The Death of Dialogue – The Psychological Cost of Cancel Culture
- Brainz Magazine
- Sep 29
- 5 min read
Updated: Sep 30
Emilia Valdez is the co-founder of DeMente, a mental health start-up focused on personal and professional development through workshops, group therapy and community reach-out programs. She works as a clinical psychologist in her private practice and collaborates as a professional in a foundation specialized in child abuse.
We live in a world where the fear of offending someone has become more powerful than the need to speak honestly. Cartoons are canceled, movies are erased, debates are silenced, people are killed, not because they cause real harm, but because someone might feel uncomfortable. While the intention is to create a safer, more inclusive society, the psychological reality is that cancel culture and hypersensitivity often have the opposite effect, they weaken resilience, stifle growth, and make younger generations less prepared to navigate the real world. The reality is that, in practice, cancel culture often fuels shame, anxiety, and silence instead of growth. From a psychological and neuroscience perspective, the consequences run deeper than many realize.
Discomfort is not danger
Psychology teaches us that not all negative emotions are harmful. Feeling challenged, uncomfortable, or even offended can become growth opportunities if navigated correctly. Yet cancel culture often treats discomfort as if it were trauma.
Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, authors of The Coddling of the American Mind (2018), warn that shielding young people from discomfort leads to fragility, not strength. As they put it, we are raising generations under the mistaken belief that “what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.” The result? Higher anxiety, more depression, and fewer coping skills.
The problem with over-sensitivity
When every disagreement is labeled offensive, the meaning of true harm becomes diluted. Racism, harassment, and violence deserve zero tolerance. But canceling a cartoon, silencing a speaker for having a different opinion, or labeling harmless differences as “toxic” confuses danger with discomfort. It prevents people from focusing on truly harmful situations and hinders change by overcrowding conversations and calls to action. Eventually, people stop caring because everything is an attack, and at the same time, nothing is.
This has serious psychological consequences:
Lower tolerance for frustration. If children and young adults never face pushback, they don’t learn how to regulate emotions.
Loss of resilience. Just as the immune system grows stronger by fighting off small infections, the brain strengthens by facing manageable stressors (a principle known as stress inoculation). Remove all challenges, and people become more anxious, not less.
Fear of dialogue. If every differing view is a threat, meaningful conversations disappear.
Minimization of real problems. People become tired of hearing the boy cry wolf.
What the brain tells us about growth
The brain is built to grow through challenge. Neuroplasticity research (Doidge, 2007) shows that new pathways form when we encounter resistance and adapt. Discomfort is the raw material of resilience.
On the other hand, when we treat every offense as trauma, the amygdala (the brain’s alarm system) stays overactive. At the same time, the prefrontal cortex, which handles reasoning and empathy, doesn’t get the chance to practice navigating tough conversations. In other words, protecting people from discomfort actually stunts their emotional maturity.
Even more so, neuroimaging reveals visible differences in brain structure, function, and connectivity between individuals who are resilient and better adapted to face adversity and those who are not. For instance, studies have found larger gray and white matter volume and enhanced capability to form new neurons (neurogenesis) in the hippocampus, a region involved in memory and contextual processing, in resilient people. A stronger hippocampus enables individuals to distinguish more easily between real and perceived threats.
Further studies have also shown that resilient individuals exhibit stronger brain connectivity, a higher degree of neuroplasticity, and a healthier balance of neurotransmitters, among other benefits for overall functioning and health.
In simple terms, facing adversity and overcoming frustration, problems, and uncomfortable situations in a resilient way makes your brain stronger and more effective than not facing any inconveniences at all.
The real-world cost of cancel culture
Some authors have found that fear of being canceled leads to self-censorship, heightened anxiety, and avoidance of open discussion. Harvard Business Review reported similar findings in workplaces, where employees now withhold ideas out of fear of offending others, undermining creativity and innovation.
This isn’t just about social media drama, it’s shaping entire cultures of fear. When young people are taught that offense equals danger, they step into the real world underprepared for conflict, diversity of thought, or adversity.
Yes, people must be mindful of their words, and free speech is not a green light to verbally abuse others. But part of growing up is understanding that people are allowed to question, disagree, and have different experiences and opinions without it becoming a personal offense toward you as an individual. The fact that it’s a free world goes both ways.
Drawing the line: Accountability vs. Fragility
None of this means that harmful speech or violent behavior should be tolerated. Racism, harassment, and violence must be confronted and stopped. But cancel culture has extended far beyond accountability into fragility. It assumes that the solution to discomfort is erasure, and that’s when the damage begins.
True accountability fosters dialogue, repair, and growth. Fragility shuts it down. And without discomfort, there is no resilience.
Cancel culture prevents people from talking, learning, and growing. The goal of accountability should not be silence, but transformation. It is imperative to have meaningful conversations that allow for self-reflection. Real conversations inspire real change, whilst cancel culture leads to separation, hatred, and no change.
Since we are talking about self-reflection, I invite you to think about these:
Do you treat being uncomfortable as being unsafe?
How do you distinguish between real harm and a simple disagreement?
What challenges in your life made you stronger rather than weaker?
Can you think of a tough conversation that led to inner growth?
Final thought
The world cannot and should not be tailored to protect us from every offense.
Learning to navigate discomfort is essential for building strong, resilient minds. If we want future generations to thrive, we must teach them not to fear every disagreement, but to grow through it. Because safety should never signify fragility, it should symbolize strength.
Taking accountability is about making significant changes, not just silencing, shoving it under the rug, and pretending it doesn’t exist anymore.
Cancel culture doesn’t create better people, it creates quieter people. And those who yell “offense” to silence others just become more fragile and unprepared to deal with real-life challenges.
Learning about your own biases, blind spots, and preconceptions helps you become an improved version of yourself, to show up better for the people around you, and to continue growing as you go through life. Reflect on your opinions, give way to different perspectives, and open your mind to new ideas. Spark conversations with people who differ from your normality, or begin a therapeutic process to identify your shortcomings. Don’t be afraid of changing your ideas, embrace them, and evolve with every new insight you gain. Becoming better every day, that’s the purpose of life.
Read more from Emilia Valdez Münchmeyer
Emilia Valdez Münchmeyer, Msc. Clinical Psychologist
Emilia Valdez Münchmeyer is a leader in mental health. Primarily focused on neuroscience, she invests her time in learning and teaching how to understand, rewire, and reach the full potential of mental, emotional, and spiritual development. Her love for animals inspired her to be certified as an animal-assisted therapist to further connect with her patients and encourage healing in all areas needed. ¨Your true potential is hiding behind your fears and everything everyone told you you are¨.
