Has "Cancel Culture" Gone Too Far?

Here we are again, in the midst of another "cancel culture" controversy. I think whatever lesson there is to learn from these incidents, we're clearly not learning it, because we appear doomed to repeat this tiresome discourse ad infinitum. So, with the naive hope of breaking this cycle and putting the issue to rest, I write this article in search of that elusive lesson. What is to be done about "cancel culture"? Has it "gone too far"? And does it even exist?

I usually let these supposed "controversies" go without comment because the hand-wringing over "cancel culture" is typically fleeting. A sports team or a product will change its mascot, or an actor or director will be fired for obtuse remarks or old tweets, or a school district will remove a beloved, but problematic book from its curriculum, and we immediately hear that familiar refrain that "cancel culture has gone too far." No one seems to know what to do about it, though, and the subject is soon forgotten—until the next flare-up.

The latest "controversy" is something of a perfect storm of several supposed controversies in one. On February 25th, it was reported that Mr. Potato Head will now be known by the gender-neutral name "Potato Head." Five days later, on March 2nd, it was announced that a number of Dr. Seuss books have been removed from print because of offensive racial caricatures. Five days after that, on March 7th, Pepe Le Pew, the aggressively amorous cartoon skunk, was felled by the mob, as it was revealed he would not appear in the film Space Jam 2.

Et tu, Pepe?

All of this occurred amid lingering outrage over the firing of actress Gina Carano from Disney's The Mandalorian on February 10th. Carano, no stranger to social media controversy—having appeared to sympathize with the Capitol riot early this year—posted on Instagram an ungainly comparison of herself, as a conservative in America, to Jews being accosted by their neighbors in Nazi Germany. Her post implied that the history of the Holocaust has been "edited."

"... taken on their individual merits, most of these supposed 'cancellations' are wholly justified."

Should Carano have been fired? Her post was inarguably in poor taste, and it wasn't the first—nor, likely, the last—of her problematic statements. Carano was already on thin ice for having "liked" tweets that were sympathetic to the Capitol riot, mocked trans people and Black Lives Matter activists, made anti-mask and anti-vaccine allusions, and appearing to question the results of the 2020 election. In the proper context, it's easy to see from Disney's perspective that Carano and her affronts to basic decency were radioactive to their brand, and that parting ways with her was probably a sensible business decision.

Her defenders, however, ignore this context and focus only on her Instagram post, pointing out that Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal had previously compared ICE detention camps to the Holocaust on Twitter, without apparent outrage. Taken in isolation, Disney's response to Carano's Instagram post does seem excessive. "Her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable," read a hyperbolic statement from LucasFilm, a Disney subsidiary. It's difficult to see how this describes Carano's remarks at all.

But the reality is that Disney gave Gina Carano many chances, yet she continued to knowingly espouse views that reflected poorly on her employer. Her Instagram post may indeed have been a pretense to fire her, but her firing was not undeserved. That she has since announced a new project with Ben Shapiro's ignominious Daily Caller appears only to vindicate Disney's decision.

This is the flaw of the "cancel culture" narrative. Cumulatively, these events create the impression of fearful acquiescence to a baying mob, but taken on their individual merits, most of these supposed "cancellations" are wholly justified. In particular, the "cancellations" of Mr. Potato Head, Dr. Seuss, and Monsieur Le Pew are the inevitable result of social progress—which is a good thing; it's a good thing that a children's toy is more gender inclusive; it's a good thing that we cringe at black and Asian caricatures from seventy years ago; it's a good thing that we're cognizant of rape culture. It's not a coincidence that the loudest voices decrying "cancel culture" are reactionaries like Ben Shapiro who oppose social progress.

Which isn't to say that "cancel culture" is harmless, however.

RELATED: "When 'Cancel Culture' Was Right-Wing"

In early 2010, before she became notorious, Shirley Sherrod was a director of rural development for the Department of Agriculture. A black woman, Sherrod delivered a video-taped speech in which she relayed an anecdote about a poor, white farmer who sought her help to save his farm. She said that she found it hard to sympathize with the man at a time when so many black landowners were losing everything. "I didn't give him the full force of what I could do," she said. But she learned from her experience that it wasn't an issue of race, but of "haves and have nots," and she worked with the man to save his farm. They later became friends.

The villainous Andrew Breitbart selectively-edited the video of Sherrod's remarks, making it appear as though she had refused to help the white farmer. Posted to Breitbart News, the misleading clip became a scandal for the Obama administration. Sherrod was widely condemned—by the NAACP, among others—as racist and fired from her job. Only later did the full context emerge, the NAACP apologized to Sherrod, and she was offered her job back.

The firing of Shirley Sherrod is a cautionary tale about "cancel culture." The "cancellation" of a cartoon skunk may be of little consequence to anyone, but for individuals, "cancellation" can be devastating. It can destroy careers and reputations, especially now in the age of social media, in which bloodthirsty mobs can demand that heads roll for the slightest of perceived offenses. And although today "cancel culture" is commonly seen as a left-wing phenomenon, it hasn't always been and it won't always be.

Indeed, there has often been a ghastly equilibrium to "cancel culture." Roseanne Barr's "cancellation" for racist remarks was soon followed by the "cancellation" of director James Gunn for old, problematic tweets. Disney offered Gunn as red meat to placate the political right, lest Disney be accused of left-wing bias. And Reddit's banning of the festering right-wing hellscape r/The_Donald was accompanied by a ban of the left-wing r/ChapoTrapHouse. Gunn and r/ChapoTrapHouse were nothing more than sacrificial offerings to the angry, right-wing mob. It was very much "an eye for an eye."

It's worth keeping these events in perspective, though. As I write this, H&M, the women's clothing brand, is facing a fierce, far-reaching backlash in China over a statement it made "expressing concern" about forced labor in China's cotton-producing Xinjiang region, where a million Uighur Muslims are believed to be held in labor camps. To say that H&M has been "cancelled" would be an understatement—the company has disappeared from the internet in China. "In just 24 hours H&M has been all but erased from China's digital world," writes the BBC's Robin Brant.

"You can't buy its tops and dresses on the biggest online retail platforms, you can't get a taxi to take you to one of its shops on the biggest ride hailing app."

"While not every instance of "cancel culture" is bad, there's no question that it has gone too far in the recent past."

The backlash has grown to include Nike, which is now facing calls for a boycott in China for daring to express similar concerns about forced labor in Xinjiang. In an ugly scene reminiscent of the backlash to Nike's association with Colin Kaepernick, users of the Chinese social media site Weibo have been seen burning Nike shoes. And several Chinese celebrities, including the actor Wang Yibo, have announced they are cutting ties with Nike. Keep these events in mind the next time someone says that "cancel culture has gone too far" in the U.S.

Has "cancel culture" "gone too far"? While not every instance is bad, there's no question that "cancel culture" has gone too far in the recent past, and China has shown us just how bad it can get. Recent history will undoubtedly repeat itself, and we'll find ourselves in yet another "controversy" over a brand mascot or a sports team's name. So, what's the lesson that we aren't learning?

It's been 180 years since the Scottish journalist Charles Mackay published Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, an early study of crowd psychology. "Men," writes Mackay, "think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one." If anything has changed about human nature since 1841, it has only changed for the worse, as social media facilitates the "madness of crowds" as never before.

Perhaps nowhere was this more evident than in the town of Acatlán, Mexico, in 2018, where, in an episode that would not be out of place in Mackay's Madness of Crowds, Ricardo Flores and his uncle, Alberto—two innocent men—were beaten and burned to death by an incensed mob who mistakenly believed them to be child abductors—all because of an unfounded rumor on Whatsapp that had "gone viral" in the town.

"It was like a great spell had overtaken the people," said one witness, "They were yelling, 'Kill them! Kill them!'"

Of course, I'm not suggesting an equivalence between being burned alive by an angry mob and, say, the "cancellation" of Uncle Ben or Aunt Jemima. But this ghastly event for which Acatlán will forever be known highlights the disturbing ways in which social media can marshal our basest impulses. Those same impulses that killed Ricardo and Alberto Flores are present in all of us, and we must be cognizant of the danger of mob mentality—to greater or lesser degrees—on social media, whether it be on Whatsapp, Twitter, or Weibo.

Mackay's Madness of Crowds is not a prescriptive work, however; it leaves us to search ourselves for the lesson to be learned. That lesson, I think, is this: no one is blameless. Yes, those who bay for scalps on social media must restrain their base impulses. But those who shake their heads at the "cancellation" of Mr. Potato Head, Dr. Seuss, or Pepe Le Pew and lament that "cancel culture has gone too far" also have a responsibility to ask themselves whether those "cancellations" may be justified on the merits. And all of us must exercise some empathy for others and give each other the benefit of the doubt where possible. We should always treat one another with patience, humor, and charity.

But is this a lesson that we're likely to learn? Mackay thought not, as he opened Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds with the following poem from Boileau: