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Key points
- When we engage in cancel culture, we risk ignoring empathy.
- Canceling others needs to be examined carefully and through a lens of empathy.
- We need to ensure we are curbing dangerous and hateful speech, not silencing those with whom we disagree.
If we “cancel” others by silencing them and cutting them off, then there is no connection. We are not listening and we are not sharing, which are key actions needed to experience empathy. However, the relationship between empathy and what's known as cancel culture is complicated.
What Do We Mean When We Say Cancel Culture?
The meaning of cancel culture is varied and used to suit different needs, so empathy may or may not be present. The general definition of cancel culture seems to be the act of boycotting or shunning someone for something they have done or a way they have spoken that is perceived to be objectionable or controversial. The act of "canceling" someone is often followed by the choice to stop giving support to that person.
On a political level, some argue that cancel culture is interchangeably used with censorship—that is, when we don’t like what someone is saying or a position they hold, we "cancel" them by shutting off their access to speaking or sharing their thoughts publicly.
Does Cancel Culture Stop Empathy?
When cancel culture means cutting off those you don’t agree with, it becomes a barrier to empathy. Canceling someone is choosing not to hear them anymore. Empathy requires that we hear others. Hearing others with empathy is not agreeing or disagreeing, it is simply the act of entering into a connection with another person in order to feel and understand their position.
Something that often gets confused with empathy is taking actions that may follow because those actions are inspired by empathy. But such actions are separate and distinct from empathy. We are free to decide what we do with our empathic insights.
It is true that research shows that empathy often leads to prosocial behaviors* (think of showing compassion or helping others after you understand that they are going through a very difficult time in their lives). However, in some cases, we may understand where a person is coming from, but their behaviors are not a positive response to their feelings (think of the insecure, emotionally wounded bully who treats others horribly). Cutting off a toxic person from your life can be a good thing. Sometimes, then, we do need to "cancel" people, even after using empathy to understand their behaviors.
Here is the problem with the widescale embrace of cancel culture today: if we are to understand those who are different from us, canceling them rather than trying to understand them closes off dialogue and a chance to connect. It distances us right at the time we need to better understand others. However, if someone says things that are hateful, prejudiced, or oppressive, then we do need to shut them down.
How Do We Use Empathy as a Guide?
There are two ways to handle cancel culture. If we use it to say no to inappropriate, dangerous, or oppressive speech and actions, that is positive and can be healthy and empowering for the person doing the canceling. However, if we use cancel culture to silence those with whom we disagree, we risk marginalizing and silencing those who are in need of being heard.
The danger in today’s embrace of cancel culture is in not using empathy to hear others. When we use empathy, we can make better decisions. When people say or do inappropriate things, don’t we want to call them out? We can try and understand their motives, but if they don’t change their offensive behaviors, don’t we want to be able to choose to cancel them from our lives?
If we use empathy in making decisions about canceling others, we are listening and trying to understand. Deep listening keeps us from silencing others simply because we disagree. If we choose to cancel people, we need to do it from a place of protecting civility, promoting safety, and stopping the spread of hateful untruths. Approaches to cancel culture that involve empathy help us to think more carefully about who we cancel and why, and keep us from silencing those who deserve to be heard.
References
Batson, C. D., Lishner, D. A., & Stocks, E. L. (2015). The empathy-altruism hypothesis. In D. A. Schroeder & W. G. Graziano (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of prosocial behavior, 259–281. New York: Oxford University Press.
de Waal, F. B. M. (2008). Putting the altruism back into altruism: The evolution of empathy. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 279–300.
Eisenberg, N., Eggum, N. D., & Di Gunta, L. (2010). Empathy-related responding: Associations with prosocial behavior, aggression, and intergroup relations. Social Issues and Policy Review, 4 (1), 143–180.
Hoffman, M. L. (2000). Empathy and moral development: Implications for caring and justice. London: Cambridge University Press.
