Cancel culture takes many forms. If we intervene to prevent a dog from being kicked, that is cancellation. If we ban homophobia on television, that is cancellation. In both cases, we are eliminating offensive behaviour and that is why we are engaged in cancel culture.

Yet many people would only see the second instance as cancel culture. This is an example of a notable phenomenon: while cancellation occurs everywhere around us, there are certain situations where we are oblivious to it.

The first such situation is where we are the canceller. Consider our opening examples: the animal activist wishes to save a creature that cannot defend itself. The social activist wishes to prevent vulnerable individuals from self-harm. From their perspective, this is not cancellation. It is protection. Cancellation is a negative idea  yet both activists are seeking to achieve something positive.

Cancellation also implies an intrusion into civil liberty and the loss of something worthwhile.  However, the canceller perceives themselves as eliminating that which has no right to exist. The social activist would say there is no moral right to engage in homophobia. The animal activist would say there is no moral right to abuse. It is these wrongful ideas which are intruders in the civic space; the canceller is simply correcting that situation. And since every canceller uses the same logic, no one admits to complicity in cancel culture.

Every cancellation is motivated by the desire to protect something. Every canceller perceives themselves as righting a wrong. Hence every cancellation is really an act of protection or amelioration.  Eliminating something offensive is not cancellation, it is common sense. This is why cancellation is not perceived by the canceller.

The second situation where we fail to perceive cancel culture is where someone else is the canceller, but we accept their premise. If we agree that something is offensive, there is nothing unusual or objectionable about eliminating it. Intervention to protect a dog is not cancel culture, regardless of who does it. Because the premise is agreeable, we are not conscious that cancellation has occurred.

We are all complicit in some form of cancellation, in the sense of being directly engaged or supportive. Yet when we are complicit, we do not perceive any cancellation. The result is that cancellation is only ever perpetrated by others.

This leads us to another quirk of grammar. To cancel is another irregular verb, with the correct conjugation as follows:

First person: I am making a sensible moral decision

Second person: you are cancelling

Third person: he/ she is cancelling

Cancellation is another behaviour universally performed yet universally denied.

_{Isamu Drayya, October 2022}

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Progressive cancel culture is more conspicuous

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