Elon Musk shows us how to kill cancel culture once and for all

Elon Musk knows how to end cancel culture.

Earlier this month, a member of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team, Marko Elez, resigned after the Wall Street Journal reported that the young DOGE staffer once posted “to a deleted social-media account that advocated racism and eugenics.” The story primarily focused on the DOGE’s efforts and offered little evidence to support the serious accusation, giving readers only two examples.

For liberals angry over the DOGE’s mission to uncover and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars, the story proved to be confirmation that Musk is operating a rogue campaign with immature and inexperienced loyalists.

A watershed moment?

What happened after Elez’s resignation may prove to be a turning point that erodes cancel culture.

It began when Vice President JD Vance spoke up.

“Here’s my view: I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life,” Vance said. “We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back. If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.”

That prompted Musk to promise Elez’s return — for an important reason.

“He will be brought back,” Musk vowed. “To err is human, to forgive divine.”

Forgiveness over punitive exile

What Musk said cannot be emphasized enough. He has, in fact, highlighted the fundamental problem with cancel culture: the absence of forgiveness and redemption.

Understanding this is key to ending cancel culture once and for all.

If our culture fails to forgive, our society will collapse under the weight of our own hypocrisy.

In the social media age, cancel culture has become a popular tactic of the easily outraged. When a small corner of the internet is angry over the words or actions of the victim, those people demand the accused be boycotted and shunned — and even fired from his job. Unfortunately, employers all too often bend the knee and comply with the aggrieved because they don’t want online controversy to impact business.

But we must understand what cancel culture does: It seizes on the worst moment of a person’s life and forces him to pay for his alleged sin.

This phenomenon is almost unrecognizable in real life. We intuitively know that (in most cases) one mistake, one misstep, one taken-out-of-context act of speech should not result in perpetual exile.

And yet, cancel culture exists. Why?

The power of digital ‘reality’

Perhaps it is because social media exists in a disembodied reality that lures us to do and say things that we would never say or do in real life. Just one scroll through any online comments section proves this to be true.

From that perspective, it’s easy to see why cancel culture advocates feel no empathy for their victims. The aggrieved forget the humanity of their victims. Even worse, the aggrieved forget their own humanity. They forget that every person — themselves included — has done or said something that some corner of the internet would demand cancellation for.

But real life isn’t punitive like cancel culture.

When I make a mistake in real life, my friends don’t organize a mob and demand that my employer hold me accountable. Rather, I am provided space for correction, opportunity to express remorse, and a chance to seek amends.

Most mistakes, no matter how egregious, don’t define us. Rather, it is our response to error that speaks volumes.

In his book “Mere Christianity,” C.S. Lewis writes about an “important paradox”: the connection between mercy and justice. “Mercy, detached from justice, grows unmerciful,” he warns.

If he were writing about cancel culture, Lewis might have written, “Justice, detached from mercy, grows unjust.”

Mercy, in the case of cancel culture, is forgiveness. Cancel culture, therefore, is never about justice — only unmerciful punishment. But where there is forgiveness, there is accountability, grace, and redemption.

Christian foundations

The beauty of Musk’s response is not only its emphasis on the connection between mistakes and forgiveness but that forgiveness is divine.

Alexander Pope, an 18th-century poet, wrote the words that Musk tweeted. Pope was a devout Christian, which means his use of “divine” is a clear reference to God — not any random divine force. The allusion to God is important because Christianity places unique emphasis on forgiveness. It is central to God’s redemptive mission in and through Jesus Christ.

Forgiveness, moreover, is a central theme in Jesus’ teaching. It’s in the Lord’s prayer and His instruction to the disciples, and He beautifully petitioned God the Father to forgive His executioners as He died a brutal death on the cross. The apostle Paul, meanwhile, exhorts Christians to forgive “just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32).

The way forward

The blueprint for ending cancel culture is found in Musk’s response. We don’t ignore mistakes, for that dodges accountability. But we don’t define people by their worst mistakes, either. Instead, we offer them something divine, something that is of God: forgiveness, grace, and redemption.

If our culture fails to forgive, our society will collapse under the weight of our own hypocrisy. Remember the words of Jesus, “For you will be judged by the same standard with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure you use” (Matthew 7:2).

The path forward — one that ends with cancel culture’s demise — requires us to deny the bloodthirsty digital mob. It requires acknowledging that everyone makes mistakes, that we all have flaws, and that, indeed, we are all sinners. God, in and through the person of Jesus Christ, has shown us the way forward.

Cancel culture is destructive. But forgiveness — and following God’s path to life — builds something better. God, with His unfathomable grace, forgives repentant sinners and offers them redemption. We should go and do likewise.

This is how we end cancel culture once and for all.