The Cancellers
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake
13 min read
The article opens with the cheese rolling race cancellation as its central example of how 'cancel culture' narratives are constructed. Understanding the actual history and tradition of this specific event in Gloucestershire provides concrete context for the author's argument about how events become reframed as 'cancelled traditions.'
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John Searle (philosopher)
1 min read
Searle is discussed at length in the article's conclusion as an example of how complaints against 'great philosophers' are framed as cancel culture. Understanding his philosophical contributions and the sexual harassment allegations provides essential context for evaluating Stock's framing and the author's critique.
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Moral panic
16 min read
The article describes how 'cancel culture' functions as a media phenomenon that amplifies certain narratives while silencing others, creating disproportionate concern about perceived threats. Understanding the sociological concept of moral panic illuminates the mechanisms the author is critiquing.
The first time I heard about cheese rolling races was when I read they’d been cancelled. Here’s a headline, “Cheese Rolling race axed after 200 years: thanks to Health and Safety Killjoys.” The story is framed as the cancellation of an age-old tradition. Read the fine print and you will learn that the event was cancelled by the organisers because the previous year attendance was three times more than expected and they wanted to avoid another logistical nightmare.
The story becomes about cancel culture by changing the object from event to tradition.
When cancel culture creates an object, a subject quickly follows.
In this instance, the cancellers are “health and safety killjoys.” Cancellers are often called killjoys, shadowy or not-so-shadowy figures lurking behind other people’s misfortune. As I noted in The Feminist Killjoy Handbook, with reference to cheese rolling races amongst other examples, the figure of the killjoy often functions as a character diagnosis: as if they are trying to stop us from enjoying ourselves, because they are miserable. The “kill” in “killjoy” is negative but also extreme. So too is the “cancel” in “cancel culture,” as if the motivation behind a critique of something is to bring an end to something because it is held dear by someone else. It creates quite a picture.
The point can be in the picture; cancel culture as crossing out so much, crossing out other people, their speech; crossing out our culture, our history.
Once “cancel culture” has acquired its form so much that happens is folded into it. And so, it expands. He lost his job after an enquiry was held about professional or sexual misconduct: cancel culture! That event was postponed due to security concerns: cancel culture! Give a history of British empire not as a happy story of railways, language and law: cancel culture! Talk about how racism is deflected by, or reduced to, hurt feelings: cancel culture! Talk about pregnant people in recognition that not everyone who gets pregnant identifies as a woman: cancel culture!
Who can forget Rishi Sunak’s comments, “We want to confront this left-handed culture that seems to want to cancel our history, our values, our women.” That the argument that women are being cancelled is expressed with an old sexist possessive (“our women”) tells us something we need to know. What is cancelled (or what is claimed to have been cancelled)
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