The Psychological Illness Behind Cancel Culture

The internet is full of trolls, drama queens, conspiracy theorists, and an army of cancel-ready soldiers. But in reality there are far more normal, kind, and wonderful people both in the world and online, and like I discuss in much of my work it is only that the former are just louder and more obnoxious that it even seems like there very many. For instance, a popular YouTube video challenging flat-earth nonsense has 1.7 million views, 72 thousand upvotes, and only 3 thousand down-votes. Only 4 percent of people who chose to vote the video are likely to be hostile to rational thought and common sense, which means that a whopping 96 percent of voters supported the video. When I first published my books I was terrified that people would complain about my limited writing skills and poor grammar and spelling. But in the five years that I have been running this website and selling my books not a single person has ever even mentioned my poor grammar and spelling. Homophobia too has been far more limited than I expected, especially from my intensely negative experiences growing up, wading into the public eye as an out gay man I thought would bring far more bigoted animosity in my direction than what has been the case, and I can cite only about four or five incidents out of the many thousands of interactions I have had surrounding my work which went that way. The outpouring of support, especially from straight men, has effectively relieved me of any anxiety about it.

Still, there are unfortunately those who enjoy animus and actively seek conflict and controversy, and this is because there is an actual psychological illness behind much of the animus which occurs in social platforms, which may be of use for others to understand since it often dictates the quality of social institutions and platforms, and having the unfortunate experience of being targeted or caught up in such behavior can be improved by understanding why it happens in the first place.

I once got into a twitter argument with someone over obesity. Well, I didn’t realize it was an argument until they called me racist for insisting that people that should not be fat shamed. Literally—I had defended people with weight problems to a celebrity who had fat-shamed people and my voluntary and unsolicited opponent offered that fat people should be ashamed of themselves and then when their clearly bigoted and judgmental arguments failed to best me just resorted to calling me racist because I was white, when we had never even broached skin color or race because we were talking about obesity, and neither had I employed any demeaning or derogatory language.

In my new book, The Perfect Child, I discuss the Karpman Drama Triangles model of psychological fracturing which occurs as a consequence of childhood abuse. This model was the first time I saw human psychological trauma accurately characterized and explained and I found it very useful in understanding my own experiences of trauma and those problems by which I was burdened as an adult which prevented me from finding fulfillment in relationships. It also accurately described those adults in my life responsible for my abuse and exactly how and why they behaved the way they did. The Karpman Drama Triangle model identifies three distinct personality types which result from experiences of psychological abuse which Dr. Steven Karpman describes as the victim, the persecutor, and the helper. The victim mentality is pretty self-explanatory, as is the persecutor type, and my book goes into much depth in how not only to identify these but also to resolve such psychological problems as well as the trauma from which they originate. These various psychological disturbances are also often plainly visible in the public sphere, and explain many of the problems which we face such as geopolitical disharmony, economic inequality, and socioeconomic conflict. But the helper personality type finds the internet a particularly abundant hunting ground for the expression of their neuroses and abuse, and it is this personality type which is largely responsible for unbridled and irrational cancel culture which can be so toxic in the online sphere.

Do not mistake the correct definition of cancel culture, though. Abusive and violent factions of society which wish to avoid the consequences of their actions are also very quick to cite cancel culture rather than their own behavior as the problem. Racists, bigots, grifters, liars, and other corrupt and malcontent persons should rightly be harangued for their behavior, and most political correctness which occurs in the public sphere is useful and helpful. Being a minority myself my life has been improved greatly since my youth by an increased awareness and compassion for the LGBTQI+ community which is a direct consequence of political correctness. I am able to enjoy platforms such as streaming, watching gamers and public personalities, and even being in public while almost never hearing homophobic pejoratives, unlike in my youth when such pejoratives were part of even liberal mainstream culture. But there also exists the kind of overzealous gate-keeping and cancel-culture which is exploitive, wrong, and opportunistic and lacking in compassion and kindness which proves a challenge to those who actually want to make the world a better place. Many of these people even antagonize allies merely because an opportunity to indulge their self-centered narcissism presents itself. One streamer I enjoy watching who is an exemplary ally for the LGBTQI+ community was unjustly harassed by a sector of the internet for scheduling a streaming event on the same day as Lesbian Awareness Day which even I, an activist gay man did not even know was a thing. The streamer’s audience is majority lesbian, gay, and transgender because he is such an ally, and such exploitative behavior towards allies is extremely harmful for our rights and safety anyway since choosing faithful allies as the objects of scorn and disdain will always make fewer of them. Indeed the rabble rousers in such moments are not always even from the community which is supposedly affected. There is a healthy population of people in our country and in the world who think they are fighting for equality and fairness but are only picking fights with those who are well-meaning simply because they have access to such people and opportunity to exploit their vulnerability. Such persons are some of the most virulent of abusers and their personal lives are likely weighed down heavily with interpersonal conflict and animus.

The reason that the helper personality type which Karpman describes is the origin of such conflicts is that the helper believes they have no self worth or value unless they are of use to other people. Such persons were often the inbetween during family conflicts, often acting as mediator or intermediary, or even identified as the “peacemaker.” This psychological orientation sounds almost altruistic, except that because the helper type subconsciously believe they have no value if they are not of use to humanity, they in truth have no real interest in actually helping or solving disputes, and need conflict and animus in order to find meaning in their personal identity. Thus acting they often engender much resentment and conflict in their social interactions, and because the online world offers a large degree of buffering from real life consequences to their behavior it becomes a perfect world for indulging their psychological illness, especially since they can justify their behavior with claims of being a social warrior.

The most obvious hallmark of the helper personality type is one who disparages others in the guise of being politically correct. For instance, when someone fat-shames, is racist, or does or says something which is wrong, telling that person what they did was wrong is the correct course of action. The helper will, however, come out and disparage the person rather than their actions, often mercilessly or with much self-righteousness and condescension, even when it is apparent that the person did something by mistake. This is a common abuse tactic which is especially difficult to identify because many conflicts do actually originate from antisocial behavior and something which is actually wrong. But it is in occasions such as this in which the saying “two wrongs don’t make a right” was coined, and the helper type of abuser hides out especially well amongst such conflicts, exploiting it or even manufacturing conflict in order to feed their poor sense of self.

If you are someone who identifies with this kind of behavior, you are not alone. Most of us have unresolved experiences of abuse and trauma which make us susceptible to such self-defeating behaviors and strategies which attempt to help us feel in control of life. But like all kinds of abusive and exploitative behavior it will only get you more stress and poor self-esteem because you are looking outside yourself for validation, and you can and must stop and work on resolving the past pain and trauma which you use such occasions to avoid your unresolved psychological problems.

Because helpers thrive off conflict, the best way to neuter their power is really just to avoid them. When people begin to pile on someone for something which is an honest mistake or not deserving of such vitriol, they are doing it because they want you to respond, to give them a sense of power and validation. Doing so does nothing to stop this behavior, but outright ignoring them would. The helper is perhaps one of the hardest psychological fracturing to escape because other humans so readily engage them in their behavior and thus embolden and validate it. The helper above all fears being useless, unengaged, and alone, so ignoring them as a consequence of their behavior is the only way to communicate that their behavior is not acceptable.

In reality those who engage in cancel culture of people who are undeserving of it are every bit as heartless, abusive, and exploitative as any other openly heinous actor. There is nothing noble in hurting people for making mistakes, inflaming tensions, and engendering animosity. By all means stand up to those who are truly in the wrong, but first ask yourself if you might be exactly the kind of person you are trying to cancel.

The Perfect Child dives deep into psychological illness and the effects of child abuse and how to recover from those effects. Politics being a primary theme at the moment, you may be interested in reading about other political issues which originate from psychological illness. Having a fractured sense of self also disposes us to intense fear, which you can learn to resolve and recover from.