In today's meme, we will discuss the very contemporary idea of cancel culture and its impact on some of the biggest names in philosophy. What is cancel culture? Is it always a bad thing? And when should it be employed, if ever? 

When the Hero-Worship Ends

Many of us, when we are children, have people we look up to outside of our parents. Some of us look to our teachers, others to, perhaps, cartoon characters (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, anyone?). Some of us appreciate a sports star or Taylor Swift specifically.

When you are young, your brain is still developing and maturing. (How, exactly, is up for lively debate.) You tend to see things in black and white, and if you find yourself admiring a celebrity from afar, it can be difficult to understand that they are human and make mistakes or do things that are bad.

When we get older, we often find out the sad fact that no one is immaculate. We find out that our parents disappoint us, our partners disappoint us, and even we disappoint us. We find out that, sometimes, human darkness can be so very disheartening. We lose our childhood naiveté.

And I think it is useful to begin with the fact that there is no one on this planet who has not done something unethical at some point. Doing shady things occasionally is just as much a part of human nature as enjoying cheese (or vegan “cheeze”).

But what do we do when we find out that the object of admiration isn’t the golden idol we thought? And at what point should we do anything? Should we engage in cancel culture?

Common Approaches to Cancel (and Cancel Culture)

Well, what do we do when that public figure we once hero worshiped falls from our grace? What do we do when we find out they have done something awful?

There appear to be two different approaches when it comes to whether or not to cancel someone in modern culture. The first is to spread the word among friends and followers, that x person did y bad thing. Once this picks up momentum, a community (usually online) rallies to encourage others to stop their financial support.

This is common with everything from misspoken gaffes to accusations of sexual assault. The online mob coalesces to influence others to reject the person and their product. Often, once criticized by a large enough community, it is difficult (if not impossible) for the person to recover their reputation.

The second approach often comes from the reactionary crowd. Perhaps the unethical event was something of which this crowd approves, whether knowingly or not. This crowd then doubles down, insisting that, since everyone is human and imperfect, their hero can’t be criticized on a grand scale.

It is then that this group accuses the other of “cancel culture” in a pejorative manner. This one thing should have nothing to do with the person’s art. You have to separate the art from the artist, and it is disturbing that these culture cancelers can’t seem to do that.

Hopefully, you can see how neither of these very hard-line views are really very helpful or nuanced in the end. Cancel culture seems to fail on either side.

Heroes in Philosophy: A Few Gnarly Stories

Let’s apply this to our favorite subject by looking at the lives of several very popular and well-beloved philosophers and their lives’ relation to their works. Some of these figures are central to our contemporary understanding of philosophy.

In examining their lives and their lives’ relation to their respective work, we might see if and when a hypocrisy exists between their lives and work, and begin to think about whether the life should affect what we think about the work. And in doing so, we might decide whether they should be canceled or kept, or if there might be another option.

Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir’s Questionable Ethics

If you know anything about French philosophy at all, you probably have heard about this dynamic duo. Lifelong partners, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were extremely influential existentialists in whose intellectual shadow those after have been standing for decades.

As an existentialist, one of Sartre’s pet concepts was the idea of agency’s essential role in human experience. We have to assign meaning to our own lives, because we aren’t going to find it through religion or really anything else. Because of this, we must be free agents who are not tied down by other factors, who create our own meaning.

Of course, central to Beauvoir’s writing is the concept of objectification. Women are seen as objects to the male gaze, stripping them of their humanity and agency. It is the feminist’s job to reclaim this agency and reject the idea that she is meant to be a glorified doll for a man.

What happens when you get two of the most passionate existentialists together? Surely something amazing. Well, not always.

Today, we would probably say that Sartre and Beauvoir had an open relationship or were polyamorous. This is not exactly where the problematic issue lies, though. It lies in both parties’ very frequent grooming of their students for sex, and more particularly, Beauvoir grooming students for sex with Sartre.

Sartre is said to have had a sort of sex addiction, given some of his insecurities. As a result, he consistently felt the need to seduce whoever was in the same room with him. Meanwhile, Beauvoir decided to assist in this, for herself, but also for him. Both were known to collect students for their sexcapades.

Beauvoir was removed from teaching at universities altogether as punishment for seducing and sleeping with one of her female students. We could say they were kinky, but the truth of the matter is, the grades and academic futures of their students were at stake here.

This also raises the question of hypocrisy. If we are actors in our own lives, living in such a way that we make our own choices, is Sartre, who seemed to have a compulsion around sex, really acting in a way that proves his agency? How much freedom does he have?

Similarly, do Beauvoir’s grooming behaviors of students for herself and Sartre contradict the principles she espoused in The Second Sex ? Is she not simply objectifying the students for her own pleasure, and that of her partner? Again, there appears to be a hypocritical notion here, of theory versus practice.

More Torrid Tales

Such objections are by no means limited to the two French existentialists. There is the case of Schopenhauer, who was convicted of assaulting his little old lady neighbor. Then, of course Heidegger was a Nazi, which is never a good look. In addition, Kant had some very problematic ideas about race and Aristotle was very cool with slavery.

In truth, we could go over every person we consider great and find some kind of hypocrisy or evil related to them. To what moral standard do we want to hold philosophers or even well known people at large? Do we hold them to our own personal standards? And do we discount the rest of their work when we do? Additionally, where do we draw the line?

Definitive Answers? This Is Philosophy!

The best thing to do in a struggle to continue to back or support a thinker (or public person) in light of their otherwise repugnant actions, is to use philosophy! (Surprise.) In thinking about ethical stances, it’s important to examine ethics as a whole, and yes, perhaps take things in terms of a spectrum of evil.

On a spectrum from saint to sinner, where does your favorite person fall? Can we say that stealing someone’s sandwich is worse than lying about their hairstyle if you don’t like it, but not as bad as supporting a genocide?

In this sense, it’s necessary to discern for yourself a little. Philosophy is more than theory; it is also a practice, and as such, it does matter if a proponent of feminism decides to act counter to her supposed precepts. The idea is, do we throw out the baby with the Beauvoir, though?

Furthermore, it’s important to consider the time period in which the author was writing. Unfortunately, slavery was a common practice during the time of Aristotle. Can we expect him to think outside of the zeitgeist (that is, the spirit of the time)? Can we expect his views to be contemporary to ours when we know more about the nature and history of human trafficking than he could ever hope to?

Can we say that a person did things that were unethical, but that person’s system of thought was not unethical, coming from the same person? How do we separate the thoughts and ideas of a person whose ideas we hold dear from the person themself?

And finally, can we be a good person if we appreciate some of the aspects of a problematic philosopher's ideas or systems of thoughts?

Unfortunately, I have no definitive answer there. I can only assert that, while Kant also had some problematic thoughts about gender, I am not supporting his lavish lifestyle by reading The Critique of Pure Reason, though I should consider it in a critical light sometimes. Kant shuffled from this mortal coil a few hundred years ago.

However, when it comes to our contemporaries, it is difficult for me to want to financially or otherwise support someone who denies the existence of asexual people and wages war on trans people, for instance. I have no desire to promote or fund a series of books that were merely a nostalgic memory from my younger years.

While cancelling can sometimes aim at the wrong people for the wrong reasons, it is worthwhile to note that “cancel culture” played a big role in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in the United States. In order to affect change necessary to stem some very dehumanizing discrimination, African Americans and their allies staged enormous boycotts on bus lines and other businesses. It proved effective in pushing forward the change that was needed.

So, while cancel culture is often maligned by certain parties, it can be necessary to get the needed change from the top. In truth, calling out a hypocritical flaw in a system can be necessary. However, it is also necessary to understand that, in exposing and sharing flaws of thinkers, you cannot erase them or their impact on the philosophical conversation as a whole.

Is there a way to criticize a thinker’s philosophical background by looking at how they lived? I think there is. But nuance and judgment can help soften that impulse to throw otherwise useful ideas out without another thought.

Even then, I am unsatisfied with this as your writer. I personally consider it difficult to want to continue reading anything by Heidegger, considering how Nazitastic he was. And while existentialism is extremely interesting to me, sexual harassment is not. Perhaps, we can see in these falls from grace an intellectual challenge.

What are your own thoughts? When do you decide to cancel someone from your reading list and when do you put up with bad behavior in favor of good ideas?