To flesh this out a little since looking back at it I see how it can come across as bull-headed and bitter: Looking back over the past few decades, there has a

To flesh this out a little since looking back at it I see how it can come across as bull-headed and bitter: Looking back over the past few decades, there has always been a societal thread who’s underlying script is something like “System schistem. We have to take care of our own.”, but it has exploded in the past couple of decades. As I reflected back on what changed, there’s of course the internet and “virtue signalling” but I don’t think those are the biggest shifts. I think that underneath “cancel culture” is a desire for justice. And I also think that desires for justice used to be filled by the legal system: if someone broke the law they would be punished in accordance with those laws (and further: those laws that the public guide through democratic processes). However, if you look at the current state of our legal systems it’s very hard to see any sort of justice happening. From police brutality to court wins going to the one with the most funds I would be surprised if the average person in western culture had any sort of faith in the legal system as it stands. And so it‘s understandable to me that people would inevitably create a social-media-fuelled “court of public opinion” to “bring justice where there would otherwise be no justice”. Bringing examples here might sidetrack my point, but I think that if our legal system was at a level where everyone had faith in it’s ability to bring justice then they would not feel the need to bring justice by going outside of it to “cancel” people.