How Does Cancel Culture Influence Government?
In the Spring of 1989, large groups of pro-democracy, student-led demonstrators started to gather in Tiananmen Square located in the city of Beijing. The protesters wanted democratic reforms, such as free speech, free press, and a more modern education system to help prepare them to compete within a free-market economy. China was, and still is, a one-party system. The Communist Party could not tolerate such blatant defiance to their authority.
On June 4th at 1:00 AM in the morning, the Chinese government sent soldiers storming into Tiananmen Square, firing live rounds into the crowd. It is estimated that up to a thousand people were killed during the onslaught and 10,000 were arrested. The attack on peaceful protestors became known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In the months leading up to the violence, student protestors chanted one word over and over during the demonstrations—it was what they immediately demanded of government officials. They believed it would aid them in accomplishing their goals, that word was:
“Dialog.”
Rise of Cancel Culture
In the 80’s, news outlets flooded the air-waves with stories of children being abducted while at a playground or out riding bikes with friends. The news media reported the rise of missing children throughout the country. Everything from newspapers to milk cartons contained images of children who had gone missing. In response, parents began to take away free play from children to protect them from the threat of adult predators.
In the 90’s, parents began to hover over their children. Watching every move they made. Parents began to cater to their child’s every whim, taking egregious measures to shield their children from any and all adversity. This parenting style became known as helicopter parenting.
This child rearing approach has ushered in a new generation of hyper-sensitive, emotionally fragile young adults, who fall apart at the slightest sign of confrontation. Children born after 1995 (Gen-z) seem unable to cope with conflict or anything that will offend their self-righteous sense of morality.
Impact of Technology
Technology plays a pivotal role in the evolution of cancel culture. The Gen-Z generation has for the most part grown up with high-speed technology at their fingertips. Social media has a colossal influence on young adults. It is almost woven into the fabric of their social norms.
A young person’s prestige can be measured by how popular they are on social media. How many followers they have on Instagram, how many likes they get for their posts. This is directly correlated to adolescents and young adults' self-esteem.
There are studies that have linked the rise in adolescence depression and suicide attempts to pressure to be popular on social media platforms. The demand to receive notoriety and internet fame can encompass a young person’s entire existence.
Another impact technology has had on cancel culture is how technology has replaced dialogue between individuals who disagree. Social media has become a conduit for venting one’s displeasure or frustration about a person or organization. Gone are the days of deep intellectual debate. Now, all someone has to do is type something onto a device and click send in the hopes of destroying that person's livelihood without ever having engaged with the person they are accusing.
In Life There Are No Safe Rooms
College campuses throughout the northeast and along the west coast have become breeding grounds for perpetuating and supporting cancel culture ideology. College professors walk on egg-shells for fear of saying some innocent, unintentional comment that a student may be offended by.
Because many children born after 1995 were given trophies simply for participating and not actually accomplishing anything, compounded by the fact that social media has taught them to express their anger through their phone, instead of approaching the professor and simply saying, “excuse me professor, can I speak with you regarding the comment you made earlier,” they choose to hide away from face-to-face communication at all times. Unfortunately, that social skill of engaging in conversation during a disagreement seems to be too much pressure for many young adults.
Adolescents today, along with the Gen-Z generation, are riddled with anxiety. They have been fed a steady diet of antidepressants and Adderall since they were kids. The thought of sitting across from someone with a different opinion and engaging in conflict resolution can send many proponents of cancel culture into a full, unadulterated meltdown. God forbid a person with even a moderately conservative point of view steps onto a college campus in certain parts of the country to express their opinion they will immediately be shouted-down by the hordes of immature cancel culture juveniles.
Unable to stomach someone with a conflicting thought, the cancel culture mob march down the hallways screaming their heads off at the abhorrent injustice of having a contrasting belief. College campuses have always been a safe environment to express thought and freely debate differences. Now, college students need a safe room to flee the brutality of open dialogue and wallow in their own entitlement. Many college professors cannot provide nuance in their class discussion for fear of being called out and potentially losing their jobs.
Cancel Culture; What Makes You So Perfect
Human beings are complex creatures. We make mistakes, we hopefully learn and evolve from those mistakes. No one is infallible. At some point in everyone’s life, we fuck-up, we have bad moments where we act out of character. Should that be held against us for the rest of our lives? Where in the cancel culture play book of indignant arrogance does it mention forgiveness and empathy.
For many in the cancel culture movement, it is not about social justice or human rights, but more about power and control. There is something to be said for the psyche of a person who feverishly goes out of their way to ruin someone elses life. I often wonder if people in the cancel culture clan have the same ability to turn that lens onto themselves.
At what point does society take a stand against these douche-bags? People should have the right to express their views without fear that it may wreck their life. I do not want to live in an America where words are abolished. Where I am obligated to use certain phrases or statements. I don’t want government, organizations, moments or society telling me what I can or cannot read or write.
Power of Free Speak
Shakespeare wrote in his iconic play Macbeth “Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bid it break.” You cannot claim to be for free speech while simultaneously stating that people’s rights need to be protected by censoring words or phrases because it may offend someone’s feelings.
One of the things that makes America a great country is our constitution. Whatever personal faults the founders had, they wrote a brilliant document. The first amendment grants us the right to a free press and freedom of speech. I believe it is a threat to intellectual civility to start banning or censoring speech for fear it may violate some arbitrary, immeasurable standard that no one human-being could possibly live up to.
People should have the right to express their point of view, whether you agree or disagree— as vile and detestable as some opinions are. To live in a truly democratic, free society we have to allow all individuals the right to speak their truth. If a bunch of primitive minded, insecure white guys want to walk down the street at night with tiki-torches chanting “The Jews will not replace us,” that’s their prerogative. Do I like it? Fuck nod. But do I think they should be banned from being allowed to do it—no I don’t.
By censoring free speech you’re in essence attempting to control expression of human thought to coincide with your own beliefs. In regards to cancel culture, if someone’s opinion doesn’t line up with that of the movement, then it is labeled an act of violence and that person should be ostracized from society forever.
Controlling the Narrative
People need to learn how to communicate with each other without throwing a temper tantrum. When individuals living in a society lose the ability to sit across from one another and work out their differences, you end up with a closed system of government. These governments often tend to be authoritarian in nature, where freedom of thought or expression is suppressed.
China has long been criticized by the United Nations and United States for their human rights record. China is currently committing atrocities to the Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic minority population living in China. There is not enough room in this blog, but if you google China and Uyghurs, you will be shocked at what you discover.
North Korean defector, Yeonmi Park wrote in her memoir, In Order to Live, “When you have more words to describe the world, you increase your ability to think complex thoughts.” If our society continues to allow cancel culture to permeate into the pulse of our social norms, we may as a country be headed down a dark road where democracy is just a distant memory.