Word of the Week: ‘Cancel’ again

Published August 5, 2022 3:00am ET



The staff at Minneapolis’s iconic concert venue First Avenue threatened a walkout if their employer opted to host comedian Dave Chappelle in July. This prompted the star to scramble to find another place for his ticketed show at the last minute.

Chappelle’s repeated struggle to speak as he pleases without people trying to silence him is one of the big cultural stories of our day. It serves as a great example of how the rules for what deserves to be censored, according to liberals circa 2022, are totally incoherent; they really depend on how one clique of media professionals in the Beltway feels in any given week. In reality, the rules are random. Everyone who achieves fame and excellence will be targeted at some point because political principles are not really the thing at issue, but rather the tribal dynamics of collective group hate.

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