Recent events in Utah have ignited debates about the prevalence of “cancel culture.”

Last year, when students learned that Charlie Kirk was planning to bring his “Prove Me Wrong” booth to campuses of Utah universities, limited public backlash sought to prevent it. Ultimately, Kirk was not prohibited from visiting campus by any Utah university.

More recently, author and educator Sharon McMahon was scheduled to be the commencement speaker at Utah Valley University. Though McMahon condemned the killing of Charlie Kirk, she also publicly criticized the positions for which Kirk routinely argued. As a result, some people loudly objected to her selection as speaker and successfully prevented her appearance.

The King’s English bookshop announced a promotion of Gov. Spencer Cox’s new book. Some expressed their disapproval, arguing Cox’s commitment to “disagreeing better,” which constitutes a significant component of his new book, is not something to which he is genuinely committed. They argued that his actions make it clear that he does not respect difference of opinion, especially when those opinions concern data centers. The King’s English canceled the promotion. Supporters of Cox cried “cancel culture!”

Many of my heroes were canceled. David Hume was repeatedly denied academic posts as a result of his reputation for skepticism and atheism. Baruch Spinoza was excommunicated from the Jewish community of Amsterdam for the positions he held. Socrates was executed by the Athenians for “corrupting the youth.”

All of this is to say that what we call “cancel culture” is nothing new. People from all ages and cultures have been “canceled” to lesser and greater degrees for their speech and behavior.

The term “cancel culture” isn’t precise enough to be useful. This is by design. A broad term like this encourages us to be intellectually lazy and politically distracted. Some behaviors we are inclined to call “cancel culture” are pernicious and rightly criticized. Others are perfectly reasonable examples of people facing consequences for bad behavior.

The idea that freedom of conscience is connected to respect for human dignity is a great inheritance from Enlightenment thinking. Freedom of expression is closely related to freedom of conscience — our ability to believe what we want doesn’t go very far if we aren’t also free to express what we believe. It’s important to realize, however, that belief formation in most contexts isn’t individualistic; it’s deeply social. The norms in play aren’t simply epistemic — they’re not just the norms of knowledge — there are also social and moral norms at play. We have obligations to one another as believers and as speakers.

One way we could approach recent events is to bemoan cancel culture. Did people try to cancel Charlie Kirk? Did they cancel Sharon McMahon? Did they cancel Gov. Cox?

These are distracting and profoundly unhelpful questions.

We are already strongly psychologically inclined to form beliefs on the basis of tribalism rather than evidence. While transfixed by “cancel culture” rhetoric, we miss the opportunity to reason together about what to believe. We should, instead, be asking questions like, “What role do the state’s public universities play in public discourse?”, “What room should we make in educational spaces for controversial or unpopular ideas?”, and “What deliberative obligations do elected figures have to their constituents?”

We often use “cancel culture” as a label to end discussion — to do a little politically motivated “meta” canceling.

A more pernicious form that “cancel culture” takes has wider ranging consequences. We are often so distracted by politicized interpersonal “cancel culture” online that we fail to pay sufficient attention to the speech our own elected officials are preventing.

In George Orwell’s “1984,” one of the central tools of the authoritarian regime is control of speech and of language itself. They redefine words and attempt to restrict the overall number of words in the language. They know that literacy is liberation, and they seek to prevent it. If you can’t say it, you can’t stop it.

The Utah Legislature has, in recent years, attempted to prescribe to us what our beliefs should be regarding race, gender, biological sex and sexual orientation. The authoritarian regime in “1984” uses repetition to impress upon the people that “War is peace.” “Ignorance is strength.” “Freedom is slavery.”

Similarly, through repetition, we are being habituated to believe “Inclusion is discrimination.” Underfunding the humanities and social sciences, restricting the autonomy of the professoriate and limiting requirements for degrees advances the goal of depriving people of the language they need to name what is happening.

The nebulous meaning of “cancel culture” encourages us to focus anxieties about limitations of freedom of conscience and expression on the behaviors of anonymous online bullies or political rivals instead of on their most formidable and persistent threat — those in power.

Rachel Robison-Greene is an assistant professor of philosophy at Utah State University. Her recent work is on topics related to ethics and technology.

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Correction • May 25, 7:30 p.m.: This has been corrected to reflect that Gov. Cox was not scheduled to appear at The King’s English.