What Cancel Culture Teaches Kids About Conflict Resolution
Don’t agree with them? Find them offensive? Don’t like them? Cancel them!
Cancel culture — publicly ‘canceling’ or calling out someone for words or actions that you find offensive, disagree with, or just plain don’t like — is everywhere. It can be simple finger-pointing or a coordinated demand for retribution for alleged transgressions, urging the audience to join in and add their voice to hasten the severe penalties of social ostracization. It started as a means of social change, a way of speaking individual truths to positions of power. But where it was once focused on authority figures, public humiliation and shaming have become the ‘go-to’ means of voicing disapproval, real or imaginary, against anyone. It’s gone from social issues to personal ones, from celebrities to classmates. We have a big problem if this is how we’re teaching our kids to deal with problems and each other. Cancel culture has turned into bullying with a cooler name. It promotes ostracization over education, condemnation over compassion, and is deaf to redemption and change.
Public Shaming and Social Exclusion are Not New
Public shaming and social exclusion have long been a means of controlling people and social behavior. They inflict…
