the accusations being held against him, proven innocent, and freed from the allegations. Cancel culture treats high-level individuals as objects that don’t have livelihoods of their own, resulting in the infringement of their rights more than any other group.

Canceling individuals gives too much power to the press and social superiors (not to be confused with celebrities, who do not have as much influence as government officials and corporations). Societal norms are developed by the influence of other people, the most influential individuals/corporations of our society are government officials and the press. The only thing more influential than them is society as a whole, the general population. Society is influenced by these powers to great extents, and by condemning the questioning of norms presented by these groups in the form of cancel culture, one only gives them more and more power; allowing them to be evermore in control of the most influential power in any nation. Canceling thinkers only gives the corrupt more and more power, forcing conformity in a society. Thus, enabling the incredibly fast and ruthless spread of their influence, regardless of the correctness of the beliefs imposed by them.

Canceling people who may deserve to be canceled only makes the group targeted hide their views, not change them. Disagreeing to all reasons for canceling is foolish as some individuals deserve to be subject to ridicule, however canceling them publicly is incredibly dangerous. Canceling individuals who may be a danger to society or have concerning views on current events does not aid in the destruction of those views, it accomplishes nothing but the instillation of fear into those with those beliefs. One cannot change anothers mind on a topic, no matter how hard they try, because at the end of the day it is up to the other party to determine what their mind chooses to do. This philosophy applies directly to cancel culture and its dangers. By instilling this fear without attempting to reform the individual's mindset, the public does nothing but set a precedent for others who share that same belief. Those potentially dangerous individuals who should be avoided will go to great lengths to protect their beliefs, likely hiding them from those around them. Society can no longer distinguish those of concern from the rest of the flock, leaving society uninformed.

The inverse effect of canceling individuals who may deserve to be canceled is the publicity given to those groups and their ideologies. Canceling someone requires public humiliation of that individual, often people who are canceled get millions of views and large-scale attention rates. By providing individuals who have dangerous beliefs with a large platform, society allows them to further spread their harmful influence to an even larger demographic of people. The effects of this are incredibly detrimental, for instance, terrorist groups now have a massive online platform to further implant fear within individuals, societies, and even countries. A relevant example of this effect is the Israel-Hamas War, where people have been giving Hamas (a terrorist group) a very large platform with mass attention rates; Hamas took advantage of this and posted very graphic images and videos of the atrocities and war crimes they have committed against civilians in the region on social media in an attempt to further legitimize their power. Terrorist groups and members cannot be effectively canceled, especially in times of war, as their goal is to promote a fearful and dangerous environment where they will always have support from other members of the group. This is just another scenario where the government should step in and mitigate this threat, rather than letting the public's irrational actions make matters worse.

Canceling a person is far too harsh of a punishment, especially for those being canceled for minuscule things. As stated previously, canceling an individual shatters the reputation and quality of life of the victim, which is entirely unacceptable. The destruction of one's livelihood as a punishment based on false assumptions, their choice to express themselves, and anything under their constitutional rights is unjust. Canceling someone is not a necessary evil, the concept is well meaning however executed very poorly. The reform of cancel culture is something imperative to society and its development; rather than canceling the individual, who more often than not is simply uneducated on a topic or confused, society should cancel the principle of the action. Thus employing freedom of speech in a positive, more neighborly way, without harming a fellow person (who is prone to human error) while having the chance to help influence society in a beneficial manner. Who knows, maybe it'll catch on.