We live in the United States of America, that boasts about free speech and the right to individuality. Currently, there is a lot that we can say without facing any legal action. However, with how our present day society is set up, there is a lot that we can say that can lose us our jobs and cause others to not want to continue relations. Cancel culture is a way for people to ostracize another person for their views that they deem to be morally and/or socially wrong. However, how can we determine on what grounds someone might be morally wrong? Does cancel culture leave absolutely no room for experimentation for writers to make mistakes?
In Harper’s letter, they bring up the point of cancel culture and mention their own writers. They say, “As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us.” These sentences are the biggest and main part of their letter. Cancel culture takes away the ability for writers to experiment with their work and take risks. Disagreements should not always end in cancelling. They think that there should be more room for writers to display their opinions without having to face professional consequences. The work that they had always had full freedom on is now being very restricted. These writers feel the need to defend their own freedom during work, because if they don’t, no one else will.
In my opinion, they bring up a multitude of good points. There will always be writers who have different opinions, and not everyone is entitled to agree with them. However, sometimes their opinions may lead them to face professional consequences. In order to avoid cancel culture, the writers try to take a safe route in their work. However, this is extremely limiting to them and their work. These writers miss out on writing certain controversial pieces that are not morally/socially wrong to write, simply due to the fact that they want to avoid backlash from public opinion. There is a restriction on what they are writing, and we have missed out and possibly great pieces due to that.
Vox shares a similar opinion and shares their response to the Harper letter. They say, ‘“In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill’s canonical defense of liberalism and free expression, he warns of “a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression,” a collectively enforced conformity that “leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.”’ This was the quote that stood out most to me in their piece. A social tyranny being more formidable is a heavy reference on cancel culture. Although the quote is from a long time ago, it still applies to how our society works in present day. Writers are often limited to what they can write due to this. Cancel culture has put a huge limit on them that is very restricting. Although there are no legal consequences on certain works, multiple have lost their jobs and relationships due to it.
Cancel culture can often times ruin an innocent persons career. Kim Seonho is a very famous South Korean actor who gained millions of fans in the past year after a popular show he had. However, after the final episode of the show, an article came out about Kim that accused him of being a horrible person. It stated that he had been treating his girlfriend at the time poorly, and forced her into getting an abortion. Kim’s career was ruined. His Instagram comments had been filled with hate, he was dropped from all ads and shows he had lined up for him, and he went into hiatus. Even his girlfriend agreed with the posts. His career had officially been ruined overnight. However, it wasn’t until weeks later that the truth came out. Dispatch, one of the most famous entertainment news in Korea, came out with pages and pages of proof. It turned out, his girlfriend had been seeing and hanging out with multiple men while he was busy on set. When she turned up pregnant, Kim had comforted her in the messages and said he would take responsibility, even introducing her to his parents the very next day. She constantly used his credit card on high bills and abused his kindness, but Kim was okay with it since he was in love with her. Everyone had come back to his comments and flooded it with love, and his ads and movies he had lined up tried contacting him again, but the deed was already done. The scar of hatred he received for weeks on end was strong. He was left traumatized after being falsely accused, and went on hiatus even after fan’s strong demand for his return. Kim was not able to face them with smiles, after seeing how quickly everyone had turned on him overnight, understandably so.
Kim’s example is just one of many. There are a ton of celebrities that are cancelled every year, without us knowing the full story. They are sent constant hatred via their comments and private messages, and aren’t really allowed to do much other than just bear with it. This is not to say that cancel culture is completely a horrible thing. Multiple people who are genuinely just bad people have been de-platformed due to it. However, cancel culture causes people to turn a blind eye to any reasoning or logical explanation that there might be in some cases, and completely closes the door on people that may be innocent and falsely accused, such as Kim. In some way, it has caused severe limitations on writers and harsh consequences on celebrities, even if it has proved to be helpful in certain situations.
