For the past several years, “cancel culture” has been held out, mostly on the political Right, as a terrible thing that must be stopped. Personally, I regard “cancel culture” as an instance of what Ayn Rand called an “anti-concept,”
an unnecessary and rationally unusable term designed to replace and obliterate some legitimate concept.
The legitimate concept is a principled commitment to non-legalized moral accountability, which “cancel culture” equates, tendentiously, with mob rule and mass hysteria. For those wedded to the term, a principled commitment to moral accountability, outside of legalized officialdom, just is mob rule and mass hysteria. What else could moral accountability be?
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