Published: 6 October 2020
Last updated: 5 March 2024
WE OFTEN THINK of cancel culture as a contemporary phenomenon, driven by social media and rife in our hyper-connected world.
But really, punishing people for their ideas and opinions has been going on for as long as people have been thinking.
Take the philosopher Baruch Spinoza. In the mid-17th century, Spinoza was charged with heresy and cast out from his Amsterdam Jewish community.
Since then, he's gone on to be canonised as one of the great Enlightenment thinkers — and even embraced as a hero of Judaism.
But un-cancelling a cancelled philosopher is harder than you might expect, and three centuries later, there are still plenty of people who would prefer to see Spinoza hang onto his outcast status.
Spinoza is vaguely accused of "evil opinions", "abominable heresies" and "monstrous deeds", but what religious wrongs did he actually commit?
His later philosophical work — particularly the Ethics, published posthumously in 1677 — could offer some answers. In it, Spinoza articulates a conception of God that would have been highly offensive to any observant Jew at the time.
FULL STORY The Jewish philosopher Spinoza was one of the great Enlightenment thinkers. So why was he 'cancelled'? (ABC)
Photo: Coloured engraving depicting Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)
