Beyond Postmodern: The Neoliberal Roots of Woke Cancel Culture

Cancel culture. In some respects, their concerns match those of conservatives who’ve railed against campus deplatforming, compelled speech, censorship, trigger warnings, safe spaces, micro-aggressions and victimhood culture. These malignancies of student coddling, reflecting years of helicopter parenting and depression-induced cognitive distortions, serve many on the right as prima facie evidence that political correctness run amok is threatening the cherished liberal values of free inquiry and the tolerance of dissent. Some critics see cancel culture as the predictable outcome of the postmodern takeover of the universities that began mandating diversity and inclusion in the 1980s and now seeks to impose campus culture on wider society. Some opponents trace the rise of postmodernism to Neo-Marxism or Marxism itself. Some even accuse the US Democratic Party of staffing postmodern Marxist indoctrination campuses.