There is no cancel in 'cancel culture'
Just present day resonances of a deeply uncomfortable past
So, let’s talk about cancel culture. As most longstanding readers know, I don’t usually tackle highly opiniated newsy topics on here or subjects where everyone (and I mean everyone) has an opinion on. It is akin to attending a fancy dress up party with no theme. Everyone ends up looking clownish, laughing at each other without ever really knowing what they are laughing at. I find that polemical debates (especially on the Internet) end in a similar quagmire of irrelevance, offering heated opinions with little substance. But I think there is something that needs saying in the debate around cancel culture. So, I’ll don that fancy clownish costume just this once and take one for the team. You can thank me later (or not). So let’s go.
Cancel culture, no matter how you feel about it, has morphed into a caricature of itself - illuminating vocal proponents of self-censure/regulation and detractors who see it as democratic treason. There are also exhaustive discussions around human rights; with some underlining instances of unwarranted ostracism and bullying for those cancelled. But the point of this article isn’t really to take any side. Heck, I couldn’t even settle on what to wear each morning much less arrive at a conclusive opinion on a politically charged topic. Instead, as a self-proclaimed armchair philosopher, I’m interested in what the debate around cancel culture has really offered us as a device for societal reflection.
Cancel culture, in my clumsily put-together definition, is an expression of human agency to erase the ‘public presence’ of a specific artefact, individual, organisation or author when their/it’s views are deemed to transgress specific moral codes or mainstream opinion. It is essentially a subjective imposition rather than an objective scientific assessment if someone or something needs cancelling. So it might as well be Opera Winfrey, proclaiming, “You get cancelled!”, “You get cancelled” and You get cancelled!”, “Everyone gets cancelled!” - this of-course is my somewhat lame attempt at memefying Opera’s car giving frenzy in 2004. But, let’s get back on track.
In recent times, there have been several ‘cancelled entities’ ranging from street names to books. For example, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the company that oversees and curates the late author Theodor Geisel's books, announced on March 2nd that it will no longer publish six titles because of their perceived racial and offensive undertones, specifically around the book’s imagery. That announcement ignited vehement criticism and recrimination about “cancel culture.” Amongst the many disgruntled voices were views such as, “Children don’t actually have racial prejudice unless adults tell them to” and more apathetic ones like, “Dr Seuss books aren’t great literature, there are much better books to teach kids to read”.
At the heart of the cancel culture debate however is the notion that we are, with the help of digital technology, able to unproblematically ‘delete’ otherwise notable works of literature, art, history and the people that create them from the public sphere. If you’ve some how travelled from the past into current day reality, you could be forgiven for assuming that there was some sort of ‘cancel culture’ button one could press to activate the cancellation process. In case you are, I can assure you that there isn’t one….yet, or at least not until we’re ruled by AI machines.
But is cancel culture really about removing as much as it is about consigning something or someone into an ‘obscure past’, thus distancing it from the present?
In answering the above question, I’d like to draw your attention to Austrian neurologist, philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl's brief observation on the concept of reality and the past. Note that he was writing this at a time when cancellation did not merely mean the omission of identity or a public persona, it meant the complete and irreversible eradication of one’s existence - in other words, death. His views were formed through moments of hardened suffering and unjustifiable cruelty.
Frankl noted that:
…what we achieve by seizing the moment is, once and for all, rescued into reality, into a reality in which it is only apparently “cancelled out” by becoming the past. In truth, it has actually been preserved, in the sense of being kept safe. Having been is in this sense perhaps even the safest form of being. The “being,” the reality that we have rescued into the past in this way, can no longer be harmed by transitoriness.
A fascinating feature of Frankl’s writing is in how the past remains a domain where memories and ideas are preserved from expiring and losing value in current times. In other words, ‘cancelling’ something was for Frankl only an inconsequential technical reality - a mere optical illusion because experiences and knowledge of specific events linger on in significance through present day behaviours and social structures, without ever really disappearing. Like a stained shirt whose blemish never fades.
So when faced with discourse on cancel culture, one has to really ask if the entire enterprise of cancelling something ends up, rather ironically, reinforcing its storied value. Seen in this way, it is more likely that the cancellation of those six Dr. Seuss books was really not about the books or it’s content. Rather, it was an acknowledgement of past reverberations, emanating from uncomfortable and unsettling historical truths (of systemic racism in this case). A nervous and sudden comprehension that such issues still exists today - or at least are relevant and newsworthy enough to cause public consternation and/or uproar.
Maybe then, debates around cancel culture, at its core, showcase an implicit form of societal awareness - a realisation that seemingly ‘outdated’ ideas and concepts may not be as expired as they first seem to be or as removed from current times, as much as we desperately want it to be. The act of cancellation then is simply a glorified PR exercise in optical distancing.
Perhaps, instead of jumping on either side of the cancel culture bandwagon, we should question what cancel culture reveals about our progress as a human civilisation. Or rather if we’ve progressed at all. Because relegating something to the past (immediate or otherwise) isn’t going to remove its present day resonance. And so is remaining apathetic towards an issue in the present that has its roots in a troubled past. The discourse around cancel culture is a conversation that needs to be couched in a spirit of earnest inquiry -
What does that sense of cultural and social uneasiness around a specific book/topic/thing tell us broadly about present day values and sensibilities? Where is this ‘impulse to cancel’ actually coming from?
What can future generations harness from these unsettling moments that deviate from perceived mainstream concepts of reality?
So one could say that ‘cancel culture’ is really an opportunity for society to look back at itself under a more critical lens to make considered decisions about how we want the present and future to unfold. Seen in this light, ‘cancel culture’ is a misnomer, because if anything, past narratives and histories are amplified rather than cancelled.
All right, I’ve said my piece. If you could excuse me, I might remove my fancy dress costume now. I’m starting to itch.
An intellectually entertaining piece !!! Reading journey the arguments took, from start to its end, was like reading a thriller novel. Thank you once again.