Cancel Culture is a beast that mainstream media doesn’t care to define. Sure, they’re knocking conservative celebrities, talk show hosts, and businesses out of the arena like it’s going out of style, but when I first heard the question, “What is cancel culture?”, I had to stop and think… what exactly is cancel culture?
The Definition of Cancel Culture
Cancel culture is a tool of the Left. It serves to “call out” businesses and public figures when they step out of line. When the media broadcasts this call-to-action, it often results in a boycott of a certain product, a show, or a misbehaving corporation.
On the surface, this could be good. Boycotting is an effective way to sway a corporation or person.
But the question is this: who defines what is wrong? Who says that something is “bad enough” to warrant cancellation?
This is where we get into trouble because cancel culture is directly tied to Social Justice and wokeism.
James Lindsay, writing on his blog, New Discourses, says, “One would be immediately forgiven for identifying it [cancel culture] with what it is: a modern, social-media-driven instantiation of Maoist-style struggle sessions in which problematic individuals are subjected to mass public shame, forced to apologize, and then shamed further.”
Charlie Kirk says cancel culture “is the changing of the rules just to accommodate a goal of having power. [… It] is removing someone from a position of authority [,…] trust [,… and] responsibility under the disguise that, ‘I am a better person than you’ and ruin[s] your life.”
Steven Crowder says cancel culture does more than monitor “just offensive jokes [… or] opinions that are not allowed to be expressed in media or in any of the big tech platforms today.”
No,… cancel culture goes the extra mile. It is “the totality of said ever-changing rules, seemingly without rhyme or reason, designed to change at a moment’s notice in order to box in our speech, and separate us from each other.”
Cancel Culture Divides People and Breaks Down Cultural Ties
In his book Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky writes, “One of the factors that changes what you can and can’t communicate is relationships.” He makes the case that you can reach people if you have a personal relationship with “common involvements”.
Cancel culture seeks to tear down those “common involvements” that Alinsky says are so vital to creating personal relationships.
Think about it.
Every American knows who Dr. Seuss or Peter Pan or Dumbo is. If you mention Peter Pan, for example, or Captain Hook, you’ll immediately see people’s eyes light up in recognition, and chances are they’ll say, “Oh yeah! I haven’t seen Peter Pan in ages!”
It’s a common connection in our culture. You strike up a conversation and have a good ole’ American connection. A common experience.
Cancel culture swoops in and teaches children that cartoons and classic Disney movies (like The Swiss Family Robinson) that their parents watched were evil. This is just one more step in turning children’s hearts away from their parents and dividing a culture.
The Brutal Cycle of Cancel Culture
Cancel culture creates a brutal cycle because those who are “woke” and try to avoid the effects of cancel culture are severely susceptible to being cancelled.
You might say, “Hey, wait a second! If a celebrity is super woke, wouldn’t cancel culture leave them alone?”
That seems reasonable, but just the opposite is true. Cancel culture devours its most ardent worshippers and never ceases to be hungry.
Examples of Cancel Culture
Let’s check out a few examples of cancel culture and see how they reflect Maoist, Leninist, and Marxist ideals.
1. Solly Baby
In an interview with the Epoch Times, Morgan Zegers (Turning Point USA (TPUSA) Contributor and founder of YAAS) makes the case that Generation Z is leading the charge with cancel culture.
Zegers says, “We have gone beyond reprimand for saying something controversial – if cancel culture comes after you, you will be banned, mobbed, and removed from society.”
Zegers makes the case that cancel culture is Leninist and Maoist because these dictators pitted children against parents. “Cancel culture has extended out of politics into the family where children will report their parents for being racist.”
Zegers borrows the example of Solly Wraps, a company that makes baby slings for mothers to carry their babies. One wrap, according to cancel culture, stole the wrap style from black mothers during the slave period, and they claimed Solly Baby was profiting from oppression (Not the Bee).
Solly Baby promptly apologized (three times, including an apology for an apology that was viewed as oppressive) and discontinued the wrap.
Is This Maoist?
Chinese who survived the Cultural Revolution have confirmed that cancel culture mimics Maoist tactics of public embarrassment, shaming, and pressure of ideologies that flew in the face of the CCP.
Zegers points out that all totalitarian regimes started with promises of hope, change, representation of the middle class, and economic improvement.
Watch her whole interview here!
2. Education System & School Kids
Now for the second example of cancel culture.
FNC’s Maria Bartiromo hosted Daily Wire show host, Candace Owens, and Turning Point USA founder, Charlie Kirk, where the trio discussed how cancel culture is changing the education system.
Even school kids are being attacked by cancel culture, and Charlie Kirk gave the recent example of a young high school student who tried to start a TPUSA chapter at her school and gained national news attention when she was publicly slandered, accused of being a racist, and investigated by the FBI. Her reputation and academics were nearly ruined until the FBI declared her innocent.
But where are the parents? Shouldn’t they be standing for their kids?
Perhaps this young lady’s parents were involved in her case, but parents all over the nation should be taking a stand. Thankfully, parents are beginning to rise up against critical race theory and woke curricula in their schools.
RELATED: Parents Take Courage and Stand Up To Critical Race Theory in Schools
Cancel culture successfully censors truth (take Biden’s laptop for example or BLM founder Patrisse Khan-Cullor’s multi-million-dollar homes in majority white neighborhoods). It censors and blocks conservatives at every turn. Candace Owens calls it “systemic bullying”, and it is a tool of the Left.
Is This Marxist, Maoist, and Leninist?
The million-dollar question (worth as much as Patrisse Khan-Cullor’s homes) is whether cancel culture reaching out and ruining young students’ lives is a Maoist, Marxist tactic.
Take it from the father of a young, Brearly student. Andrew Gutmann was furious when he found out his daughter was being taught Critical Race Theory at her school. He wrote to Brearly saying, “If the administration was genuinely serious about ‘diversity’, it would not insist on the indoctrination of its students and their families to a single mindset, most reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution” (emphasis added).
His daughter was a seventh-grader, much too young to be fed a philosophy that is so twisted a child could not pick it apart easily to decipher whether it is true or not.
Charlie Kirk makes the case that the Left has twisted the original definition of diversity to mean people can look different, but they all think the same, leaving “no ideological […] or philosophical diversity.”
3. Goya
And now for the final example of cancel culture.
Do you remember when Alexandria Ocasio Cortez led the cancel culture charge in 2020 and tried to cancel Goya after the company president openly praised President Trump?
Yeah… that didn’t go so well.
During July 2020 alone, Goya received $47 million in negative media coverage and backlash over Trump’s support of the company. However, that didn’t stop conservatives from rushing en masse to support the company, and Goya’s food sales skyrocketed to a 1,000% increase. The company even named AOC employee of the month, in honor of their insane revenue increase.
In this case, cancel culture backfired.
Conclusion
Cancel culture is a very serious problem in America. I was asked recently whether it would actually work to destroy a country through cancel culture.
Cancel culture could not singlehandedly destroy a country, but it can certainly work in tangent with other Marxist tactics to divide a country, break down common cultural ties, and turn kids against their parents as they hate the very culture that their parents love and grew up with.
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