Like a Flock of Demons Released Upon the World

“Cancel culture” is one of those modern, politically charged terms that get thrown around so often they become easy to dismiss. One is tempted to toss it into the bin of overused-and-functionally-meaningless phrases, alongside “alt-right” and “woke.” Is cancel culture merely a figment of the FOX-watching, gun-toting, Trump-bedazzled MAGA imagination? Or else is it the go-to tactic of every MSNBC-binging, craft-brewing vegan with a Karen complex? When Florida conservatives banned Students for Palestine groups from the state’s college campuses recently, did that count as cancel culture? Into this morass of cultural noise, a new book has arrived, claiming to sort out what’s what.