As far as I know, I’ve never been cancelled. I’ve been attacked online, had my reputation smeared, but not actually cancelled.

However, I did have a small glimpse into cancel culture, or at least what seemed to me to be an insight into the mindset of some of the people who engage in cancelling others. This was before the term ‘cancel culture’ existed.

I was a writer for the university newspaper. One day the editor called an editorial meeting. He wanted to discuss what we thought of the idea of turning the newspaper into a socialist periodical. One of the other people in the room was all for the idea. I was dead against it. My argument was that not everyone who was studying at the university was a socialist, and so the newspaper should be written with everyone in mind rather than espouse only one particular political viewpoint.

The editor agreed with me, and that was it. Except for the fact that the person whose argument had been defeated deliberately slammed the door in my face on the way out, and never spoke to me again. So much for intellectual discussion.

I’m no psychologist, but it just seems to me that some people view other people’s alternative view of things as some sort of existential threat. Carried to an extreme, cancel culture can result in the kind of atmosphere people experienced during McCarthyism in 1950s America.

There was an excellent radio play about that at the time. It was so successful a satire that McCarthy had the playwright deported. If you’re interested, I’ve written about that here:

The Investigator