It is fitting that I’m writing this article for C2C Journal. It was just over two years ago that I was cancelled and fired by the Government of Alberta for a book review I wrote 13 years earlier on these very pages. Since that time, my partner and I have suffered from a variety of physical and mental ailments precipitated by the crisis. We also lost our home and are still struggling to rebuild our finances.
Battling depression as well as loss of reputation and income, I decided to fight my cancellation for writing by continuing to write, talk and challenge the cancel mob. Since December 2023 I’ve written numerous book reviews about cancellation and wokism, discussed legal responses to cancellation events at public forums and published several articles in the United States, Canada and Israel on a range of related subjects, from the social theory of cancellation to why a gaggle of Alberta law professors deserve a “C” for their analysis of the law surrounding encampments on university campuses. (All these published writings are available through my LinkedIn page.)
This article summarizes one of my recent academic works, a collection of three essays on the psychology of cancellation, the first part of which was recently published by the National Association of Scholars in the journal Academic Questions. I had two motivations in putting together this series. The first was to provide a scholarly assessment of the psychology and motivations of the parties engaged in a cancellation event.
The second goal was to rebut claims that cancel culture does not exist. Even in 2022 there were those arguing that the concept of “cancellation” was simply a matter of holding the powerful to account, or that “cancel culture” amounted to misdirection from those who were deservedly being held accountable, or that since some targets recovered from cancellation attempts (Taylor Swift being one example cited, with an apparently straight face), the process couldn’t be all that bad. By detailing the motivations behind such events, I wanted to show that cancellation does very much exist, that it is a pernicious phenomenon infecting public discourse, and that it presents regular and predictable patterns that can be identified, critiqued, defended against – and, I strongly believe – ultimately eliminated from society.
Disputing reality: Eager promoters of cancel culture, such as New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow (left) and Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (right), often deny the phenomenon’s existence. The personal experiences of Collin May prove otherwise. (Sources of photos: (top left) Moody College of Communication, Austin, Texas, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0; (top right) nrkbeta, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)
This summary of my three academic essays is intended to make their ideas available to a wider audience by providing readers with a ready-made outline of what drives cancellers to cancel, how targets of cancellation typically react, and how third parties participate in such cancellation events. By continuing to write and defy the cancel mob, my goal is to help future potential cancellation targets become better-prepared and thus contribute to the preservation and promotion of free speech and academic freedom.
Cancelling Thoughts
My cancellation followed on my appointment as the Chief of the Alberta Human Rights Commission (AHRC) on May 25, 2022. I had served as a part-time Commissioner with the AHRC for almost three years. In this role, I’d written over 40 published decisions and mediated an equal number of disputes. In terms of prior education, I hold degrees in political philosophy, religion and law (including the intellectual history of rights) from the University of Alberta, Harvard University, l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris, and Dalhousie Law School in Nova Scotia. I’ve worked as a lawyer in Alberta since 2010 and had previous work experience with the United Nations International Telecommunications Union and the International Red Cross, both in Geneva, Switzerland.
As with many cancellation events, mine involved a staggered three-part attack. First, on the day the Alberta government announced my appointment, Nigel Bankes, Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Calgary, questioned my qualifications to be Chief without mentioning any of my past relevant experience. This attack had little impact.
The next volley came in early July 2022 when Duncan Kinney, a leftist blogger in Edmonton, wrote a piece criticizing a book review I’d written for C2C in 2009. The book in question – Islamic Imperialism: A History – was by Efraim Karsh, a renowned historian of the contemporary Middle East, and published by the highly reputable Yale University Press.
In this phase of the attack, several members of the Alberta New Democratic Party caucus as well as a handful of political activists and the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) joined in criticizing the review. The NDP’s Justice Critic, Irfan Sabir, called my writing “overtly racist and Islamophobic”, while others claimed the book review contributed to violence against Black Muslim women in Alberta – well over a decade after its 2009 publication. At this stage, the Alberta government, despite assuring me that my review was not problematic, had me meet twice with representatives of the NCCM. (Also during this phase, C2C published a stout defence of my qualifications to be AHRC Chief and my right to engage in a thoughtful evaluation of the history of Islam.)
The final step in my cancellation came in mid-September 2022 when the NCCM, apparently unhappy that I had served Notices of Defamation on three bloggers/journalists, sent an open letter to Tyler Shandro, Alberta’s Minister of Justice, demanding my termination. At the same time, Lise Gotell, a professor of Womens (sic) and Gender Studies at the University of Alberta, publicly called for my removal as AHRC Chief, also commenting on my sexual orientation in the process. The Alberta government acquiesced and I was fired on September 15, 2022.
Defining Cancellation
As with any social phenomenon, the best way to begin is with a definition. With numerous contending definitions offered for cancel culture, I feel one of the easiest ways to gain clarity is by identifying key elements that are normally present during a true cancellation event. Several commentators have come up with consistently similar lists of what American crisis-communication expert Evan Nierman in his 2023 book The Cancel Culture Curse (co-authored by Mark Sachs) has referred to by the acronym CANDEM:
Collective [rather than individual] considered victim of the crime;
Arising and accelerating quickly;
Nature of the offense is trivial or fabricated;
Disproportionate response;
Everyone is afraid to defend the accused; and
Moral absolutism by those doing the cancelling.
Nierman’s six-point list mirrors a separate six-part definition proposed by Jonathan Rauch as outlined by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott in their book, The Canceling of the American Mind. This suggests cancel culture and cancellation events not only exist but are readily identifiable by their predictable pattern. This applies to the psychology of the parties as well as the sociology of cancellation generally. My focus here is on the psychology of cancellation, not on cancellation’s practical role as a weapon for the wider wokist/anti-racist/DEI movement.
Motivations of Cancellation
Drawing on the work of sociologist Harold Garfinkel, political scientist Luke Sheahan of Duquesne University in Pennsylvania has identified three parties in any cancellation event: the target, the cancellers, and the third-party witnesses. The main difference between these parties is that the target and the witnesses are reactive while the cancellers initiate and drive the event. Accordingly, we need to start with the psychology of the cancellers, as they tend to frame how the target and the witnesses react.
Helpfully, five corporate management organization scholars released a study this past April that deals directly with cancellers’ motivations. Entitled The association between political identity centrality and cancelling proclivity and published in Acta Psychologica, the study found that most cancellers demonstrate what the authors call a high “political centrality identity”. Such people understand themselves through the lens of their political commitments; politics means everything to them. As the study notes, it is this political zeal – rather than any altruistic concern for righting a wrong or protecting some allegedly marginalized community – that motivates them.
Political to the core: A 2024 study published in the academic journal Acta Psychologica reveals that most cancel-culture actors exhibit “political centrality identity”, or a strong sense of political affiliation, which forms their motivation for engaging in cancellation activities.
The authors surveyed 459 individuals and discerned two distinct groups among cancellers generally. First are those who initiate the cancellation through a calling-out approach, identifying the target and then inviting others from their in-group to join the attack. The second group participates through a piling-on mechanism that amplifies the attack across a range of social and news media platforms (and can also include harassment such as defacing of personal property or doxing of private information). Such an attack almost always includes demands that the target apologize and that third parties take specific actions such as terminating the target’s employment, ending business contracts with the target or deplatforming the target as a speaker or writer.
The study further found that both those who call-out and those who pile-on typically are highly partisan actors with strong political agendas. Political affiliation generally leads the cancellers to act on their ideological beliefs to the exclusion of other relevant concerns such as the truth of their allegations or the impact their behaviour will have on the target or the marginalized communities the cancellers claim to represent.
Bankes and Gotell have never written on or studied the history of Islam or its political form, and even the NCCM and Sabir demonstrated no significant knowledge of this specialized area. In short, they sought to educate me as the ‘ignorant other’ while covering over their own ignorance of the subject matter.
Finally, the Acta Psychologica study showed that cancellers engaged in calling-out activities are not acting for an altruistic purpose but are entirely absorbed by the desire to communicate internally with their own in-group – that is, to virtue-signal – assuming that their actions will raise their profile and esteem with those of a similar political ideology. “Our findings suggest that political identity centrality leads individuals to react more strongly to transgressions (demand harsher punishments, posting comments on social media, etc.), and this occurs through virtue signalling,” the authors note. “Thus the response to transgressions more broadly seems to be more about self-enhancing or signalling to in-group members rather than actually changing the situation in some way.”
Those who pile-on tend to act according to two motivations: what the study refers to as social vigilantism and self-efficacy. Social vigilantism is the effort by cancellers to demonstrate their moral superiority by dehumanizing the target. As the study states, “[T]he relationship between political identity centrality and calling out and piling on occurs through social vigilantism, wherein individuals feel a duty to correct the beliefs and behaviors of potentially ‘ignorant’ others.” The piling-on cancellers themselves, however, typically demonstrate limited knowledge of the topic in question, instead using cancellation as a means to cover over their own ignorance and help them simplify and manage complex political issues. Participating in cancellation campaigns thus aims to satisfy the canceller’s internal needs.
Turning to my own experience, the study’s findings accord perfectly with the actions of the small cabal that attacked me. All members of the cancelling party showed high political identity centrality. Professors Bankes and Gotell are avowed supporters of the Alberta NDP. Blogger Kinney is affiliated with the NDP through the Broadbent Institute. The NCCM has regularly appeared with NDP politicians during electoral campaigns and praises NDP positions on Gaza and the Middle East.
It is also easy, in the actions of Kinney and Bankes, to identify their in-group virtue signalling to those who engaged in calling-out my book review; Sabir, the NCCM and Gotell activated the piling-on mechanism. Of special note, and fully in line with the study’s findings, none of those engaged in my cancellation possessed an equivalent level of knowledge regarding the scholarly field I was engaged with in reviewing Karsh’s book. Bankes and Gotell have never written on or studied the history of Islam or its political form, and even the NCCM and Sabir demonstrated no significant knowledge of this specialized area. In short, they sought to educate me as the “ignorant other” while covering over their own ignorance of the subject matter.
Badgering the Target
This brings us to the target and a specific reaction that nearly always occurs during a cancellation event. In almost every instance the target of an attack responds by issuing a statement that ranges from expressing their commitment to work with their attackers to learn more about their alleged misdeeds to an outright apology. This apology can often be grovelling, with the target pleading for forgiveness and/or begging that their punishment be minimized. (There are rare exceptions to this pattern.)
This process can be compared to the false confession phenomenon, in which an accused will admit under interrogation to a crime they did not commit. Here I rely on the foundational work of Saul Kassin, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at City University of New York. Recall that one of the elements of the CANDEM definition outlined above is that the nature of the target’s offence is trivial or fabricated. Similarly, in the context of the false confession, the accused has done nothing criminal or has done something far less serious than his (or her) interrogators are alleging. There is a clear connection between the two scenarios.
Kassin identifies two types of false confession that are relevant here. One involves the accused admitting to a crime knowing he is innocent but doing so in the belief that this will bring the interrogation to an end. Central here is that the accused almost always believes his accusers’ motivations are just and that the legal system will ultimately prove his own innocence. In other words, the accused believes that truth will win out in the end. He admits to a crime he did not commit with the expectation that the system will eventually absolve him, regardless of any phony confession. Kassin refers to this as “the illusion of transparency”.
The second type of false confession involves an accused who comes to believe he is guilty of the offence due to efforts by the interrogators to introduce doubt into his mind, creating a sort of cognitive dissonance. In this scenario, a small inconsistency is exploited, or a falsehood is introduced by the interrogators to seed doubt and undermine the accused’s self-confidence.
The unfortunate result of these false confessions, as Kassin points out, is that the courts, media and the legal system generally accept them as legitimate; it is exceedingly difficult to refute a false confession once given.
The analogies to the cancellation dynamic are clear, making this outline equally applicable to cancellation events. In my case, I was required to meet with the NCCM, who had initially portrayed themselves as willing to assist me with the Muslim community they claimed to represent. That the Alberta government did nothing to support me during these meetings or even determine the legitimacy of the NCCM’s claim to represent the diverse Muslim community in Alberta demonstrates how readily targets can be exposed to hostile interrogators. And so the NCCM asked me for an apology.
I failed to appreciate that my cancellers were involved essentially in an in-group action to bolster their own status which, perhaps paradoxically, made the target’s response almost irrelevant.
As I knew that my book review was a legitimate academic undertaking and not offensive on that basis, I refused to apologize. But under pressure from the NCCM and the Alberta government, I did provide a statement. It reads, in part, “I commit to continuing my personal education about Islam, and all faiths, in my role as Chief. Working with representatives from the National Council of Canadian Muslims, I will be meeting with leaders in Alberta’s Muslim community to learn more about their lived experiences in Alberta and to work towards overcoming discrimination against the Islamic community.”
As with the falsely accused in the criminal context, I mistakenly believed in the efficacy of truth, thinking that my conciliatory statement would contribute to disarming the attack. As it turned out, the statement did nothing to extract me from the cancellation event; instead, it was used against me. On the one hand, I was unaware of the cancellation dynamic described in the previous section, in which my attackers were engaged in virtue-signalling and social vigilantism that could not be appeased by any apology or statement. Again, I failed to appreciate that my cancellers were involved essentially in an in-group action to bolster their own status which, perhaps paradoxically, made the target’s response almost irrelevant. On the other hand, I also believed that third parties would not be complicit in my cancellation. That too was a mistake, but one consistent with how third-party witnesses often respond to cancellation events.
Betraying the Target
This brings us to the reactions of third-party witnesses who, in being drawn into the process, typically allow themselves to be coopted by the cancellers’ agenda. This involves betraying the target and perpetuating the initial harm of the cancellation attempt; and, at times, implementing the actual cancellation. As third parties are almost always institutional actors – universities, government agencies, corporations, media outlets, professional organizations, labour associations – I have drawn on the theory of institutional betrayal as developed by University of Oregon professors Jennifer Freyd and Carly Smith to explain this phenomenon.
While institutional betrayal is complex, it basically consists of, as Freyd and Smith write, “individual experiences of violations of trust and dependency perpetrated against any member of an institution in a way that does not necessarily arise from an individual’s less-privileged identity.” [Emphasis added] In short, institutional betrayal involves an institution targeting an individual who relies upon or is required to trust that institution.
The LSA, an organization to which I must belong as a lawyer, thus perpetuated the original harm caused by the cancellers and did so based on the extorted statement I had provided as a target.
In this scenario, the target has generally been harmed by a separate perpetrator, but when the target seeks help or protection from the trusted institution, the institution betrays the target by alleging that the target is responsible for the harm. Usually, the perpetrator claims to be the victim, resulting in a turning of the tables on the target through what Freyd and Smith call the “DARVO” technique: Deny, Accuse, and Reverse Victim & Offender. The perpetrator uses victimhood culture to cover their own nefarious actions against the target and, rather than defending the target, the institution perpetuates the damage by acquiescing to the perpetrator’s false claims. I’ve dubbed these false claims by the perpetrator “harm imaginary”.
Institutional betrayal theory is highly applicable in the cancellation context where a third-party witness, often an employer or trusted institution, accepts the canceller’s contrived claims of victimhood and colludes with the canceller to further harm the target by terminating his employment, deplatforming him, refusing to represent/aid him or otherwise blaming or abandoning the target.
Again, my own experience demonstrates this. And although I was terminated by the Alberta government at the NCCM’s behest, an even clearer example of institutional betrayal occurred separately and later. I was interviewed by the Calgary Police Service (CPS) during the cancellation process regarding my treatment and the possibility of criminal defamation on the part of my cancellers. As many of the individuals involved in my cancellation were lawyers, the CPS referred me to the Law Society of Alberta (LSA) to potentially make a complaint against one or more lawyers.
Due to statutory limitations, I cannot reveal which lawyers I cited to the LSA nor can I go into the details of the proceedings. What I can state is that the LSA went far beyond merely dismissing my complaints. Specifically, the LSA focused on my public statement quoted above to implicate me in the harm caused by the cancellers, stating that it demonstrated “the degree to which Mr. May himself is to blame for his predicament.” The LSA, an organization to which I must belong as a lawyer, thus perpetuated the original harm caused by the cancellers and did so based on the extorted statement I had provided as a target. In effect, the LSA completed the dynamic circle of cancellation by confirming the false victimhood of the cancellers while referencing my own statement composed under the pressure of the cancellers and the third-party witness, the Alberta government.
In my opinion, the actions of the LSA constitute a textbook example of institutional betrayal. This, I should note, is an informed and expert opinion, as my appointment as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Calgary was related to my expertise on secondary harms caused by institutional betrayal by professional regulators.
Calling Out the Cancellers
My goal in researching the psychology of cancellation has been to show a clear and interlinked pattern to cancel culture. The research reveals how cancellers, defined by their political identity, engage in acts of virtue-signalling through a calling-out process that is reciprocated by additional, secondary cancellers virtue-signalling through a further process of piling-on to attack and shame the “ignorant other” as target. The targets respond through extorted statements or apologies modeled on false criminal confessions, wrongly believing in the illusion of transparency which mistakenly holds that truth will win out. One or more third-party witnesses then validates the cancellers’ imagined harm and, often referring to the targets’ extorted statement/apology, engages in an act of institutional betrayal, often by blaming the target for the cancellation.
By identifying these consistent and familiar patterns, it should be clear that cancel culture certainly does exist. And that far from being an effort by marginalized groups to hold targets accountable for hateful behaviour or speech, it is rather a toxic in-group effort whose psychological dimension is to distort and leverage legitimate speech and academic work to bolster an activist’s standing within their own politically motivated circle. On this standard alone – even leaving aside cancel culture’s broader ideological aspect and use as a weapon by organized political groups – it is something that society should condemn and seek to dismantle.
While I have addressed the psychological motivations of cancellation in my work, there are several other validating perspectives to consider. These include the sociology of cancellation as an elite event as described recently by Musa al-Gharbi in his book, We Have Never Been Woke. Similarly, Eric Kaufmann of the University of Buckingham in his book, The Third Awokening has identified the historical precedents to our current era of cancellation. And finally, on the level of theory, Kaufmann and Yascha Mounk in The Identity Trap have highlighted the philosophical theories of progressive illiberalism (aka wokism) that are used to justify the cancellers’ attacks on free speech and academic freedom.
I hope that my work on cancel culture – including this article – will help those now threatened with cancellation to better prepare and defend themselves. Knowing what comes next, and having insight into which responses work and which do not, should help future victims avoid the pitfalls awaiting them. We now have ample and reliable evidence with which to fight back against cancel culture. That we so often fail to do so is a testament to our lack of political and social courage in the face of this toxic and malevolent beast.
Collin May is a lawyer, adjunct lecturer in community health sciences with the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, and the author of a number of articles and reviews on the psychology, social theory and philosophy of cancel culture.
Source of main image: Shutterstock.