I find it interesting that suddenly, as a society, we all have our drawers in a knot over cancel culture. The Left uses cancel culture as a means of testing progressive ideological purity and the Right uses it as a reason to whine and as a weapon to beat the Left with. Benjamin Wallace-Wells wrote an article entitled, “Cancel Culture Is Not a Movement,” that was posted on the New Yorker site on March 11 of this year. He writes, “When politicians or commentators talk about ‘cancel culture,’ they are typically speaking of a fear that even ordinary people who express ideas that are politically incorrect will be publicly shamed—that social media has enabled a universal speech surveillance, and that people and institutions are now self-policing, out of fear of it.” Basically our version of Orwell’s Thought Police.
Wikipedia defines cancel culture as, “Cancel culture is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person. Those who are subject to this ostracism are said to have been "cancelled". In other words, banishment and exile.
Gay men are well aware of this phenomena. Gay men have been practicing cancel culture forever – and doing so in broad daylight so it isn’t new to us. Cancel culture, behaving as if someone or something does not exist and/or does not have the right to exist. If you are not pretty enough, don’t have a good enough body, have the wrong skin color, are too old, not wearing the proper trendy clothes, etc., you are toast.
Picture yourself out walking through the mall, let’s say, and a nice looking gay guy walks into your line of vision. They clock you looking at them. If you are not someone they find attractive, they will look away from you using a gesture I have come to call the “Neck Snap,” in which they turn their head, thus averting their eyes, away from you with such suddenness and ferocity, it is a wonder it doesn’t give them cervical damage. And they get to pretend you don’t even exist and, thus, get to avoid having to acknowledge you as a living, breathing presence on Earth. What would be nice would be if we learned to at least acknowledge one another.
As powerful as words are, words do not create reality. Yes, there are a lot of hurtful, condescending, demeaning pejorative phrases out there. And I have no issue with it being politically incorrect to use them, as well as morally wrong in many instances. That said, political correctness has been in use for a while now and those words or attitudes are still around. Banning words doesn’t fix the underlying problem. And if someone calls me a faggot or a pansy or says I am light in the loafers, well, sticks and stones may break my bones but you can kiss my ass. Doesn’t mean I want you banished from society. Just stay away from me. Your bad behavior is a reflection of you on you and has nothing to do with me. What I need to know is what has made you think and feel and act this way. What would be great would be if we started to ask people what led them to beliefs or opinions we find politically and/or morally incorrect and seek to understand.
It is the underlying issues of why the bad behaviors continue, in spite of political correctness, that need addressing. Yes, human history is chock-full of atrocious behavior that needs to be faced and dealt with but dealt with in the sense of what we are going to do moving forward. Rather than cancelling, I think on-going public reproach and shaming of people or groups is way more effective than banning or ostracism. Personally, I would like to see the return of public stocks and pillories. Now, I wouldn’t let the public physically harm those thus confined. I simply want them to be publicly shamed for their bad behavior. Dunce caps would be fine. Making someone stand on the courthouse steps holding a sign that says, “I haven’t mastered three syllable words yet,” works for me. You get the idea. As a friend of mine says, “If you don’t know how to act decently, we’ll show you how to act.” Problem is that those we judge as being in need of being confined to the public stocks and pillories no doubt feel the same way about us.
We live in a world where we all decry the lack of civility and decency and the shamelessness run riot though our society. Banishing, ostracizing, excommunication, exile, cancelling, doesn’t make the problem go away. The only thing that goes away, at least for a while, is the particular offender or group of offenders. It was Joseph N. Welch, chief counsel for the United States Army, in his confrontation with McCarthy in hearings before McCarthy’s Senate subcommittee, in which he famously asked McCarthy "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" This was widely seen as a turning point against McCarthyism. (Wikipedia) The problem here is we all no longer seem to have a consensus on what constitutes decency.
Cancelling is a form of smiting. Very Old Testament. We end up judging those we deem or who have proven themselves as being beyond redemption, thus the need to banish. Does not the Judeo-Christian ethic teach us in the Bible about mercy and compassion over judgment? Mercy is taught in the Quran. Buddhism teaches compassion and mercy. You get my point. Now, yes, there are those in our history who seem by their acts and/or beliefs to be beyond redemption. And certainly, for some, redemption would be a long, hard road. But who among us, at some point in our life, has not needed compassion and at least the possibility of and chance at redemption? But, here again, those we judge and condemn as either needing redemption or being beyond redemption no doubt think we are as equally a lost cause.
Rather than cancelling, ostracizing, banishing, public shaming, exiling, etc., how about we learn to talk with one another again rather than at one another? We do still have the facility as thinking/feeling humans to create safe spaces in which we can begin to communicate rather than cancel. We can ask one another - How did you get here? What propelled you on your journey to these beliefs and actions? - We don’t have to agree with what we hear but at least we can begin to understand and in that understanding, odds are we will begin to once again find some common ground.
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