“Cancel culture”: boycotting a person or some “past” values

The Australian Macquarie dictionary voted it the 2019 “word of the year,” and it’s a modern form of censorship, which implies and often results in ostracism. We are referring to the phenomenon of “cancel culture.” By definition, it is the “attitude within a community which call for or bring about the withdrawal of support from a public figure.”

Cancel culture as a form of protest

According to Clyde McGrady, who writes about cancel culture in The Washington Post, it’s “more like the act of changing the channel, rather than asking the broadcaster to cancel the program.”

Social networks allow ordinary people to behave like news outlets. Social media allows anyone to conveniently share content and ideas through a smartphone. Furthermore, it allows people to “shut people up” when they’ve been disappointed in their behavior or when they strongly disagree with the person – usually a public figure (typical causes for getting “canceled” are racism, sexism, homophobia, and cheating).

Deleting someone on social media is a way of saying: “You’ve gone too far. I’m done following you. You no longer have my support.” On a higher level, this can have serious financial repercussions – think of an influencer who lives off the public’s support and earns money from it. A “mass cancelation” can seriously affect his business.

The concept of “cancel culture” applied to history

The attitude of those who follow the philosophy of “cancel culture” may try to wipe away remnants of the past, characterized by ideals considered anachronistic for modern society.

Just think of the Manifesto of the Paris Olympic Games: on the dome of Les Invalides, the cross becomes a spire and the transalpine tricolor flag disappears. The basic idea behind this operation is that in order to distance oneself from Christianity (considered obscurantist and outdated), it is necessary to deny that it existed and left indelible and undeniable traces.

Given that not all French people believe that Christianity is outdated and that not all try to deny their Christian roots, it is “cancel culture” – in this case, in the name of a major secularist sentiment – that tries to hide the past instead of respecting it for what it was, confronting it, and dialoguing with it.

“Cancel culture” and artistic representations

Another example of “cancel culture” is the intention to censor or remove fairy tales from the cultural landscape when certain parts of the story portray values that are considered conflicting with those most prevalent in modern society.

Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty: these are just some of the artistic masterpieces that have been boycotted – particularly by feminist movements – for various reasons. It would not be good, for example, to show a woman showing up at a house where only men live (we’re talking about the dwarves in Snow White) and immediately pick up a broom and start cleaning. It would not be good to show a woman being “rescued,” after a wicked witch’s spell was broken thanks to a kiss from prince charming.

The reasons for having a “cancel culture” approach toward something/someone may be understandable in some cases. However, hiding the past, instead of confronting it and showing the evolution that has taken place over time, can do more harm than good.

Dialogue with the past, not erasing it

“Cancel culture” would attempt to erase millennia of history. But that isn’t advisable.

Think of young high school students studying Greek and Roman culture. The comparison with the civilizations of the past – which certainly had a different way of thinking from ours in many ways (just think of how the Romans used the Colosseum 2,000 years ago) – allows us to better understand the phases of thought processes, to discover how we got to where we are today, what was good about the past and what actually might be recovered from the past.

Why, moreover, should today’s culture represent the culmination of humanity’s thinking?

To dialogue with the past is a form of open-mindedness. It implies intellectual honesty and allows one to freely adopt one’s own stances on issues.

General reflections

Given that everyone is free to follow whomever he wishes – usually those who share his values and interests – it’s a good idea to reflect on the fact that, even if a celebrity or a politician makes mistakes or says something inappropriate, no one is solely and exclusively the sum of his mistakes and that, from an anthropological and linguistic point of view, the idea of “wiping someone off the face of the earth” is risky, to say the least. One may not support a person and even stop listening to what he says, but one must be very careful about the terms one uses and to explain, especially to children, that no one deserves to be “erased from existence,” even if he is wrong.

With regard to history, literature, films, and cartoons, it is much more useful – as we mentioned earlier – to help children reflect on the values in these works that they see within themselves today. Removing a cross from a spire is ridiculous, just as it makes no sense to erase films like Snow White, pretending it never existed. Wouldn’t it make more sense to show them reality for what it is and what it was, and ask: what values do you see in yourself? What aspects of the story or way of thinking feel unrelatable or out of your reach?