Yesterday I wrote on what I see as changes through our/my history of what is "canceled" and what is not.
I've a metaphor:
Think of society in history as being reduced to a map in some way. Then the boundaries of what's included and what's not can be represented by a low resolution magnifying glass help over the map, a glass which brings some aspects to the fore and doesn't recognize other aspects. But over time the glass moves around, adding and subtracting things to look at.
I'm taking "cancel culture" as a generic process of society expressing disapproval of certain things, putting things outside the bounds of what used to be called "polite society". There should be a term for the opposite phenomena; society changing boundaries to bring things inside--in other words inclusion versus exclusion.
In my youth, Carlin's seven words were excluded. Judging by the NYTimes some are excluded because obsolete, some are no longer excluded.
References to certain sex acts (or maybe all acts outside of "missionary position") were excluded. Now all are included, as are all sexual propensities.
Profanity in its original meaning, cursing, particularly when related to Christianity, was excluded. Profanity which might offend religious people of another faith was more borderline. These days offensive words are excluded, though the curses which relate to Christianity (i.e., "god damn" etc.) are included.
