Sarah Silverman Argues Against ‘Cancel Culture’

Comedian Sarah Silverman attacks ‘cancel culture’ in a new episode of her podcast, showing how it isn’t productive and can lead to more hate.

She points to the example of Christian Picciolini, a former Neo-Nazi, who joined the hate group when a member showed him love by stopping him from smoking a joint. Silverman points out how the confused teenager went towards love and acceptance, even in the form of a hate group. 

Picciolini later left the skinheads in the late 90s and has worked against hate groups for nearly 30 years.  Silverman says ‘canceling people’ without offering them a ‘path to redemption’ pushes people to the ‘dark side.’ 

“But without a path to redemption, when you take someone and you found a tweet they wrote seven years ago or a thing that they said and you expose it and you say ‘This person should be no more, banish them forever’ – they’re going to find some place where they are accepted, and it’s not going to be with progressives,” she said.

(Note: Silverman seems to think “the dark side” is with conservatives, but she does point out the irony in labelling yourself as a ‘progressive,’ but not caring about actual progression. So you’re telling me cancel culture is based more on hate than progress? Shocking.)

Many Twitter users criticized Silverman, but she won’t mind. She faced backlash after a picture from 2007 emerged from a sketch in which she wore blackface, causing her to lose a movie role last year. 

But I like what she’s saying here. Public shaming and ostracization is not an effective way to make society better. If someone has done or said something hateful, the response shouldn’t be to overwhelm them with more hate. This goes both ways. 

People sometimes say horrible things.  Show mercy. We also need to understand those hatefully ‘cancelling’ someone should be shown the same mercy. 

In Christianity, this is called “forgiveness,” and it’s truly a beautiful thing. 

Hat Tip: Independent

Image Credit: Wikipedia