Abstract
This chapter draws from two sociological motifs to understand the phenomenon of cancel culture. First, it examines cancel culture as a “degradation ceremony,” a means whereby a society makes a person “other.” A degradation ceremony has three parties, a denouncer, witnesses, and a perpetrator. A denouncer accuses a perpetrator in front of witnesses of violating society’s values and if the witnesses agree then the perpetrator is socially destroyed as a member of the community. Cancelling episodes follow precisely this formula. Second, this chapter explores the type of society that subjects its members to degradation for their speech, namely, what American sociologist Robert Nisbet called the “revolutionary community.” The chapter closes with a comparison of the “revolutionary community” to the type of community that values free speech.
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Sheahan, L.C. (2022). Degradation and Revolution: A Taxonomy of Cancel Culture. In: Sheahan, L.C. (eds) International Comparative Approaches to Free Speech and Open Inquiry (FSOI). Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12362-7_8
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