It is early human civilisation, people huddle around a new discovery, fire, and they tell stories to each other. The chief stands up; he is the most popular person in the society. Everyone quiets down and stares at him. He holds the stares and the attention for a moment before speaking in a language we cannot understand today.

The chief points to one of his warriors whilst continuing his speech; this warrior had gone to peek at the chief’s wife whilst she was taking a bath in the communal pool. An act the chief himself had done a couple of times to the other women but how dare they do it to his wife? He keeps pointing to the warrior and with anger filling his eyes now, his calmness before dissipates.

The warrior stands up and everyone knows what is to happen. They drum and follow him as he grabs his sword and a small bag from his hut. He knows all too well because he has been in the crowd before, hooting and playing the drums at the offender.

He trods in silence as he slowly makes his way out of the village, the popular person has spoken and he has to be ostracised or rather, in today’s parlance, canceled.

Many years later, we were all led to believe that society had evolved and grown, so we created laws to judge our actions; thus, instead of being ostracised like in the past, there were defined laws that punished our actions. Freedom of speech was also promoted so that we could let out our opinions freely without fear of prejudice and in that way, we could discuss ideas and as a society, correct people if they somehow wavered from our accepted societal norms.

Right and wrong were defined from society to society with the famous saying carrying the ethos, “when in
Rome, do what the Romans do.” With the growth and expansion of religion across the globe, these societal values became globally accepted to a certain degree and the world experienced some semblance of order and peace.

Present-day, we would expect evolution and growth to be at a point where there are less popular persons and more equal people, and there are more forums to educate and share ideas and opinions through non-judgemental speech. Instead, we have seen society recoil into the previously mentioned chief and warrior era. Social media is the fire around which we all sit to share stories and the people with the most followers and verified tags are the chiefs we readily listen to and follow.

People are thrown out and virtually ostracised for sharing unconventional opinions and even when people are punished for devious acts through rehabilitation institutions like prisons, we do not grant them the opportunity to show their growth and remorse.

For me, this is weird to see. In a world where we have so much education on mental health and the origins of behaviour, we are less forgiving of people’s words and actions regardless of their origins. We have become accustomed to living according to the principles and ideologies of the chiefs of our virtual fire. They have the discussions and automatically represent the whole population. Say something that does not fit into the narrative and you are canceled.

Scores of people often say that “social media is not a real place.” I believe there are numerous reasons to justify that statement. However, central to that is the fear people face when they have to voice out their opinions in the rawest form, for they might be canceled.

As a society, have we now resorted to spewing lies on a daily just to fit in? We are only human when we

celebrate our diversity and learn from each other. If we all think and speak the same way, we become those little blue bots Elon Musk is trying to fight. At the end of the day, we should aim to live in a society where we accept diverse opinions, and human errors and offer some form of education and rehabilitation where it is needed.

The fact is, not everyone will agree with us on certain values and numerous hills that we are willing to die on. Nonetheless, that is not a reason to cancel them. I am not one of the proverbial chiefs in society, but I say this on authority; one of the hills I am prepared to die on is; if someone is constantly a thorn in society’s flesh, they need to be plucked out and the manner in which this is carried out is up to the values or in this case, the laws of the society in which they find themselves.

Just like in the case of social media platforms when people use offensive language or post unsavoury things, regardless of their status or follower count, they lose their accounts.

Let us all aim to freely speak our truth without fear of being corrected on the one hand, and on the other, be wise enough to be educated to alter our opinions when it matters. People should not be put in a place where they are hesitant to speak the truth because they do not know the cancel free way to phrase it. I will charge all avid social media users to play a game.

The next time you see a controversial post, form an opinion without peeking into the comments first. That
is the first step in speaking the truth, being true to yourself, and taking away the power that the chiefs have in influencing your thinking and decision-making process. That same power that causes you to hold back your truth for they might find it unsavoury and you will bear the full force of the cancel hammer.

Just like we look back and determine that society was backward, many years from now, our grandchildren will also speak on our actions and agree we were backward and that is the beauty of life. Thus, feel free to be progressively backward and unsullied in your thinking, speech, and lifestyle for no matter how you live your life, society will evolve and your way of life will never fit the standards.