Rise of the Thought Police
How cancel culture enforces censorship by committee
The prevailing opinion from those who like to take part in cancel culture is that it doesn’t exist. This belief hinges on two fallacious assumptions. First, they will tell you that cancel culture is ultimately a myth, even as they paradoxically and actively participate in its machinations, and that it has no lasting impact on the persons singled out by online mobs, because from their perspective, the persons targeted are likely privileged individuals and events of online outrage are quickly forgotten and passed over like so much cafeteria gossip. Second, in matters of literary cancellation, they will say it does not equate to censorship, because censorship can only be achieved through government action. Both of these arguments are wrong. They are simply rationalizations, deflections of responsibility, meant to do nothing except avoid personal guilt, and to allow the cancer that is the reality of cancel culture to continue to grow and spread like the malignant tumor it has always been.
After the fallout of the latest cancel culture kerfuffle that resulted in the Chief Editor of Poetry Magazine, Don Share, being forced to resign from his position, a position that he held since 2013, it’s pretty difficult for anyone involved in the online dogpiling of outraged opinionation to claim that…
