10 Theses About Cancel Culture

What we talk about when we talk about “cancellation.”

Cancel culture is destroying liberalism. No, cancel culture doesn’t exist. No, it has always existed; remember when Brutus and Cassius canceled Julius Caesar? No, it exists but it’s just a bunch of rich entitled celebrities complaining that people can finally talk back to them on Twitter. No, it doesn’t exist except when it’s good and the canceled deserve it. Actually, it does exist, but — well, look, I can’t explain it to you until you’ve read at least four open letters on the subject.

1. Cancellation, properly understood, refers to an attack on someone’s employment and reputation by a determined collective of critics, based on an opinion or an action that is alleged to be disgraceful and disqualifying.

2. All cultures cancel; the question is for what, how widely and through what means.

3. Cancellation isn’t exactly about free speech, but a liberal society should theoretically cancel less frequently than its rivals

4. The internet has changed the way we cancel, and extended cancellation’s reach.

5. The internet has also made it harder to figure out whether speech is getting freer or less free.

6. Celebrities are the easiest people to target, but the hardest people to actually cancel.

7. Cancel culture is most effective against people who are still rising in their fields, and it influences many people who don’t actually get canceled.

8. The right and the left both cancel; it’s just that today’s right is too weak to do it effectively.

9. The heat of the cancel-culture debate reflects the intersection of the internet as a medium for cancellation with the increasing power of left-wing moral norms as a justification for cancellation.

10. If you oppose left-wing cancel culture, appeals to liberalism and free speech aren’t enough.