For years, the political Right has been very critical of the modern cancel culture that has made victims of so many normal and well-meaning people. It is undeniable that cancel culture is responsible for people losing friends and livelihoods on account of speaking out against consensus ideology. Many on the Right are quick to shun “cancellation” or any kind. However, is it right to do so, and are there no situations in which cancellation is merited and appropriate?
I am of the opinion that cancellation is a weapon often misused, but one that is an integral and essential part of human society. Yes, probably most of the people that find themselves victims of cancellation don’t deserve it, but there are scenarios where it is the just response to a situation.
One of these scenarios was making the rounds of the internet last weekend. On Saturday, at a massive “No Kings” rally in Chicago, a video was taken of a woman mocking conservative passers-by by imitating getting shot in the neck repeatedly. This, of course, was in mimicry of the assassination of Charlie Kirk last month. The video quickly went viral, and the woman was soon identified. This led to an even more disturbing discovery that the woman is a reportedly an elementary school teacher.
While she received the most online attention, there were plenty of other incidents of a similar nature. Numerous clips have been circulating of people outwardly admitting that they want President Trump dead, or that they would murder Stephen Miller if given the chance, while others marched with signs or merchandise bearing taglines such as “Make assassinations great again”, “Would you like to kill Nazis with me?”, “Politicians don’t die like they used to”, and “8647” (“86” being a slang term meaning to remove or kill, 47 being Trump, the 47th President).
Some on the Right might argue that cancellation is universally wrong. What exactly is cancellation, though, and when might it be merited? One thing should be made very clear: cancellation must be a purely social function – not a government dictate. Cancellation should be carried out by the people and the people only, not by a government branch. Moreover, cancellation must be non-violent; it entails no physical action. Cancellation, in its proper form, is a societal shunning of a person for actions or words that go against the fundamental principles on which that society is built.
This is not a new invention of any kind. The principle of banning someone from polite society because of their actions has been practised for millennia. In earlier times it used to take on a more physical aspect in the form of actual banishment, but the principle was the same: that someone said or did something so egregiously contrary to a core societal principle that it merited a rejection from society itself.
Like it or not, Western countries are built on Christian principles of right and wrong. These principles form the backbone of our society and how we engage with others, and it is an extreme violation of these principles to ridicule the cold-blooded murder of a young man, or to threaten murder towards anyone. Anyone who cheers on death and violent crime does not belong in polite society – these people must be cancelled.
Cancellation is often misused, unfortunately, but it is still necessary in certain circumstances, such as that of the teacher above. No person should be educating small children who openly mocks the death of a young man whose greatest crime was debating college students. The kind of person who celebrates murder should not be allowed anywhere near children, and under no circumstances should they be telling children what to think on any subject. This seems intuitive to the reasonable person, but seemingly we are so far gone that schools will not only refuse to remove these people from their faculties, but actually insinuate that they are the victims in situations like this.
This teacher deserves to lose her job. Take note: I am not suggesting that the government should take a hand in having her removed. However, it is perfectly fair and commendable for the general public, and especially those whose children may be under her supervision, to insist that she is removed from her position. The onus must not be put on the government, but directly on the school to take action. It is not merely because of her vile actions that I believe this necessary, but also because of her position itself. If a doctor was convinced that leeches were the best cure for any disease, surely that doctor deserves to be removed from his office? His job is to make people healthy, and if his words directly contradict that purpose, then he has no place in the medical profession. Similarly, no person who is of the view that domestic terrorism is a commendable action should be allowed to influence children. If the woman held another job, the situation may be different, but as someone whose entire professional purpose is to shape young minds, she cannot be allowed to get away with actions like this.
Of course, the Left-wing media glossed over these details when reporting on the rallies. RTÉ’s Washington correspondent, in typical fashion, reported that “the mood of the crowds was light, upbeat”. When commenting on the 8647 merchandise he had seen, he brushed it off as “pretty obscure and a bit of a stretch to call it an overt call for violence” (he must have missed this helpful explanation). He concluded his article by calling the rallies “overwhelmingly peaceful”, and finally by overtly labelling the Trump administration a “regime”.
Let us make something perfectly clear to those who may not be aware: no rally is peaceful in which a large number of people are openly calling for or even threatening the death of public individuals. Encouraging murder is the antithesis of peace. The media will lose their minds over edgy comments made in a private Republican group chat, but will ignore Jay Jones threatening to kill a Republican and his children, and will call public rallies of vitriol-filled assassination apologists “peaceful”.
There used to be a time when social cancellation was not only acceptable, but the norm. If a man took advantage of a woman, or someone made an uncouth remark in polite company, or a person made a radical public statement, it was common practice for society to discipline that person by removing them from their company. This was not merely intended as a punishment for the offender, but also as a protective measure for the rest of the community. No-one is interested in miring themselves in someone else’s sin, so society makes a collective decision to remove the person from the equation. This is a perfectly acceptable solution, since it acts as a punitive force, but does not actually limit the freedoms of the offender in question as government action might. That being said, direct death threats made by anyone at the rallies are a federal concern, though I have grave doubts that any legal action will be taken against them. Let it suffice then that those people are rejected from civil society, if the government will not enforce its laws upon them.
No healthy society can flourish when people are allowed to walk about threatening murder with no ramifications. These people deserve cancellation, and many of them deserve to lose jobs for the good of the community. I don’t like cancel culture, but desperate times call for desperate measures. These rallies are just another example in a long list that prove that we are living in desperate times.
____________________________
Patrick Vincent writes from Dublin