Censorious Sadism
30th October 2023
Do you believe in cancel culture? I apologise for asking — it’s a trick question. Just as complaining about the use of Karen makes you a Karen, thinking cancel culture exists makes you deserving of being cancelled. Not that this is a problem; if anyone were really being silenced, we’d hear them complaining about it, which would then mean they weren’t actually being silenced.
Such are the logical contortions outlined in Umut Özkirimli’s Cancelled: The Left Way Back from Woke. It explores how certain self-styled goodies — those who identify with being on the right side of history — promote a version of leftism which rivals the right in “its disdain for dissent, its bunker mentality, and Manichean simplicity”.