5 Ways to Conquer the Cancel Culture
As expected, the cancel culture is already out of control, now devouring itself. One day it’s the statue of Teddy Roosevelt. The next day it’s the smash musical Hamilton. One day it’s J. K. Rowling. The next it’s a Vox editor who stood with Rowling. How do we overcome this dangerous and self-destructive culture? Here are five simple steps.
1. Speak louder. The concept is simple. The more people try to silence you, the louder you speak. The more they try to shut you up, the louder you shout. The more doors they shut in your face, the more you open. You use the attempts to silence you as the platform on which you stand.
But you don’t do this as a victim. You do it as someone who is unfettered, who will not be muzzled, who is emboldened by the opposition. Feed on the attacks that come against you just as a fire feeds on wood.
The cancel culture will help you get your message out.
2. Learn
We need to expose this reality, demonstrating how the cancel culture will ultimately cancel itself out. It must, since it will never be sufficiently woke.
To illustrate this point, on June 21, I tweeted, “In the spirit of pulling down historic statues and removing ‘racist’ brand names, should there be a move to cancel the Democratic Party, since the Democrats were the party of slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow?”
I even wrote an article as to why Charles Darwin should be cancelled because of his racist theories.
Where does it end? Who will be left standing?
There is now a movement within Planned Parenthood to renounce its white supremacy, which should soon lead right back to its founder Margaret Sanger. But of course. (For the record, I would be thrilled to see Planned Parenthood cancelled and Sanger denounced. But I trust you get my larger point.)
When the cancelers realize they might be next on the list, they might just think twice. Better still, they will recognize the folly of the cancel culture.
4.
We cannot defeat the cancel culture by becoming like it. We must become the opposite of it.
We must be so secure in our views that we welcome dissenting opinions and that we do not marginalize those who differ with us.
We can speak our minds clearly and forcefully. We can vote for policies we believe are in the best interest of our country. We can be dogmatic in our convictions and values.
But we cannot silence or cancel out those who differ with us. In the words attributed to Voltaire, “I wholly disapprove of what you say—and will defend to the death your right to say it.”
We’re not talking about someone’s “right” to break the law with his or her speech, since not everything is protected by the First Amendment. And you have every right to forbid certain speech or opinions from your own platform. (For example, if you run a vegan recipe website, you have the right to remove comments that offer beef recipes or that mock vegans.)
But when it comes to the public square, be it the university classroom, the workplace or Facebook, if the law is not being broken, let freedom reign.
This is how we overcome the cancel culture. By gaining strength from it. By becoming oblivious to it. By exposing it. By being merciful. And by being better than it.