How Did the Cancel Culture Become Dominant So Quickly?

John C. Goodman  Apr 03, 2021

 

By cancel culture, I mean the idea that people have rights and responsibilities and obligations and entitlements based on their skin color or their ethnic origin. A person’s identity is defined by the group they belong to. There are no individual rights. There are only group rights. 

The cancel culture rejects the political view encapsulated in the Declaration of Independence. In particular, it rejects the idea that people have a right to pursue their own happiness. It also rejects the idea of basic rights guaranteed in the Constitution, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly. 

Offensive speech can be seen as a “micro aggression” – and thus a form of force. There are no limits to what constitutes such aggression. For example, if you say you voted for Donald Trump, or you like capitalism, or you think free markets have lifted people out of poverty all over the world, you might be accused of offensive speech.

The cancel culture believes in persecuting people who have offensive ideas – by getting them fired, by silencing their writings and their speech, by silencing their access to the Internet and through social ostracism. ................How did these ideas become so dominant, so quickly?................The answer: the world of ideas abhors a vacuum. What we might call “20th century liberalism” has been intellectually dead since the end of the Vietnam War. What we might call “20th century conservatism” has been dead for at least two decades. The cancel culture swept in and occupied the space that was otherwise abandoned.  ..........To Read More....