Cancel Culture has overtaken political correctness and even “wokeness”

Cancel Culture has overtaken political correctness and even “wokeness”  *

Along with the coronavirus rampaging through our nations, there is another toxic disease that’s pervading society as well. It’s called “cancel culture”. It is supposed to mean that people of integrity combat anything which is unrighteous. Sounds like a noble mission, BUT…!

That mission gets inverted! So that the result is that dishonest intentions destroy honourable reputations.

Anything which is ever so slightly tainted by racist attitudes in history, any vague suspicion of transphobia or homophobia,… must be named shamed, and blamed.

Consequently it needs to be obliterated, erased from history… CANCELLED!

Thus statues of anybody associated with slavery for example, must be torn down all over the world! Books are burnt. Movies must be scrapped from most popular lists.

The lobby is unrestrained and unrelenting. If you dare cross it, even in the slightest, you will be targeted next – even violently. Cancel culture is out of control. You cannot reason with it or appeal to it. Logic and truth and facts do not matter.

In the words of John Gray, an emeritus professor at the London School of Economics, giving a perspective from the U.K., “Today we are no longer living in a free society. Instead, we are ruled by those who try to enforce their extreme views by shaming and ruining those who think differently… It is not far-fetched to compare the methods of this ‘woke movement’ to those of Chairman Mao’s Red Guards, who terrorised the Chinese people half a century ago… ‘Critical race theory’ – a sub-Marxist ideology in which ‘white privilege’ is invoked to explain all kinds of injustice – is increasingly being taught as part of ‘decolonising the curriculum’… Indeed, no subject is immune from this re-education campaign in our schools and universities… Academics at Birmingham City University have proposed that Mozart be eliminated from music teaching and replaced by the rapper Stormzy. Eton College has announced it will change the teaching of history, geography, religion, politics and English, along with school assemblies and societies, in order to ensure that ‘decolonisation’ is implemented across the board.

And over in Australia, as reported by the Daily Mail, there is a “New push to RENAME body parts like the Adam's apple and Achilles' tendon because they are ‘irrelevant and misogynistic’.”

Where will this stop? It probably will not until it completely devours itself.

The cancel culture mob has no trouble resorting to violence, be it setting church buildings on fire, vandalizing statues considered sacred, or attacking a meeting supporting the police.

Brendan O’Neill, editor of Spiked-online.com, wrote on the 6^th July 2020, under the title - The tyranny of cancel culture -  “Cancel culture is destroying freedom of thought… Cancel culture is the key weapon in the armoury of the intolerant. Cancel culture has become the political weapon the totalitarian thirst for driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees. The ideology of Political Correctness, now topped by cancel culture, says there is only one way to think about history, race, gender and a myriad of other issues; if you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted and punished.”

Cancel culture is real and it is incredibly destructive. Free speech is under attack from all sides – from proscriptive laws, from a stifling climate of conformity, and from a powerful, prevailing fear of being ‘outed’ as a heretic online, in the workplace, or even among friends, for uttering a dissenting thought.

Even when targets of ‘cancellation’ don’t lose their jobs, cancel culture still has its desired noxious effect. It still freezes public debate. It sends a clear warning to the public: express these views and you will be punished – your reputation tarnished; you might even lose your income. Indeed, the central problem with cancel culture is not what it does to individuals – awful as that is – but rather what it does to public life more broadly.

Cancel culture succeeds in chilling everyday discussion, blocking any alternative views. By making examples of prominent ‘wrong-thinkers’ and accusing them of ‘thought-crimes’, cancel culture warns the entire population: Dare cross the parameters of acceptable thought and step outside of them, and you will be ‘censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted and punished’ (Donald Trump speech on 4/7/2020). It is destructive. It harms individuals. It shackles liberty. It induces fear in ordinary people. It stultifies public debate. A healthy society is built on freedom, openness and the rights of dissent and intellectual experimentation. Cancel culture undermines all of those things. It must be defeated.

Cancel Culture advocates the erasing historical reminders of slavery or racist symbols.

So don’t be surprised when media reports appear about protests to dismantle the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Colosseum, the Roman Roads throughout Europe, the Sultan Amed Mosque in Istanbul,… since all of these were built by slave labour. So many of the world’s iconic buildings were all built by slaves of ALL creeds and colours.

Should we therefore destroy all of our human heritage and history, because modern influencers are so historically ignorant, uneducated, and unwilling to listen or talk without shouting, and as such they have no real idea or concept of the sacrifices made on their behalf by their ancestors to ensure they are and will remain free.

Obliterating symbols of past injustices will make us forget them, and then repeat them.

By remembering instead, and accepting that NO form of slavery is acceptable, we might avoid those pitfalls. We can't change the past by simply erasing it. And no amount of statue-felling can change the emotions that remembering evokes. BUT we can Learn from it all and move forward.

For too many years History has been Bastardised, so much that it has promoted Racism through misinformation to suit a narrative.
We are not born Racist - Racism only exists if we let it: if we "pigeon hole" people into groups, if we "label" individuals, and if we rewrite history to suit a specific one-sided narrative.

We all bleed red, and at some time in history we are all descendants of slaves, be it 50, 500, or 5000 years ago.

George Orwell’s 1984 quote about history comes to mind: “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

* - cancel culture refers to the cancelling,      It is the boycotting of any persons who have shared a questionable or controversial opinion, or have behaved in the past in a way that is perceived to be offensive. To cancel someone (usually a celebrity or other well-known figure) means to stop supporting that person. The act of cancelling could entail shunning an actor’s movies, or no longer reading or promoting a writer’s works. The reason for cancellation can vary, but it usually is due to the person in question having expressed an objectionable opinion or having conducted themselves in a way that is unacceptable.

The term has been credited to users of Twitter, where it has been used as a hashtag. As troubling information comes to light regarding celebrities who were once popular, such as Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson, JK Rowling, so come calls to cancel such figures. Even certain books or movies can be listed as no longer acceptable and so to be banned. Even harmless works such as…

That is cancel culture in a nutshell. If you dare stray from the standard script, even for one moment, you are banned for life. No more of you! You can go from ally to enemy in the twinkling of an eye.

The only way to stop it is to confront it and expose it, openly, clearly, boldly, and unashamedly. If you compromise on one issue you’ll be forced to capitulate on all issues. There is no middle ground with this irrational and destructive movement. The sooner we realize that, the better.