CANCEL CULTURE IS A VEHICLE FOR SELF-CENSORSHIP

The left (in particular) constructed the apparatus of cancel culture by combining moral blackmail, weaponised empathy, reputational destruction, and emotional manipulation. Nothing about this speaks of constructive change in society; rather, this culture is a vehicle for self-censorship, in that it fosters a society where people are supposed to be afraid of being different, politically incorrect, or even wrong. Instead of encouraging learning and growth, it pressures people to walk on eggshells, self-censor, and avoid tough conversations.

And a big part of the problem is the media. On social media, outrage gets clicks, and so instead of providing context or allowing room for change, social media platforms reduce everything to a black-and-white issue. And where a person is considered to be in error (which is often done by a select group of people who assume a monopoly on truth and moral correctness – typically because their political inclinations are popular at the time), well, that person that is deemed to be in the wrong is then subject to ostracism. There is no consideration for growth, and no willingness to forgive. Meanwhile, the wrath of the cancellation mob is also inconsistent—some people get canceled instantly, while others get a free pass depending on public opinion and standing.

Of course, the irony is that this actually hurts accountability, through the encouragement of self-censorship. When people know a single mistake could ruin them forever, they’re less likely to admit when they’re wrong or have real discussions. Instead of a culture that encourages constructive and constant learning, cancel culture punishes and silences. In the end, all we get is a society that’s too scared to speak freely, a media that thrives on outrage, and a world where acting in error is supposed to justify people devising plans to end your livelihood.

Ultimately, “Cancel Culture” is a means of social engineering society to normalise the removal of your right to a fair trial, to normalise anti-free speech legislation, censorship, and the erasure of your perspective. It is thus inherently wrong, regardless of who wields it. And it must be rejected from the left, the right, and from the media.

CANCEL CULTURE DOES NOT MAKE A CONSTRUCTIVE CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIETY

When we observe the loving character of God, and the forgiveness that He has made readily available for us to receive and not even ask for; we inherently understand how essential forgiveness and gracious nature are, when concerned with demonstrating the virtues, excellencies and perfections of the Father. Furthermore, in observing this forgiving and gracious nature of the Father, we can also appreciate that a contrary nature is of the devil. This is a fundamental truth to ingest when discussing cancel culture because it is a culture that is void of virtues such as forgiveness and grace. This culture is built on reducing the nature and character of people to something wrong that they might have done (and oftentimes the definition of what is wrong is highly politicised and subjective to those making the cancellation).

This teaching is incredibly important because it reveals that an incapacity or unwillingness to forgive is a satanic nature. Subsequently, this teaching, therefore, exposes the diabolical origins of cancel culture, which is a culture based on holding people’s alleged errors against them; and essentially making it appear unforgivable to have ever made a mistake.

However, in addition to its satanic origins, culture is also dangerous as it perpetuates a war on free speech. The reason is that part of what happens when a person’s speech is being problematised or a person is being cancelled for their speech, in order to regain social acceptance or political capital in the society, that person has to renounce their convictions, and adopt those that are imposed by the people who cancelled them. In fact, you would have seen people make apology statements or videos (that weirdly always sound the same). But, firstly, the people problematising the speech of others (also known as the woke mob) are not a metric for ethics! They tend to have a propensity towards leftist ideals, and thus celebrate destructive ideals and pursuits, like child mutilation or biological men in women’s sports. Which is why they have never cancelled, say, Lia Thomans for being a biological male competing against women. While Riley Gaines, who is a biological woman who speaks out against having competed against people like Lia Thomas is regarded as a transphobic bigot, who must be cancelled.

Secondly, even in instances where the speech that is being cancelled is wrong, for instances where people make racist or derogatory remarks), cancel culture – given its satanic origins – is not a genuine vehicle for meaningful societal change. This is to say that when people are coerced to renounce certain statements or convictions in order to appease the public, this is often only done to pacify the mob, and not as a result of genuine introspection and a sincere change in how a person thinks. And so, all that cancel culture does is create people who construct pretentious presentations for society. This is why, a lot of times, liberals cannot provide a constructive argument for their alleged convictions, outside generic liberal rhetoric or even ad hominems.

I say all this to say that cancel culture does not play a constructive role in society. It is hinged on reducing people to the wrong conduct they might have done, it lacks forgiveness, and it perpetuates a war on free speech, while failing to provide a vehicle for genuine and constructive social change.

This portion of our discussion also highlights why the X platform is critical; many people are not interested in apologising for their convictions – and this has for the most part been people with Christian and conservative worldviews. And so, on X we’ve had a platform that allows us to speak freely without being subject to censorship of the wrath of the cancel culture mob. And this very nature of X is intrinsic to the vision Musk had for it.

LEST WE FORGET: THE LEFT’S WEAPONISATION OF CANCEL CULTURE

When you hear the phrase “cancel culture,” what immediately comes to mind are multiple examples of people being ridiculed and ostracised, as a part of one of the intolerant products of “Wokeness.” We generally associate cancel culture with being a weapon of the left that has been used to assert its temporary dominance in the academy, the media, and pop culture, society and political discourse at large.

There’s no question that left-wing intolerance is a reality. There’s no question that progressive shame campaigns have been used to destroy reputations and careers. This is the very legacy of cancel culture which is that it was weaponised by the left against those who disagreed with them. In fact, Christains, conservatives and Republicans know this too well. And thankfully, this is being pushed back on in the second Trump administration.

WHY CONSERVATIVES ARE BEING ACCUSED OF ADOPTING CANCEL OR “CAPITULATION” CULTURE

Well, while we typically know cancel culture as a by-product of wokeness, and the left’s weaponisation of it, it is something that some conservatives are dabbling in, while the left correctly points this out. In fact, they are calling it “capitulation culture” — which is said to be the parade of companies, financiers, billionaires and politicians who once opposed Trump but now align with him. It is a ridiculous definition, but it has some ground.

For instance, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, pledged $1 million to the Trump campaign in 2024. Prior to that, Zuckerberg had banned Trump from Facebook after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Trump had claimed that Zuckerberg interfered with the election and threatened to throw him in prison. But since the election, Zuckerberg has dined with Trump and announced that Facebook will stop fact-checking user posts. Instead, he’ll allow users to add their own responses to questionable posts.

But, some on the right saw these developments with Zuckerberg and curiously responded that he does not deserve a forgiving Trump response, and should be subject to the same measures that he instituted on society, which is essentially censorship and ostracism. It was the same thing with a comedian who ridiculed CNN’s biased news coverage in January this year. While people on the right were celebrating her willingness to not only tell those typically cancellable jokes, but also make appropriate social commentary, some on the right quickly pulled up the fact that she used to be pro-vaccines and did not even allow people to attend her shows without being vaccinated.

Now, in both these cases, there should be room to concede that there was wrongful conduct from these actors in the past; there may even be a degree of suspicion on what motivated the change in these individuals. But, what the right should not do is assume a monopoly and gate keeping privilege to the truth and patriotic values, such as embracing a response for free speech. For the past decade, the political Right has lamented “cancel culture.” The idea was that the Left unfairly stoked race and gender hysteria to restrict the terms of debate and to cast anyone deemed in violation of the mandated terms into a state of social annihilation. Teenagers who sang along with rap songs have been denied entry into college. Political figures who failed to use the latest euphemisms found themselves cast into the void.

Now, with the second Trump administration, the rules of social annihilation are seemingly being rewritten in real time. The presidential appointments of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pete Hegseth might have been derailed, or not even attempted, in Trump’s first presidency. Yet, despite the salacious accusations against the two nominees, Senate Republicans held firm and confirmed both men.

Likewise, when left-wing journalists exposed a young DOGE staffer, Marko Elez, for pseudonymous social media posts, including “I was racist before it was cool” and “normalize Indian hate,” Elez resigned in what amounted to preemptive self-cancellation. Elez might have been ironically riding the “edge” of the discourse, violating a taboo for a sense of thrill, but when his identity was revealed, he expected the old penalty. Then something different happened: Elez’s colleagues rallied to his support, with Vice President J. D. Vance arguing that “stupid social media activities should not ruin a kid’s life.” What would have ended with a social death sentence five years ago instead became a short blip. In what was an objectively inspiring display of political and moral leadership, the US vice president rejected the calculus of left-wing cancel culture, demonstrating instead that forgiveness, loyalty, and a sense of proportion should be part of the decision-making process in such controversies. And so, Elez was reinstated.

THE RIGHT CANNOT AFFORD TO BECOME LIKE THE LEFT THAT IT SO STRONGLY OPPOSED

Furthermore, when the left had power over the culture, it had a ready-made answer to the questions of values and power. It proposed intersectionality, critical race theory, and gender cultism as an operating ideology and guide for policing the discourse. If you violated the tenets of those theories in a work chat or a social media post, you placed yourself at risk of social consequences. The New York Times, The Atlantic, or Gawker could ruin a career or delete an individual from polite society by exposing an ideological faux pas. Even ostensibly right-wing institutions often buckled to their demands.

Now that the Right finds itself ascendant, it has the opportunity to provide a better answer to these questions – through fostering and even imposing a forgiving and cooperative culture. Culture is often a way for society to establish a particular hierarchy of values and to provide a way to police the boundaries. And so, the right has an opportunity (especially in the second Trump administration, and the wave of popular right wing parties in Europe) to propose a new set of values that expands the range of acceptable discourse rightward and provides a method for adjudicating the limits. And by adjudicating or policing the limits, this does not require us to invent the wheel, we need simply go back to the fact that free speech is an absolute and inalienable right, and not ostracised people for disagreeing with us, or even spewing hateful remarks about us – all while publishing the truth.

This is literally all it takes to protect our values. From the perspective of practical politics, this will determine how the Right can protect its own members from unjust cancellation attempts and how it can enforce just consequences on political opponents who violate the new terms. Meaning that even in instances where political opponents are vicious liers, who spew deceptive remarks, we would not resort to the left’s tactic of cancelling culture to defend our values and protect those who labour earnestly with us.

Written By Lindokuhle Mabaso