A quick thought out loud for discussion:
“Cancel Culture” is a label and a device created and increasingly weaponized by elites (see the NYT’s Editorial Board1) designed to CANCEL THE LEGITIMACY of efforts of historically oppressed people, especially people of color and women, to expand the struggle to identify and remedy culturally, linguistically, and otherwise embedded inequities that continue to oppress them.
Exploring democratic values — what it means to have equality, opportunity, freedom, etc. — takes new forms in every generation. One might think, in a healthy democracy, that such explorations would be embraced as a sign — indeed as a prerequisite — of a healthy democratic polity. Yet, in every instance of such early explorations in America, elites push back, protecting their privilege.
The whole concept of “cancel culture” is basically a counter-offensive by elites who have been made uncomfortable by those challenging key aspects of the privileged status-quo.
The “Cancel Culture” meme, camouflaged as defining and defending free speech and normative moral values, is ultimately the very essence of cancel culture itself.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/cancel-culture-free-speech-poll.html