Cancel culture is not a modern invention. Throughout human history, there has always been someone offended and someone cancelled. The reasons for cancellation are variable and often trivial in hindsight. In the 1960s, the use of the word “knickers” by The Beatles put the BBC in a twist. Across the Atlantic, the hazy ambiguity of the word “high” saw The Doors banished from television. Moral offence takes many forms, some justified and others less so.
The rise of the progressive cause has seen sins such as bigotry and discrimination added to the canon of offensiveness. As these new sins have emerged, older ones have faded. It is no longer acceptable to make jocular comments about race or nationality but we have become more permissive in other areas: underwear and altitude no longer trouble the censor. So the appearance of new forms of offensiveness does not necessarily mean an expansion of cancel culture: the canon may evolve without growth. As one cause displaces another, the sensibilities of the predecessor diminish.
But the present evolution of cancel culture represents more than a changing of the moral guard. Something more substantial has occurred and the very scope and ambition of cancel culture has changed. To understand how, let us consider the origins of cancel culture.
At its heart, cancellation is motivated by the need to protect vulnerability. The canceller perceives the vulnerable person is endangered and the source of danger must be cancelled: for example, the BBC anxiety over knickers was motivated by a desire to protect the chaste viewer from immorality. This mission to protect vulnerability is shared by the modern canceller, albeit from a rather different moral perspective. The modern canceller is anxious to protect women from further marginalisation; to protect young people with fragile self-esteem and so on. There is no cancellation without the perception of vulnerability.
But our perception of vulnerability is imprecise. Humanity has no objective radar: we feel great empathy for certain kinds of vulnerability and ignore others altogether. A local misadventure will cause an outcry while a tragedy abroad may barely attract comment. As a rule, we are more likely to empathise with the person who is similar to ourselves. We are more likely to empathise with the vulnerability we can understand. Hence a vulnerability must be both proximate and familiar to attract our attention.
It is intuitive that we are more disturbed by the misfortune of a close acquaintance than a stranger. However, an equally important threshold is that a person must be vulnerable in a recognised way. For example, the frail pensioner belongs to an easily recognised class of vulnerability and therefore attracts universal empathy. By contrast, the transgender person does not belong to a familiar class of vulnerability because the community understanding of dysphoria is deficient. This person may be proximate, but their vulnerability is not familiar and they do not attract universal empathy for that reason.
Proximity and familiarity are prerequisites for empathy. If these conditions are not met, we either deny the existence of vulnerability or treat it as a distant vulnerability: we accept it intellectually, but are unmoved emotionally. Our indifference to the famine abroad; our amusement at the person with an unusual medical complaint; our scepticism when the marginalised person calls for justice: these are examples of the tyranny of emotional distance.
Recent years have closed the gap.The modern individual is steeped in the values of pluralism. They are taught that the unfamiliar experience is as important as their own. Digital connectivity means they can observe this experience for themselves. In short, ignorance is no longer an excuse: we have reached a point where every vulnerability can be seen as proximate and familiar. Hence the idea of distant vulnerability is obsolete: indeed, the very idea of distance is obsolete.
Cancel culture has always been inspired by vulnerability. But now, the definition of vulnerability has changed. As we become less emotionally distant from our peers, we have a greater perception of fragility. Cancel culture has a wider brief because there are more people to protect.
Protection has always meant shielding the vulnerable from inappropriate speech. But digital connectivity has made this process more difficult: irresponsible speech now travels further. Every careless comment is capable of reaching sensitive ears. Every thoughtless remark has the power to perpetuate vulnerability anywhere in the world. So the canceller perceives a greater need for the regulation of dangerous speech.
Digital connectivity has also made it easier for the canceller to propagate their message. A movement is more easily mobilised. The offending person is more easily reached. Media coverage of the ensuing conflict is more widely disseminated. And because humanity cannot bear criticism, the offending person is more readily cowed.
Cancel culture has always leveraged popular opinion to protect perceived vulnerability. This is not new. But what is new is the broadening of our understanding of vulnerability and an unprecedented capacity to respond to any threat. There has been a proliferation in the reasons for cancellation and the means by which this can occur.
So despite the long and storied history of cancel culture, we are now entering uncharted territory. Cancel culture has never been more ambitious and more effective.
Isamu Drayya, November 2022
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isamu drayya 