Historia cum Ioanna

Socrates, one of history’s most influential philosophers, is still studied by scholars today. He gathered disciples, including Plato and Xenophon, taught them to challenge assumptions, and encouraged critical thinking. However, his questioning of Athenian traditions and authority made him controversial in 399 BCE; he was charged with impiety—failing to acknowledge the gods of Athens—and corrupting the youth. Convicted, he refused to flee and accepted his death sentence, drinking hemlock. Socrates was essentially cancelled by the Athenians for his philosophy. The death of Socrates was the prototype of modern cancel culture—a more violent and absolute mechanism for erasing dissent. At its core, it shares the same structure as the contemporary phenomenon: eliminating individuals through collective moral judgment to preserve the purity of the dominant narrative.

It is natural to arrive at this conclusion: Socrates’ trial—essentially a collective cancellation of dissent—deprived him of both his life and his right to speak. If we analyse his death within this framework of collective judgment against individuals, clearly the modern cancel culture, sharing the same core with Socrates’ trial, likewise restricts free expression and fostered intolerance. However, unlike modern cancel culture, Socrates was eliminated through a formal jury vote, a systemic eradication of dissent with violent finality. Today, cancel culture more often results in social death, where individuals are labelled, publicly shamed, and stripped of honour rather than physically eliminated (Appiah 92-94). But does completely eradicating modern cancel culture and avoiding collective moral judgments truly ensure free expression?

Cancel culture must exist

A simple answer to the question is no; cancel culture has its necessity to exist.

Whether it is the collective denunciation of perpetrators in the #MeToo movement or the torch-bearing crowds of the witch hunts, it is evident that these groups are permeated with emotions of frenzy, anger, and fear. It may seem reasonable to attribute the act of mass cancelling to group madness. “[group madness] is an idea that gets invoked by social scientists whenever a crowd becomes frightening,” reckons Jon Ronson (64). But is this true? Are people losing their minds and so susceptible to a so-called “emotional contagion” that makes them give up sanity? Should we discuss cancel culture within a psychological framework?

An inborn contradiction arises in the premise of group madness. As suggested by Gustave LeBon, the inventor of the term group madness, humanity completely and involuntarily surrenders control to the crowd—a lack of free will and inability to contain oneself (Ronson 65). However, if human emotions are so easily transferred to other individuals and have the power to erode the entirety of another person’s sense of self-control, why has anybody evaded such influence and stayed sober during riots, massive cancellations on social media, and protests? If emotions spread and infect whoever it comes across, shouldn’t any opposition to the slightest be extinguished in the first place—if so, why do rivalries between different groups even exist?

Then, it is likely that cancel culture has its origin elsewhere. Ronson believes the answer is “the desire to do something good” (76). Though the results do not always turn out positive, cancel culture seems to often have its root in the sense of justice: from Socrates to witch hunts, people seemed to have unanimously agreed upon one clause, that the cancelled ones had most certainly committed a crime, whether it be the corruption of the Athenian youth or the wicked practice of witchcraft. In some ways, cancelling could even be seen as “a ritual of purification” (Pearson 6). Hence, the act ofcancelling shouldn’t be regarded as the clueless madness of the crowd, but rather a sane, voluntary, spontaneous reaction of the masses to something immoral in their views. Cancel culture arises from the morality of aspiration of people.

If it is so, then to lose the right to cancel is to lose the right to free expression, robbing people of their pursuit of the highest moral ideals. Cancel culture is no headless madness; it is the collective response from individuals opposing perceived injustices with full deliberation and sanity. Ending cancel culture would undermine the principles of free expression and tolerance, as it curtails people’s ability to express what they genuinely think—isn’t free expression all about protecting that right to speech?

Socrates, in retrospect, was no evil but the freed prisoner who happened to glimpse into the truth in the cave analogy. Wouldn’t it be better if the Athenians were acceptive of Socrates’ views and didn’t put him to death?

However, in the eyes of an average Athenian, Socrates might have been a weirdo, an unorthodox, and somebody who dares say words that shatter their common sense and beliefs; the witches in witch hunts represented people’s fear and religious fervour; those perpetrators accused in #MeToo showed people’s worries and resentments. Repressing and restricting these people from having their own voices would infringe upon their liberty to express discontent, and ultimately, their individuality. 

As articulated by John Stuart Mill, the freedom of speech must remain fully recognised to preserve individual sovereignty (Mill and Elshtain 33). Without individuality, the Athenians would become mere puppets, passively absorbing Socrates’ ideas while abandoning their own capacity for critical thought. Without individuality, the crowds in witch hunts and the #MeToo movement would be consumed by a sense of fear and loss of control, ultimately losing their autonomy and agency.

To Mill, society exists to serve individuals, not the reverse (Mill and Elshtain 30). Therefore, the right for individuals to cancel must be guaranteed, even if that would lead to losses that may seem wrongful and unnecessary to future eyes, to safeguard the principle of free expression and the autonomy that defines human existence.

The downside of cancel

Nevertheless, condoning cancel culture due to the concern of restricting free speech would also in turn restrict free speech and foster intolerance.

“[It is a] long standing strain in human behaviour to be judgemental about people” (Pearson 27).

The victims of cancel culture are often dehumanised to merely a symbol of evil. This undermines the individuality of the victim, and without respect for a person’s individuality comes intolerance and a lack of free expression.

Cancellations frequently rely on simplistic categorisations of identity, a phenomenon that Ross and Tran refer to as identity reductionism—where an individual’s moral character, actions, or behaviour are evaluated solely based on their identity, rather than on a nuanced assessment of them as a person (Pearson 5).

One such example is the case of Justine Sacco: in December 2013, she posted a sarcastic joke to her 170 Twitter followers, unintentionally provoking controversy over race (Ronson 46). Though she had no racist intent subjectively, the tweet went viral and was interpreted in a way she did not expect, branding her as a racist, leading to a job loss and her distress (Ronson 46-56). Her cancellation wasn’t only targeted personally; it essentially became an ideological crusade against a single label—white supremacy. “They’ve taken my name and my picture, and have created this Justine Sacco that’s not me and have labelled this person a racist,” lamented Justine (Ronson 51). With these identities hammered onto the victims, any redemption they try to make will, again, be interpreted through the lens of such identities.

This single identity reduction dehumanises its victims, stripping them of complexity. People stop viewing the victims as equal individuals and want them to “disappear completely to be accountable” (Pearson 38). When Jonah Lehrer was labelled a plagiarist, his subsequent works were being scrutinised under suspicion of plagiarism (Ronson 43-45). No one believed that he would learn from his mistake; everything he did was framed as further proof of his evil because he was a “compulsive plagiarist” (Ronson 44); he was even called a sociopath without any reliable evaluation (Ronson 39-40). This is how dehumanisation stifles free expression: once condemned, anything about Jonah would be interpreted through a distorted lens; anything Jonah did or said was deemed evil regardless. This intolerant environment left Jonah with no room for genuine recovery or self-expression.

On the level of affect, cancel culture engenders a toxic environment that forces its participants to take a side based on limited information and one-sided narrative (Pearson 7-8). Such moral coercion to take sides intensifies the pressure on the cancelled individuals in defending themselves against the collective, further fostering intolerance.

The illegitimacy of cancelling

Public shaming has historically served as a societal tool for punishment and retribution, used to condemn wrongdoing and enforce moral standards (Mishan).

However, modern cancel culture has essentially evolved into an informal court of justice. Individuals subjected to cancellations often endure a progression from being held accountable to facing abuse and humiliation. They typically lose their jobs, suffer social discrimination and ostracism, and in extreme cases, may even be driven to suicide.

According to Lon Fuller, eight principles make legitimacy: generality, publicity, non-retroactivity, clarity, non-contradiction, constancy, and congruity (Murphy 241). Cancel culture fails multiple, however. For example, cancellations fail to meet the criteria of publicity and clarity—the standard by which the internet users judge the cancelled individuals is not publicly available nor stated outright. People judge with a vague sense of justice that varies person to person and circumstance to circumstance. This way, the individuals being judged and shamed are completely unknowing of how and why they are condemned, nor are they able to prevent such from happening beforehand: Justine Sacco had no idea that particular tweet would become the catalyst for her ensuing misery and public shaming. Moreover, cancel culture punishes retroactively. It sometimes punishes individuals for actions they’ve done ages ago. For instance, Woody Allen, though already proven innocent and now legally clean, had his case reopened in the court of cancel culture—specifically, #MeToo movement—and was again publicly shamed after many years (Derscholwitz 17). Failing to uphold any of these eight principles forfeits legitimacy (Fuller 39). 

Sociologist Simmel observed that the adherence to rules involves a reciprocal relationship between government and citizens (Fuller 39-40). The government demonstrates the rules to the citizens, and so the citizens may follow. If this reciprocity is broken, then there will be chaos—the citizens have no idea what to follow and what not; they cannot foresee when the punishment will come. In such a case, Fuller argues, “obedience becomes futile” (39). The same applies to cancel culture. Since a clear set of standards and rules is unintelligible, it is illegitimate to hold individuals accountable with cancel culture.

Pharmakon

Pharmakon, an Ancient Greek term, is described by Jacques Derrida as a substance that serves as both a cure and a toxin (70). In such a way, cancel culture functions as a modern-day Pharmakon—both protecting and restricting freedom of speech. It emerges from noble moral aspirations, a desire for social change, and an intolerance of the status quo, yet in today’s context, it also sometimes recoils.  

As evidenced in the first section of this essay, cancel culture is a necessity. Preventing people from engaging in cancellation would inevitably curtail their freedom of expression and erode individuality. However, as argued in the second and third sections, cancel culture also inflicts harm on those being cancelled and lacks inherent legitimacy. It neither deserves encouragement—since it infringes upon the rights of its victims—nor outright prohibition, as such a ban would suppress individuality.

A more balanced approach could be to create a formal channel that integrates informal cancellations into the official judicial system (although there is a long way to go). By doing so, cases that provoke widespread public outrage could undergo structured legal review rather than remain confined to unchecked digital condemnation. This mechanism would allow collective moral sentiments to drive social and legal reform, while ensuring that a regulated judiciary safeguards the rights of those targeted by cancel culture, preventing informal online trials from unjustly stripping individuals of their dignity. The public has a standard for evaluation, and those who are canceled also have the right to defend themselves legally and bear appropriate accountability for their mistakes.

Work Cited

Appiah, Kwame Anthony. The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen. W. W. Norton and Company, 2011.

Derrida, Jacques. “Plato’s Pharmacy.” Dissemination, translated by Barbara Johnson, The University of Chicago Press, pp. 61–156.

Dershowitz, Alan. Cancel Culture: The Latest Attack on Free Speech and Due Process. Hot Books, 2020.

Fuller, Lon Luvois. The Morality of Law. Yale UP, 1969.

Mill, John Stuart, and Jean Bethke Elshtain. On Liberty. Yale UP, 2003.

Mishan, Ligaya. “The Long and Tortured History of Cancel Culture.” The New York Times, 3 Dec. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/12/03/t-magazine/cancel-culture-history.html.

Murphy, Colleen. “Lon Fuller and the Moral Value of the Rule of Law.” Law And Philosophy, 2005, faculty.las.illinois.edu/colleenm/docs/Articles/Murphy-%20Fuller%20and%20the%20Rule%20of%20Law.pdf.

Pearson, Diana Heather. “Accountability, Exile and Social Media: An Analysis of Contemporary Online Public Shaming Practices and ‘Cancel Culture.’” Gender and Social Justice Studies, thesis, University of Alberta, 2021.

Ronson, Jon. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. Penguin, 2015.