QUICK RANT ON CANCEL CULTURE

I don’t normally delve into this kind of topic on this blog but like everyone I am aware of what is happening out there. We are in the midst of a very dangerous trend and that is cancellation. Cancellation is just a catch all phrase for deplatforming, or removing someone’s ability to interact. We’ve seen this play out before, from burning books to communist purges in the 50’s….

We are now removing people’s ability to interact due to what some call “hate speech”. Most of it is deplorable, what many people aren’t talking about is though is the arbitrators of what is or is not acceptable are multi billionaires from Silicon Valley. It’s never been in the interest of society to concentrate too much power into a small group of people or corporations.

This of course is all abstract to most of us, it doesn’t affect us, until it does. You see, the problem with “cancelling” anyone whom you don’t like what they are saying is you set the precedent for your own cancellation down the line. A wise person once said “I don’t like what you are saying but I will defend your right to say it”. We are losing sight of this notion piece by piece and eventually what happens is everyone is silenced.

Should people who are racists be silenced? Should we force those people underground and remove their ability to pontificate publicly? If you do how will you know who they are? How will you know where they are? You see you can eliminate someone’s access to public forums but you don’t eliminate their thoughts and feelings. If anything you are emboldened them more.

Racism isn’t exclusive to race, meaning Asians can be racist toward Hispanics just as much as a White person can be Racists toward an African American. Don’t fall into the trap that “racism” is exclusive to one race, that would be, well racist…

So what happens next? Freedom of speech comes with a great deal of responsibility and while we need to have ways to rebuttal and temper people with extreme ideas, every time we cancel someone who doesn’t think or say what we think they should we become complicit in our eventually demise.

Does this mean you can’t protest? No. Does this mean you shouldn’t identify and point out what you think is racist? Of course not, but what it does mean is every person silenced or identified by a group as an “ist” becomes a target. Do we have to really do a history lesson here? You know what happens when one group marginalizes another, two wrongs don’t make a right.

That path leads to one end and that’s historically been a very bad outcome for EVERYONE. You think it’s not going to happen to you, until it does. Careful what you wish for.