It seems like we have moved away from its peak, but cancel culture still has not been cancelled. There are a lot of problems with cancel culture. Among them is what is required for cancel culture to work.
One person refusing to deal with a person, shopping at a business, or other forms of cancel culture will never make a meaningful difference. For cancel culture to have an effect, it has to be embraced by numerous people. Considering how minor circumstances are for most items associated with cancel culture, this can only be explained through mass mindlessness. People with influence embrace a viewpoint, and others simply accept that viewpoint as their own.
This also means that there must be an echo chamber effect. People must embrace the idea that they are getting their views from people who have a similar perspective. If they were exposed to more diverse viewpoints, they would be far more likely to hesitate.
In some cases, cancel culture is flat out bizarre. Liberals have been pushing to cancel Dr. Seuss on the grounds that he supported Japanese internment camps. Meanwhile, we are supposed to love the man who ordered those camps, FDR.
One of the big problems with cancel culture is that pretty much everyone has both positive and negative characteristics. If you cancel out anyone who has negative traits, you are effectively cancelling out all the good as well. Aggressively looking for reasons to cancel people requires cancelling people who have done good things.
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