Kim Iversen and Dr. Chloe Carmichael Unpack Cancel Culture's Devastating Impact on Mental Health and Free Speech
Enjoying this? Share it with someone who needs to see it.
Up Next
Nate Freedman Confronts College Students About Charlie Kirk Assassination to Expose Campus Attitudes Toward Political Violence
29:02
Fraser Myers Examines the Charlie Kirk Assassination and the Dark Politics of Violence
38:33
A Former Liberal Natalie Beisner Reflects on Political Violence, Free Speech, and Why America Changed Forever
16:48
Kim Iversen and Dr. Chloe Carmichael Unpack Cancel Culture's Devastating Impact on Mental Health and Free Speech
Kim Iversen sits down with clinical psychologist Dr. Chloe Carmichael to examine the crisis of cancel culture and self-censorship gripping America. With nearly nine out of 10 Americans admitting they self-censor at work, with friends, and even with family, the conversation explores whether we're truly free if speaking your mind can cost you everything. Dr. Carmichael, author of Can I Say That? Why Free Speech Matters and How to Use It Fearlessly, reveals the hidden mental health costs of staying silent and why authentic expression is essential for genuine social support. From the difference between legal free speech and cultural norms to the weaponization of accountability on both the left and right, this discussion confronts the uncomfortable truths about how cancel culture is poisoning our relationships and democracy itself.
In America today, people are more afraid of saying the wrong word than committing the wrong act. Polls show nearly nine out of 10 Americans admit they self-censor, biting their tongue at work, with friends, even with family. Cancel culture isn't just coming from the left anymore—it's also on the right. From college campuses to corporate boardrooms to conservative churches, Americans everywhere are holding back their true thoughts and feelings.
Kim Iversen addresses the fundamental question: Are we really free if speaking your mind can cost you your job, your reputation, or even your relationships? Or is this just accountability at work?
Legal Free Speech Versus Cultural Free Speech
Dr. Chloe Carmichael, a clinical psychologist, best-selling author, and speaker, joins the conversation to dissect these critical issues. Her latest book, Can I Say That? Why Free Speech Matters and How to Use It Fearlessly, tackles the crisis of cancel culture, self-censorship, and how it's poisoning our mental health and democracy.
Dr. Carmichael emphasizes the importance of defining terms clearly. "Uncertainty always increases anxiety," she explains. "So I think it's important to really define our terms and have certainty and clarity about what exactly we mean by free speech and the First Amendment."
There is a legal definition of free speech—the government cannot throw you in jail for your words. However, Dr. Carmichael points out the sinister aspects of government involvement when platforms like YouTube, Meta, and Twitter were secretly pressured to censor and deplatform users. "What happened then is we got what's called a false sense of social consensus," she says. "If it's 2021 and you go on Twitter and you want to say a man cannot become a woman, you would think that you're the only person who would say that because they were deplatforming, sometimes even secretly, people that were saying things about COVID."
The Accountability Argument
Iversen challenges the common defense of cancel culture: that it's not a free speech issue but simply accountability. People on both the left and right use this argument—the government isn't coming after you, private citizens and employers are, and they have the right to respond to speech they find objectionable.
While there's merit to the idea that society should regulate certain behaviors, Iversen identifies a logical conundrum. "A lot of me says free speech should be cultural, should be ingrained in our culture," she explains. "We should as Americans, it doesn't matter if the government's coming after you or not and the legal definition of free speech, we as a culture should embrace free speech because that's what a free people do."
Yet she acknowledges the complexity when considering issues like pornography and Only Fans, which are technically protected as free expression but have destructive effects on families, relationships, and young women's mental health. "This is where things get tricky," Iversen admits. "You want society to have pressure to say that behavior is not good, but you don't want the government doing that to you."
Pornography and Free Expression
Dr. Carmichael reveals a surprising fact: pornography was not always considered speech. "There's a big difference between freedom of expression and freedom of speech," she explains. "The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech. And then I think it was somewhere in like the 1970s that porn got rolled into that under freedom of expression, even though it actually is not really about speech."
Iversen has never understood why pornography was placed under free speech or free expression. She tries to apply a litmus test: "You're not allowed to have sex in public like in a public park. So how is it free speech?"
Dr. Carmichael clarifies that the public performance test isn't necessarily the right standard, using the example that while you can say "women are stupid," you cannot use a megaphone to repeat it over and over outside a Girl Scouts meeting because that would be harassment. The regulation of public spaces doesn't automatically determine whether something qualifies as speech.
Social Media as the Modern Public Square
The conversation turns to social media and Section 230, which designates platforms as not being private publishers. "Whatever you could say legally in the public square, so to speak, you're supposed to be able to say legally on social media," Dr. Carmichael explains. "They're not really supposed to regulate beyond that. And that includes quote misinformation."
She gives an example: "If I want to stand on a street corner and say blueberries will make your hair grow, I can say that. And I could say it on social media too, even if it's quote misinformation."
Cancel Culture on Both Sides
Iversen expresses disappointment at seeing cancel culture tactics now being employed by the right, mirroring what the left has done for years. She mentions Scott Pressler conducting what she describes as a complete cancel culture campaign, hunting people down and asking for videos and information to expose them.
"It started off with something that many people in society would agree is abhorrent speech," Iversen says, referring to people celebrating violence against Charlie Kirk. "But then it kind of evolved into look, they just hate Republicans. And it was like, okay, they're allowed to hate Republicans all they want."
Dr. Carmichael draws a distinction between different categories of speech. Celebrating political assassination—an illegal act—is different from having opinions about election interference, transgender issues, or COVID vaccines, where "reasonable minds can disagree."
She discloses her position: "I was at a Turning Point USA event this past summer. I happen to like Charlie Kirk. I think a lot of the talk about him as a racist is not true." However, she notes that Charlie Kirk himself would never want to stop people from saying they believe he's a racist. "But to me, it crosses the Rubicon when you start literally celebrating political violence."
The Complexity of What Society Should Regulate
Iversen pushes back with examples that complicate the picture. When Paul Pelosi was attacked with a hammer, many people on the right mocked him. People on both sides celebrate deaths in conflicts like Gaza and Ukraine—whether it's IDF soldiers or Palestinians, Russian soldiers or Ukrainian soldiers.
"As a society, we don't regulate that," Iversen observes. "We don't have that same visceral reaction to the people who celebrate this. We just think we're on two sides of a different war."
Dr. Carmichael offers a counterpoint: celebrating violence against Paul Pelosi or Charlie Kirk is different from reactions to war casualties because these are cases of "vigilante violence" by random citizens, whereas Ukraine-Russia and Gaza-Israel involve actual declared wars with rules of engagement. While celebrating any death is disturbing, she argues these are different categories.
The Mental Health Cost of Self-Censorship
Dr. Carmichael shifts the focus to everyday people who feel pressured to stay silent not because of legal concerns but because they don't want to "make waves" or be "uninvited to the barbecue."
"What I want people to know is that there's actually a mental health cost to that," she emphasizes. Many people, especially women, avoid confrontation by keeping their views to themselves. "I thought well what does it matter if you just keep your views to yourself," Dr. Carmichael admits of her own past thinking. "But if you're coming to the point where people in your life that are supposed to know you don't really know what you really think about certain topics, and then they go around saying things right in front of your face that trash people with your point of view in part because they don't even know that you have that point of view—what's happening is that it's degrading the quality of your social support."
Social support and good relationships are essential for mental health. When people don't feel safe expressing themselves because their relationships feel too fragile, "it's a very anxiety-provoking way to live your life and it deprives you of true genuine solid social support."
Emotional Regulation and Authentic Expression
Language and naming our feelings is how we perform emotional regulation, Dr. Carmichael explains. "When we're just holding all of that inside, we can really start to get in suppression, repression, denial." These are commonplace psychology terms, but people aren't necessarily applying them to the cancel culture conversation.
"We don't want to be cancelling ourselves, so to speak, by holding back," she says. She also realizes that if she doesn't make it clear to people in her life that she still wants them around even if they disagree with her, they might be holding back around her. "I don't want that either. I want everyone to be able to be themselves."
Finding Balance: Healthy Self-Restraint
Dr. Carmichael clarifies that she's not advocating for people to abandon all filters. Her book includes a chapter on healthy self-restraint. "There's nothing wrong with being judicious about when and where and how you express yourself," she notes.
The key is finding the balance between thoughtful communication and self-censorship driven by fear. The goal is creating relationships and a culture where authentic expression is possible, where disagreement doesn't mean dissolution of relationships, and where people can know and be known for who they truly are.
Comments
Be the first to comment on this video.