Cancel culture is a phrase that we are hearing more and more.
Politicians accuse each other of cancelling. Advocacy groups and lobbyists try to win over politicians by cancelling opposing lobbyists and advocacy groups. Deranged people or just plain haters cancel people in mass shootings.
Have we become the victims of these cancel people and organizations? What should we do to return to a decent and safe culture in our democracy that is based on the pursuit of happiness?
Cancel culture is a modern form of ostracism. When you get cancelled, you are thrust out of a circle of people who communicate online, on social media, or in person. Some religions practice “shunning” when you don’t conform to the norms. This columnist believes that conservatives, liberals, progressives, Republicans, Democrats and Independents cancel and get cancelled in roughly equal numbers. Cancel culture is not the sole province of any group.
U.S. Representative Marjorie Greene was cancelled when she lost all her committees due to espousing crazy conspiracy theories. So, now she roams the halls of Congress with nothing better to do than stand outside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office yelling for her to come out. Reminds me of Jem and Scott trying to get Boo Radley to come out in “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Interestingly, AOC has been cancelled herself by being branded a socialist, a communist and an environmentalist.
What about Liz Cheney? A true conservative got cancelled by her own party because she wanted the truth to be told by her colleagues. What a shameful way to behave.
History gets cancelled as well. The effort to remove Confederate statues, anything honoring Christopher Columbus, misogynistic abusers of women and an ever-expanding variety of politically incorrect words are a form of cancel culture. Should we cancel these actions or symbols that are painful to the victims or descendants of victims of cultural misbehavior like slavery, mistreatment of native peoples, abused women and brutes who cannot control their language?
Cancelled history is a tough one. Should we obliterate the past with alternate facts or removal of anything that offends somebody? Should we learn by what these offending acts were and find a way to teach our young people right from wrong with a balanced approach to learning? Whatever the answer, don’t let the legislature determine what should and should not be taught in public tax supported schools. Leave that to the professionals within the limits of our Constitutional rights.
Cancel culture is here to stay. The great purveyor of terminological inexactitudes, Twitter, stopped allowing Donald Trump to tweet incendiary statements that led to people being killed in the Jan. 6 Insurrection at the Capital. Sports, arts and media stars are cancelled for the aberrant behaviors and stupid blurting out of their normally suppressed beliefs. Wayne La Pierre’s crooked administration of the NRA and the organization’s subsequent bankruptcy will result in his being cancelled.
None of us are so dumb as to buy a bridge in Brooklyn. So when you want to cancel someone or what they believe, put yourself in their shoes and then make up your mind.
Roger Carlton writes a bi-weekly column for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, rcarlton57@hotmail.com.