Does the Cancel Culture Remind You of China’s Infamous Cultural Revolution?

Or is it a reverse- McCarthyism?

I am a close follower of America’s political, social, and cultural developments. Since I live in India, a democracy like the U.S., it has disturbed me to watch the chaotic, divisive, and hateful political debates reverberating across America’s mainstream and social media.

I don’t wade into America’s cultural wars. But I thought an outsider’s perspective may lend some balance to the acrimonious debates that reek with intolerance and hate.

I am America’s well-wisher. I hope America will heal itself soon. I write this post as an appeal to all sides to pause, introspect, and reexamine their ideological positions, and consider the unintended consequences of taking ideological purity and adversarialism too far.

The prime reason for writing this post is I cherish the freedom of expression which is democracy’s foundational value. And, according to me, the cancel culture, although unintentionally, is threatening the right to free speech without which American democracy will slide into a totalitarian state like China.

Strictly, the cancel culture bears no direct comparison with Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution that he unleashed in 1966 or Senator Joseph McCarthy’s the witch hunting of alleged communists that he orchestrated in the 1950s.

But the spirit behind the cancel culture is eerily similar to the Cultural Revolution and McCarthyism. A self-anointed defender of minorities, both racial and gender-based, and an unrelenting proponent of social justice, has emerged in the political and cultural landscapes. It considers itself as the cultural gatekeeper of political correctness regarding what is acceptable and what is unacceptable in public discourse and in the professional conduct whether it involves authors, artists, academics, politicians, journalists or scientists. This self-appointed coterie has been engaging in an unofficial public trial of the perceived transgressors.

But there is no trial, the renegades are guilty until proved innocent. Mao’s stormtroopers picked on random speeches and actions of their victims as proof of trying to sabotage the revolution.

In America, the self-styled defenders of racial and gender minorities, selectively pick on media posts, speeches and extracts from books, as a proof of intolerance and insensitivity to the minorities.

Like in China, the cancel culture doesn’t care about the nuances of context. The prosecutors only look at the trees, they are blind to the forest that looms in the background.

I am particularly disturbed by the exit of two senior journalists from the New York Times, James Bennett, and the Jewish journalist Bari Weiss, because they were seen as endorsing unpopular political views. They were not right-wing supporters as alleged by their detractors. But charges once levelled against any perceived perpetrator are non-negotiable. Their only fault is they tried to present the arguments of both the sides.

In China, the victims had no defence. They were humiliated in public, packed off to concentration camps or killed.

In the U.S. the accused suffer public shame, lose their jobs and face ostracism within their professional community.

In America, the victims can defend themselves in the media. But their defence itself reinforces their crime as James Bennet and Bari Weiss learned the hard way. They were protesting too much because the anointed class tried to hold them to account. The argument is perpetrators cannot embrace victimhood.

Like China’s fanatical communist cadre, the cancel culture’s protagonists are judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one. The accusers frame the charges, pronounce the judgements and execute the punishments.

In China, the communist cadre went berserk to show their loyalty to the leader. Some of them wanted to rise in the political ranks.

In America, some of cancel culture crusaders seem to be eager to signal their political correctness and affinity with the society’s identified underdogs.

China’s communists destroyed the lives of innocent people. The cancel culturists are no different, even if they do it unintentionally.

In communist countries, the revolutionaries turn on themselves when they run out of perpetrators to accuse.

I am sure the cancel culture activists will ultimately pick on their own ranks to prove their loyalty to the cause. Like, for example, if somebody with a conscience tries to defend a right-wing political or historian, they will be branded as traitors and will face the same punishment of social ridicule, loss of reputation and livelihood. In other words, they will taste the bitter medicine which they administered to their adversaries on the right.

McCarthyism was a right-wing conspiracy against the purportedly left-leaning intellectuals, politicians, artists, and bureaucrats. It was witch-hunting based on an arbitrary accusation of being a communist party member or a sympathizer. I don’t know whether Senator McCarthy was a psychopath, but he behaved like one going after people he imagined were communist sympathizers. His witch- hunting ruined the reputations and lives of of innocent people. He met his Nemesis when he tried to accuse military officers of supporting communism.

History’s wheel has turned a full circle. McCarthyism was the Right’s crusade against the Left. The cancel culturists mostly comprise the left, and they perceive their victims as supporters of the right. It also overlaps America’s liberal-conservative divide.

I use McCarthyism as a metaphor for witch- hunting ideological opponents with exaggerated and unsubstantiated charges. It is a fanatical ideological creed. The cancel culturists may not be as vicious as the McCarthyites, but they seem equally blinded by ideological puritanism.

The cancel culture seeks to impose its social and cultural mores on the society. It has drawn lines of acceptable opinion whether it is race or gender issues. Anything else is heresy and will attract condemnation, harassment, and ruin.

The cancel culturists may not admit this, their imposition of censorship on politically incorrect views will have a chilling effect on free speech. Some people might have aired controversial views on race and gender. But instead of trying to silence them, the cancelists should counter these views with reasoned arguments.

There are principled people with moral sense among liberals and conservatives. I appreciate the liberal quest for social justice. I also respect the conservative preference for gradual changes without a radical disruption of the social order.

The liberals are not against free speech, and the conservatives are not against social justice. The disagreements seem to be more about the processes than about the outcomes.

The ideological opponents should talk to each other to understand the other side and not to persuade it to change its opinion. They should listen more to what the opponents have to say. Both should tell stories of actual situations and incidents which will dispel misconceptions about each other. The lived reality often transcends ideological dogmatism.

Ultimately, everybody wants to build a great American society which will provide a fair deal to all its citizens.

The ongoing cultural war is wasteful and self-destructive. It distracts attention away from reaching a consensus on the much-needed social and economic reforms that will pull America away from the abyss of chaos and inaugurate a new era of shared prosperity and peace.

“America will never be destroyed from the outside, If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

(Abraham Lincoln)

In the past, America had shown its ability for self-repair and self- renewal frequently when things were going badly for it. It is time to evoke this ethos once again.

Thanks for reading.