The Patriot Post® · Has Cancel Culture Peaked, or Is It Just Underway?

Has cancel culture peaked, or is it just getting underway? That’s the question author Roger Kimball addresses in a recent article. A prime example, he says, is tech giant Amazon — the self-described “world’s largest book store” — and its recent and as of yet unexplained removal of Ryan Anderson’s book, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. Kimball observes, “Yes, the retail giant flagged a new policy that permits it to refuse to sell works that are ‘inappropriate and offensive’ or that trade in ‘hate speech.’ But Anderson’s book is a serious, deeply researched, and humane investigation of a deeply controverted public issue. Some people might disagree with his analysis or his conclusions. Does that make it ‘inappropriate and offensive’? Does it render it an instance of ‘hate speech’?”

The obvious answer is “no,” which is why the growing concern over a spreading cancel culture is legitimate. It raises the specter of past historically dangerous and often deadly instances of politically motivated censorship.

That said, almost no one agrees with the notion that there should be absolutely no limits to speech, which is why Big Tech has been able to get away with censorship by using that amorphous catch phrase “hate speech.” But “hate” of what?

Kimball notes one seemingly consistent theme with today’s cancel culture: sexual liberation. He writes, “We know that Amazon thinks it is OK if people express certain kinds of inappropriate and offensive opinions because it cheerfully sells Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, anti-Semitic fantasia deriving from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and various writings by Louis Farrakhan and other anti-white writers. (This is not by any means a complete list of books that some or many consider inappropriate and/or offensive that Amazon sells.)”

Citing the late Marxist Herbert Marcuse, who he describes as “one of the central gurus of the cultural revolution of the 1960s,” Kimball argues Marcuse saw “sex as an engine of emancipation” to undermine the mores American values are built upon, helping to effectively advance the Marxist revolution. Furthermore, Marcuse would have celebrated cancel culture because it bans anything critical of the radical Left’s orthodoxy.

So, back to the original question: Has cancel culture peaked, or is it just underway? Unfortunately, the most likely answer is that cancel culture has only just begun. The leftist revolutionaries smell blood in the water as companies fearful of being the next victim of the woke mob willingly run to the front of the line to declare their solidarity with the cause, canceling “offenses” before even being challenged. Buckle in for a bumpy ride.