On canceling
Or, on the quiet dangers of silencing art in a free society.
Recently, I did something very first-world.
I canceled my Apple TV subscription.
I’ve been a consumer of Apple products for nearly fifteen years and have always admired their stance on privacy and the beauty of their design.
Suffice it to say, Apple TV has been a staple in my life.
As someone who doesn’t own a television or subscribe to other streaming services, Apple TV represented quality storytelling—its dramas, thrillers, and sci-fi series often among the best available.
But recently, I was disappointed by Apple’s decision to delay its upcoming series The Savant.
Helmed by Jessica Chastain and inspired by a story in Cosmopolitan, the series was meant to shed light on white extremist ideology and politically motivated violence in the United States.
While Apple cited a range of reasons for the delay—just days before its September 26 premiere—many noted the timing: a charged national climate, with figures like Charlie Kirk, Jimmy Kimmel, and former President Trump dominating the news cycle.
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When Television Took Risks
As a child of the ’70s and ’80s, I remember watching reruns of All in the Family.
Centered on the life of the curmudgeonly Archie Bunker, the show became a ratings powerhouse and spawned several spinoffs—Maude, The Jeffersons, Good Times.
Archie was a veteran of World War II—an unapologetic bigot and misogynist—and people loved him.
While some criticized CBS for airing such a polarizing character, the show broke new ground in its portrayal of antisemitism, religion, divorce, racism, and other previously untouchable subjects.
What many forget is that creator Norman Lear prefaced each episode with a simple statement:
“The program you are about to see is All in the Family. It seeks to throw a humorous spotlight on our frailties, prejudices, and concerns. By making them a source of laughter, we hope to show—in a mature fashion—just how absurd they are.”
That framing mattered.
It gave audiences permission to laugh—and to think.
Regrettably, today we seem far removed from that attitude.
Apple’s decision, beyond the politics of the moment, reveals something more fragile in our cultural fabric: a growing hesitation to challenge extremist views through art.
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Oregon’s Long Shadow
As an immigrant child raised in Oregon, I understood early the consequences of silence.
Racism—and the violence it inspires—has a long history there.
From its earliest days, Oregon’s constitution sought to exclude people of color from settling in the state.
Black Americans were explicitly barred from migrating west during the 1840s and ’50s.
That legal exclusion evolved into symbolic exclusion: redlining neighborhoods, denying access to loans and property, and cultivating a monoculture of thought.
By the 1920s, Oregon held one of the largest Ku Klux Klan memberships west of the Mississippi.
Its members helped pass an anti-Catholic education law that effectively outlawed parochial schools—institutions that served immigrants and families of color seeking opportunity.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) struck down that law, recognizing it for what it was: an act of bigotry disguised as civic virtue.
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The 1980s: When Hate Came Home
Decades later, the pattern repeated.
Following the collapse of the timber economy in the 1980s, economic frustration fueled a new generation of extremist groups—white supremacists, militias, and skinheads who saw Oregon as fertile ground for their ideology.
It took the brutal murder of an Ethiopian immigrant, Mulugeta Seraw, in Portland in 1988 to force a reckoning.
In the early to mid 1990s, skinhead presence was common at local music venues.
Places like La Luna [where I worked as bouncer], Satyricon, and the Roseland Theater each had difficulties with skinheads at shows open to the public.
Among the skinheads, there existed an unspoken code in order to “boast” of their place in the movement: if someone wore white shoelaces in their Dr. Martens, it meant “white pride.”
Red laces were worse—they meant blood had been spilled for the cause.
As bouncers, we watched closely.
Most nights were calm.
Some were not.
But what stands out now is how ordinary the vigilance felt—how natural it seemed to scan a room for signs of hate and bigotry.
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The Marketplace of Ideas
I understand Apple’s decision, even if I don’t agree with it.
That is, after all, the beauty of dissent.
As conservative writer David Brooks recently observed in The Atlantic:
“One way to tell if you’re living in an autocracy is by asking this question: Do people feel free to express their dissent?”
We’re not living in an autocracy—but we are living in an age of pressure on free expression, particularly in art and media.
As Toni Morrison once said:
“All good art is political! There is none that isn’t. And the ones that try hard not to be political are political by saying, ‘We love the status quo.’”
Art must provoke. It must challenge. And yes, it must make us uncomfortable.
There is no place for racism, sexism, or violence—but there must always be room to confront these truths, even through difficult art.
Norman Lear understood this. His humor exposed absurdity without denying humanity.
To silence that kind of art—whether from fear, politics, or public backlash—is to yield to the quieter form of injustice: acquiescence.
As Marcus Aurelius wrote,
“Often injustice lies in what you aren’t doing, not only in what you are doing.”
It matters what each of us do daily.
Increasingly, it matters what we don’t do, too.
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Closing Reflection
When art retreats, extremism advances.
The measure of a free society is not how loudly it praises itself—
but how willingly it allows its conscience to speak.