Adrian Daub

A spectre is haunting Europe, indeed the whole world – the spectre of Cancel Culture. According to various newspapers, white men over forty in particular are no longer allowed to say anything if they don’t want to risk their reputation or even their job. Is there any truth in this? Or is it often a case of scaremongering, in which activists are stylized as a danger to the moral order in order to discredit their legitimate concerns?

Adrian Daub, born in Cologne in 1980, is a professor of comparative literature at Stanford University. He uses quantitative analysis to show how the phenomenon developed and was transferred to society at large: “People pick out a few anecdotes and pass them around, which also leads to a distorted perception in this country.”

In the series Democracy