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The Hidden Blessing in Cancel Culture
People are not TV shows. You can’t just “cancel” them because people disapprove of the things they do or because of the things they failed to do.
If someone does something illegal, there are punitive measures that have long been in place to deal with that. If someone does something immoral, they get exposed and deal with the consequences.
Cancel culture is something entirely different from criticism and accountability. Cancel culture is about excavating the shortcomings of someone’s past to embarrass them and to ruin their livelihood in the present.
Another way cancel culture shows itself is the intentional or unintentional misrepresenting of someone’s stance on a topic and turning a subculture against that person.
Yet another way cancel culture reveals itself is when someone actually commits a crime or acts out of personal desire while not considering the ramifications this would have on the lives of others.
Obviously only one of these manifestations warrants any kind of backlash but it is because cancel culture was once a fairly decent phenomenon where actual criminals were being called out, people noticed the kind of power that the phenomenon wielded and used it against anyone they didn’t like or anyone that disagreed with them.
