The Self-Contradictory Core of the “Cancel-Culture” Agenda

     If “cancel-culture” (CC) was just a social sub-group for detractors of traditional morality, their presence would be relationally insignificant to any larger, morality-affirming society (MAS).  Yet their agenda is in fact NOT content to coexist within a MAS, but, to the contrary, is driven to progressively undermine moral codes as a publicly-binding authority, all the way to obliteration.  The do so by assert-ing that moral imperatives are not real, but merely human fantasies.  Foundational to the CC agenda is the philosophical position known as “nihilism,” which is defined as a “rejection of all religious and moral principles.”[1]  Notice that this definition highlights where the self-contradiction is manifested between the CC claim on the one hand, and their expression of it on the other.  For example, on what logical grounds do they persistently obligate society to our “higher” moral sensitivities (brute force has yet to be imposed) after already having denied the very concept an absolute (unwavering) moral standard?  

               Cancel-culture proponents want to both “have their cake and eat it too” by their denial of moral obligation for themselves, while in turn insisting that society embrace their re-framed social values. Take note, for example, that their agenda tightly parallels the binding aspect of the traditional Christian moral categories that they decry and repudiate, even though they continue to impose their own altered (albeit ever-shifting) values onto everyone else, often enforced by threats of debilitating legal consequences.

               Yet the incoherent aspects of CC practices are not limited to its internal self-contradictions.  Its’ advocates also habitually turn away from the “universal justice” they claim to champion both by deflect-ting the weight of truth in favor of manipulating others with their own privileges, and unfairly exercising deference toward one “preferred” party at the expense of another less desirable one, to name a just few.  The consequence of their ploy is not a unification of society, but instead an ever-deepening hostility.  Yet these injustices are at bottom to be expected whenever the rightful moral authority of the One who is both the Maker and Redeemer of the world (God) is ignored in favor of sinful and finite human thugs who confuse their lustful drives for the wisdom of a “god.” In their face, the true and living God declares, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil!” – Isaiah 5:20 (5:20-23).  

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[1] Google Search, Definitions from Oxford Languages.