Cancel Culture and The Word Police

 As we progress into a more social media driven society, the cancel culture movement has rapidly spread across various platforms, with people collectively withdrawing support from figures deemed “harmful” or “intolerable”, shaming the accused until they are never seen on social media again. Although this movement has done a lot of good work – canceling criminals, racists, etc. – some are considering that cancel culture may have gone a bit extreme now, losing its effectiveness as people are straying away from the important issues in this world and focusing on irrelevant topics.

In The Word Police, author Michiko Kakutani argues that the politically correct movement has overstepped its initial goal “to embrace multiculturalism and a new politics of inclusion”. Kakutani claims that P.C specific intolerance for words has created a hole in their desires, altering the course of actions they first planned out. Instead of finding ways to solve the problems of discrimination and exclusion, many people in the P.C movement emphasize their upset on harmless words and phrases. The desire to entirely change the way we speak conflicts with the embracement of multiculturalism that the P.C movement initially set out to achieve. The word police, in Kakutani’s opinion, have become “the monarch of the jungle”, moving further and further from the true intentions of the movement.

Cancel culture is very much a part of the P.C movement, and vice versa. Both seek to create a more equal and ideal world, in where everyone can be embraced, and the “bad” people lose their spotlight. However, like the word police, cancel culture at times haven’t been entirely true to their goal. First off, many people have been cancelled for very minor “crimes”, and their career’s, even their livelihood, is as a result compromised. With this in mind, many people have now become overly cautious of this movement, with people suppressing their personality, content, and opinions to appease the overwhelming crowd watching their every move. People are less of themselves, as a misaligned and distracted cancel culture breeds robots that conform to every “societal law”, ensuring that no one steps out of the boundaries of what they consider to be “right”.

Cancel culture has done tremendous things in society, especially with the whole Ukraine situation, but we all must be more aware of what and who we are canceling, and must remain diligent in our collective goal to create a more accepting and embracing society- one that benefits all.