This article, "The Good Death — Cancel Culture and the Logic of Torture," by Christopher Van Eecke takes a look at the phenomenon of online Twitter mobs and their fetish for destroying lives and inflicting public humiliation on people. He finds a useful — and disturbing — parallel in the public torture and executions of past centuries. The fact that the worst excesses of "cancel culture" come from people who loudly praise themselves for their empathy and compassion is particularly grotesque.
Bari Weiss has a personal account by academic Peter Boghossian of his experiences as the target of a Twitter mob. What's particularly awful in his story is the way he was abandoned by his institution and his colleagues. I don't know if it's cowardice or malice, but this will only end when people running large institutions like academia, government, and corporations stop going along with these witch-hunts and lynch mobs.
It must end soon, because our society will not survive if it doesn't.
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