By Dr Laila Abdel Aal Alghalban
Kafrelsheikh University
The’Me Too’ and ‘Black Lives Matter’movements, compounded by polarizing rhetoric in the U.S., have fuelled the ‘cancel culture’ movement, a key intellectual, social and political trend currently taking the world by storm. Now it is possible for anyone or any group ( especially social media witch-hunters or Stasi who silently track alleged ‘wrongdoing’) , to campaign for shaming and boycotting companies, universities,celebrities, scholars, intellectuals,politicians or even common people on views they voiced long ago that are now deemed racist, supremacist and xenophobic, a move that mandated over 150 top figures to write a letter to the public and governments alike, condemning the increasing threat cancel culture poses to liberalism and creativity. Some notorious cases include J.K. Rolling and James Bennett of the New York Times People are two poles apart on cancel culture. For many, cancel culture is the voice of the vulnerable, the silent, and the real mainstream that must be heard; it has finally found in the social media the right platform to speak out and denounce a long and established dominance of the political, intellectual, and economic elites and supremacists. For opponents, cancel culture is a brutal and unjust way of censuring people and tarnishing their legacy. It is powered by the mob and irrationally washes away all established core values that, if gone, solid foundations of democracy and freedom of expression would crumble. Is it possible to find a meeting point?
Cancel culture is a continuation of the ‘political correctness’ of language, promoted by individuals and organisations calling for more social equality and justice. Political correctness activists, given the political and social upheavals that prompted nurturing a narrative harboring inclusive attitudes, have campaigned for censuring and criminalising inappropriate language (jokes, cartoons, movies, songs, newspapers, etc.), policies and practices targeting a given ethnicity, language, age group, gender, religion and nationality, which would transgress boundaries.
Thanks to political correctness, many minorities, indigenous peoples, cultures, vulnerable groups and professions have found shelter in digital platforms to track all what they consider ‘linguistic’ crimes such as hate and sexism, on the one hand, and enforce the mental image they favour, get their voices heard, battle hurdles of stereotypes and secure some goals they have long fought for, on the other.However, over the years, political correctnesshave created a rift in public opinion.The current digital era and the multiplicity of standards typical of postmodernism have been posing unprecedented threats to the status quo. Thanks to political correctness, many ‘offensive’ practices have been brought to mainstream attention. However, some political correctness practices have scared others who argue that such ‘Orwellian,’ leftist practices undermine freedom of expression and unjustly silence opponents
Igniting strong retorts
Consequently, political correctness advocates and activists have recently come under the grill of several various conservative, dominant powers, especially baby boomers and generation x-ers. Unfortunately, these negative attitudes have transferred to cancel culture. The very term ‘cancel’ is problematic and would justifiably ignite strong retorts and, sometimes, proactive actions on the part of both sides: opponents and proponents.
Tides of change
For instance, brands and business whose ideologies are inconsistent with the cancel culture movement agenda show special sensitivity and boost marketing its ideas.Corporations and institutions have swiftly made their calculations and reacted in line with their social responsibility to retain customers’ trust by upgrading new neuro-marketing tactics that would spare clients the ‘ cognitive dissonance’ they might experience when they realise that the brands and celebrities they love are no longer expressing their identities or values. Clients or audience, then, have one of two choices, according to psychologists: either to give up their own values and remain faithful to the values of the brands and celebrities they have long established bonds with, or cancel or boycott them altogether. Cancel culture advocates are breathing new life into the calls for change and place a tremendous pressure on corporate America to take genuine actions in this regard. Therefore, numerous companies have rebranded many of their products.Names are a key part of the overall public image that makes or breaks businesses, institutions, brands, etc. They largely reflect the common values and the sociocultural preferencesof the time. Many corporations and clubs have long known that their names and mascots are racist and have long stirred much debate.The tides of change have also washed away the pejorative names of restaurants, hotels, pubs, musical bands, shopping malls, sports teams, artists, celebrities, food, cosmetics, streets, lakes and corporations in many countries in the world. In the same vein, a famous skin-lightening cream is renamed to accommodate diverse beauty standards. Other cosmetics companies decide to stop manufacturing skin-whitening creams altogether.
Reaping maximum benefits
Meanwhile, businesses that align with the core principles of cancel culture reap maximum benefits; corporate images get more consolidated. Brand identities become more expressive of the common values endorsed by the mainstream and resonate with its aspirations and fears. In so doing, they shoulder their social responsibility in a world mired in conflicting powers and, sometimes, shocking ideologies. Businesses tend to coddle political correctness and cancel culture advocates by swiftly reacting to that major shift in thoughts and attitudes.
Surviving negative repercussions
To survive the negative repercussions of cancel culture, societies must establish a healthy dialogue between opponents and proponents of cancel culture. Some studies maintain that cancel culture is gaining increasing popularitydue to two principal reasons. One is for airs and graces; some people advocate cancel culture values in search of fame, status and social privileges. Another reason is to curb the influence of certain powers and individuals with the purpose of establishing solid foundations of a better society. In other words, advocates are fighting for a noble cause. They deserve to be listened to.
Finally, group dynamism is historically an arena for conflicting tides, which is a healthy phenomenon; it is the natural course of things. It is that very dynamism that brings about most of the political and social rights human societies enjoy now.
By Dr Laila Abdel Aal Alghalban Professor of linguistics Faculty of Arts Kafr el-sheikh University
Email: [email protected]
