Cancel Culture: Consistency, Hypocrisy, and the Mess We’re In.

VOICE & VISION | Society & Discourse

By TLS

The past decade, or more, cancel culture has been savage in society and U.S. Politics. For a considerable amount of time extreme tribalism has ruled. If someone made negative comments about the LGBTQ community, they often lost their jobs, reputations, or platforms. Sometimes the comments didn’t even need to be extreme to spark outrage from the left.

Recently some high-profile TV personalities have been fired. Others have had their shows cancelled. The difference? This time the outrage is coming from the right. All due to negative comments made about Charlie Kirk. A weapon once wielded mostly by liberal lefts is now being swung by conservative rights. Same tactic, different direction.

I didn’t agree with it then, and I don’t agree with it now. Firing people for opinions, no matter how offensive, is a slippery slope. But here’s the irony, at least it’s consistent behavior in a hypocrisy thick environment. If nothing else, both sides seem eager to prove that if you say the wrong thing, you will pay. The problem is, that’s not progress, it’s just retribution. And revenge rarely works out well in the end.

I’ve written before about unity, compromise, cooperation, and encouraged movement toward the middle. I’ve also pointed out the hypocrisy of both major parties (and their constituents). But in this case, what we’re seeing may be something worse than hypocrisy. Two factions so committed to punishing the other that they’ve lost sight of what matters. Instead of aiming for higher standards of discourse, we’re embracing the politics of mutually assured destruction.

Some will argue these cases aren’t apples-to-apples comparisons. Maybe they’re right. Maybe firing someone for mocking LGBTQ people is different than firing someone for comments about a political figure. But in the end, the effect is the same. Fear of saying the wrong thing. Fear of expressing an unpopular view. Fear of stepping out of line. A society where fear rules, is not a free society.

I condemn political assassinations, whether literal or character-based. In many parts of the world, silencing opponents, sometimes permanently, is just daily life. But the United States cannot afford to accept that as normal. If we do, a free democratic society will have perished from this world. We’ll simply replace debate with vendetta, persuasion with punishment, and free expression with self-censorship.

So, are we better off, worse off, or just living through another version of the same story? My answer is probably worse off. The faces change, the targets change, but the destructive instinct remains. Vindictiveness disguised as justice. Tribal punishment disguised as accountability. And at the end of the day, it leaves us with less trust, less dialogue, less freedom, and less America.

Cancel culture, whether aimed at the left or the right, misses the bigger point. Our democracy doesn’t need more consistency in punishment. It needs more consistency in principles, ethics, and morals. If we truly value free speech, then we need to defend it even when it protects people who say things we don’t like. Especially then! It's easy to defend agreeable free speech, but that’s not when it’s important. Otherwise, we’re just passing the same weapon back and forth, each side convinced they’ll never be the one who gets cancelled.

If you value free speech, even when it protects people you disagree with, now is the time to stand up for it. Don’t let fear and retribution replace dialogue and freedom. Share this essay with someone who thinks cancel culture is only the other side’s problem, and let’s start defending principles instead of punishments.