Cancel Culture and the Mark of Cain

When beastly behavior brings no consequences, it will continue and accelerate. 

Paul O’Brien | August 14, 2026

Life was already ugly, but a lot simpler, in humanity’s second generation. Abel paid the price his brother exacted, but at least without advance insult to his reputation. When Cain canceled his brother, it was mano a mano. Today, he’d have declared war on Facebook, dragged him through the mud on X, and his followers would have done the rest.

Political correctness and wokeness paved the way to “cancel culture,” a modern construction of the social media-age, that visits exponentially greater and more immediate damage -- social ostracism and even threats of harm -- upon a perceived villain than ever previously available. Proponents of the practice see it as a way to enforce accountability. But if you’re on the century side of 50, it’s not your father’s boycott. Nor is it a critique or a pointed op-ed. It is typically a campaign of hostile publicity, sometimes sadistic in its reach -- into employment, finances, and even relationships, in addition to “mere” reputation -- its practitioners seem obsessed with revenge. Schadenfreude is their addiction.

‘Twas always thus: public shaming was never meant to rehabilitate the offenders. Stocks and pillories were to demoralize, disgrace, and humiliate. Just as important, they provided a dramatic deterrent to others who might entertain engaging in similar behavior. “Get with our program or this is your fate” was the clear message to the passerby. The internet is today’s village green, social media platforms the market square. Canceling, doxing, and swatting are the cruel devices of modern social torture.

A legion of victims lay in cancel culture’s wake. Inevitably, the onslaught prompted a response, as surely as danger invites rescue and assault invites defense. Neither side of the political aisle is chaste, alas; that is, for every JR Rowling there has been a Dylan Mulvaney. If........

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