How should we understand ‘cancel culture’?

The gender-critical philosopher Kathleen Stock’s address to the Oxford Union this week has divided academics at the university. One group has signed a letter expressing concern that student opposition to her invite goes against free speech. A second group has written an open letter supporting the students and stating that revoking an invite is not the same as preventing someone from speaking.

This case is seen by many as an example of so-called ‘cancel culture’. ‘Cancel culture’ has become such a common term that it is not always easy to understand what precisely it means and what its implications are for society. Media organisations have always made judgements about who should and should not receive a platform. What some view as censorship, others see as curating their own experience of who and what they interact with.

Cancel culture on the left is often characterised as a form of secular puritanism denouncing the ‘sins’ of the age, while, as perceived on the right, it can have an overtly religious justification in the defence of so-called traditional liberal values. Those who view cancel culture as a threat to Western liberal democracy point to dramatic historic parallels: witch hunts, inquisitions, book banning. Others reflect that ostracization and social shunning have always existed as a form of accountability for an individual’s actions. Is there a difference between a person being accountable for their behaviour and being accountable for their ideas? If not, who decides what are ‘unacceptable’ ideas? Should we understand cancel culture as a deterioration of the public sphere, symptomatic of a growing illiberalism, or does it reflect the convulsions of a free society which is morally evolving into something better?