Life is about moral integrity. By this I mean how people actually live. A man who preaches charity has no integrity if he has an excessive lifestyle. It is always about your principles and how you live by humanity’s moral codes. People cannot destroy you by hate or vitriol if you are a person of strong moral character. But any man who doesn’t live by any moral principle in life will easily crumble like a castle of sand. In fact, while you cannot be affected by the lies that others peddle online, it matters to respond in order to set the record straight. Otherwise, you will be labeled a coward.
In the past, people say bad things about you until you discover what they are saying from another person. But with the advent of social media, your world is an open book. Cancel culture is about good and bad people saying unfair things to good people because the latter begs to differ. Many will try to discredit what someone has accomplished because their politics don’t agree. But the fact of the matter is that they just try to discriminate. This attitude befits that thing we call the politics of exclusion.
In fact, cancel culture is nothing but crab mentality. It manifests people’s strong sense of insecurity. When a friend achieves something that is aligned to your taste, it is like you too have achieved something. Why? Because you tend to think that you are a part of it. But when a friend aligns himself with somebody else’s views or politics, you will feel betrayed. Indeed, cancel culture changes nothing. By ridiculing the names of good people or their physical appearance, it only shows that the one who makes the defamation is immature and weak in terms of moral character.
In our society, cancel culture has metamorphosed into something sinister by means of concocting incredible stories and malicious accusations. Even professionals have become trolls. Such an attitude is made manifest by self-righteous people who wrongly think that they are the new agents of change seated on top of a moral high chair. Some say that cancel culture is an instrument to hold influential people accountable for their actions and opinions. In truth, it is a behavior prevalent among Gen Z, the most exposed to the digital age. A study says that it is simplistic. It is conveniently used to shame good people or established companies whose products are boycotted based on biased and incomplete information.
The young can be prone to making a wrong judgment when it comes to a person’s character. The same study asserts that the problem is that most young people have an ideal of a just world without even realizing that actual change cannot be achieved by simply excluding others for their different opinion. In fact, cancel culture employs nothing but a slippery slope used to protect an ideology or a sense of self-righteousness. It does not lead the canceled person to change his ways but rather, it can embolden the same for the wrong judgment against his person.
In the Philippines, however, a similar study shows that 80% of Filipinos see canceling celebrities and influential personalities as an effective form of punishment. The study also reveals how cancel culture is weaponized in the defense of political ideologies. But what is absent from the study is the fact that social media platforms are actually the ones benefiting from this type of behavior online because when a post becomes viral, the engagement from the algorithms result to more profit for Big Tech.
The internet is essentially an anarchy that is wanting in terms of critical thinking and the important principle of basic respect for the opinion of others which should ultimately define what a true democracy is. Nevertheless, it is part of the risk that one takes given the changing configuration of human society and its brand of politics. Denzel Washington is right: “You will never be criticized by someone doing more than you. You can only be criticized by someone doing less.” In the end, your integrity matters more than what others think or say about you.
