Last week, The Indiana Daily Student (IDS) published an opinion piece by columnist Noah Moore claiming that ‘cancel culture’ doesn’t exist. The piece came, at least partially, in response to the outrage over the firing of actress Gina Carano from The Mandalorian. Carano was dropped from the project due to a flurry of backlash over her social media accounts, where she was notorious for controversial takes, such as questioning the integrity of the 2020 election, offering a gripping comparison of today’s strained political climate to the early days of Nazi Germany, and mocking the recent societal obsession with pronouns in her Twitter bio. Many conservatives claimed that her firing was due to “cancel culture,” which many on the Left, including Moore, refute. While there are certainly valid counterarguments to Carano’s takes on these issues, Moore’s claims throughout the article, specifically that “there should be no doubt among liberals and conservatives alike that these are fireable offenses,” are, themselves, evidence of cancel culture.
To explore this idea deeper, we must first define what is meant by the term ‘cancel culture.’ Moore defines it as simply “a modern phenomenon where someone is punished for doing or saying something controversial.” However, this does not fully encompasses the way in which it is contemporarily used. In reality, those being ‘cancelled’ are often being punished for not aligning their views with the ever-changing ideals of “woke” culture being espoused by the Left. And, as Moore himself points out, “many people targeted by ‘cancel culture’ are not conservatives at all,” meaning that it’s not just those right of center being silenced, but anyone whose views are not deemed progressive enough by the Left’s notoriously fickle standards. For example, beloved author Dr. Seuss, the most recent victim of “cancel culture,” was deemed to be racist, and hence worthy of being cancelled, despite former President Barack Obama lauding Dr. Seuss in 2015 for instilling traditionally positive values in children.
This is not to say we cannot discuss potentially inappropriate content when necessary, but the attitude that if the ever-changing moral code of woke culture is ever broken, then the supposed offender must be punished, is inherently harmful and promotes a purely subjective morality disguising itself as objective morality. Indeed, by deeming Carano’s offenses undeniably “fireable” without any serious discussion or justification, Moore is using his own subjective moral standards to make an argument about what is objectively moral.
A particularly inflammatory and tone-deaf take by Moore comes later in the article, when he claims that “when your views about society are regressive, it’s far easier to pretend you’re being persecuted than to introspect. Were your views founded on ideas that fragile? Have you really not updated your worldview in decades?” This sentiment completely misses the point of conservatives’ argument and certainly does not debunk cancel culture, in fact, it essentially promotes it. This claim implies that if your world view is deemed “regressive” by the ever-changing moral standards of woke culture, then it is inherently flawed and you must “introspect.” Moore’s argument essentially deems any views other than those currently being peddled by the left as irredeemable and seeks to silence them.
Unfortunately, this IDS column, in an effort to convince the student body that cancel culture does not exist, has only made its troubling existence all too apparent. By endorsing the idea that individuals like Gina Carano and Dr. Seuss deserve to be fired for espousing views that are not in line with those currently being promoted by the woke left, Moore is advocating for cancel culture. It is so incredibly disturbing that someone feels it’s necessary and beneficial to punish and silence someone for “doing or saying something controversial.” By denigrating all views other than his own as “regressive” and in need of fixing, Moore has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that cancel culture is all too real.
This is well written and argued. Cancel culture is nothing more than an often successful attempt to silence people with views that the progressives find offensive. You can easily see this in Moore’s comment “when your views are regressive…”. What does “regressive” mean and why is it in need of “introspection”? What makes “regressive” views wrong? There are no shortage of scientific findings that progressives will find “regressive” but this finding is completely irrelevant to the truth and is certainly not in need of “introspection”. Carano’s views of society and politics may be accurate or not but “introspection” will tell us nothing. Her views should be put to facts and logic. This however, strikes fear into progressives because most of their views would be destroyed.
If Noah Moore even reads this very logical rebuttal, I doubt he’ll be capable of seeing the hypocrisy contained in his extremely flawed argument.