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Cancel culture in the moral maze
How worried should we be by attempts to silence people on campus?
The address to the Oxford Union this week by the feminist philosopher Kathleen Stock, who resigned from her academic position at the University of Sussex in 2021 following criticism of her views on gender, produced predictable protests and threats, causing Stock to need security protection as she arrived.
One group at the university said opposition to her invitation went against free speech. A second group claimed that revoking an invitation wasn’t the same as preventing someone from speaking. So what does “cancel culture” mean?
Those who view it as a threat to western liberal democracy see historic parallels with witch-hunts, inquisitions and book bans. Others think that ostracisation and social shunning have always existed as a form of accountability for an individual’s actions.
Should we understand cancel culture as a deterioration of the public sphere and symptomatic of a growing illiberalism? Or does it reflect the convulsions and evolution of a free society?
My fellow panellists were Inaya Folarin Iman, Matthew Taylor and Mona Siddiqui. Our witnesses were Professor Kathleen Stock; Dr Clara Barker, a materials scientist, trans individual and dean for equality and diversity at Linacre College, Oxford; Professor Lawrence Goldman, Emeritus Fellow in History at St Peter’s College, Oxford; and Dr Lorna Finlayson, lecturer in philosophy at the University of Essex.
You can listen to the programme on BBC Sounds here.
Recent posts
My most recent exclusive post for my premium subscribers argues that the bullying of those who dissent from transgender dogma is out of control. This is how the piece begins:
News from Salem
23 MAY
And you can read my most recent post that’s available to everyone, arguing that the obscene spectacle staged by rock guitarist Roger Waters in Berlin exposes the moral vacuum in Holocaust memorialising, by clicking here.
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