In this opinion article, I’m going to shine some light on one of our favorite trigger words (term), Cancel Culture. Cancel Culture is the ultimate in virtue signaling and is just rampant in today’s society. In my opinion, it’s one of the more disgusting and dangerous trends we’ve seen to date.
Don’t agree? Get off this site, you’re banned. 🤣 Just joking, you’re always welcome here, agree or not, doesn’t matter.
Read on, I’ll explain my thoughts in mere mortal language, so you can understand.
This blogging thing is so much fun.
Sorry, back on track. As I was concrappulating, when I was growing up, our teachers used to say, “There’s no such thing as a stupid question”. Today, it can actually be considered a crime to question That’s a very dangerous transition. Don’t you think?
Not only are we being told what to think, but we’re also punishing those that dare verbalize, write, or otherwise express an opposing thought. From covid to the idiocy going on now in Ukraine, we either get on board with the agenda or get canceled.
What Is Cancel Culture?
Cancel culture is a social justice tool with a mob mentality that shamefully boycotts one’s ability to earn a living, punishes one’s beliefs, or that dare share an opposing viewpoint. It’s the removal from a group or platform simply from going against the grain or even following a canceled person.
Canceling someone is muting free thought and forcing a single agenda down the throats of others. It’s ripping the job or status, or reputation out from under someone for having controversial opinions or violating the public norms or status quo.
What Cancel Culture Isn’t
Not every form of criticism or backlash is, or should be called, being canceled. In fact, most criticism doesn’t fall under the ‘canceling’ umbrella.
If you like blue cats, and I hate blue cats, I could decide to stop frequenting your store. I can even rally my friends, march in front of your store in protest of your idiotic blue cat fetish. That’s business. That’s life. Calling that cancel culture waters down the injustice of multi-billion dollar tech giants silencing people based on their views or political leanings.
The Evolution Of Cancel Culture
The canceling of people has evolved into the canceling of an entire nation, punishing its citizens, whether they are guilty of the crime or not.
Nations come together and do their best to cause pain and suffering, even starvation or the lack of essentials, often to the very victims of the targeted regime. Even that, in the form of government sanctions, isn’t really canceling.
But businesses deciding to pull their products and services based on some pathetic alignment with corrupt government lies (It always lies) are, in my opinion, a form of canceling.
In other words, we attack and punish the victims, while the wealthy rulers continue to enjoy the lifestyle they won’t allow the people to achieve. Sound familiar?
Examples Of Recent Cancelling
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
— Harry S. Truman
- J.K. Rowling was canceled by her fans after voicing transphobic views.
- Farmers have been canceled by Big AG with food fascism.
- Women have literally been silenced for generations by religion (1 Corinthians 14:34, Sharia law, and many others).
- Instagram banned Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over his stance on the covid shots.
- Joe Rogan on his audacity for allowing Dr. Robert Malone on his show.
- Twitter temporarily canceled The Babylon Bee for tweeting this funny content:
Others, including me, think Facebook is WAY too quick to rip the tongue from anyone leaning to the right, loves guns, talks about freedom, or hates oppression.
Brian D. Hawkins | Discord And Free Speech
Big Tech, Cancel Culture, And The First Amendment
In this opinion piece, I intentionally avoid the term, “The First Amendment”, because that protects the people from government censorship of our God-given right to free speech. Armchair idiots are quick to point out that free speech is not protected by the First Amendment on social media sites because they are private businesses.
That is true, social media sites are private businesses, and without going off on a tangent, our right to free speech is God-given, not government-issued.
Social media started out by allowing members the ability to post on their platforms and used the fact that they had nothing to do with the content as protection, just as Napster and other ‘content sharing’ sites stated in the past.
For the most part, that made sense – in the beginning. Once the Facebooks, Twitters, and YouTubes of the world decided to moderate, restrict, and censor the content posted on their platforms, based on opinion, lies, and agendas, that protection should have been immediately removed.
Just as I can lie to someone by omission, social media and traditional media lie to the public by censoring opposing views. This should not be tolerated. The damage goes far beyond me selling a car with a bad transmission. Death, destruction, and loss of freedom are the result. Entire societies stand to pay the price for allowing the media and big tech oligarchs to yield such power.
Cancel Culture Is Nothing New – Ostracism c. 508 BCE
Cancel Culture, in the form of Ostracism, has been around for thousands of years and was widely practiced in ancient Athens (Not to be confused with banishment, different meanings).
Ostracism was a political process used in 5th-century BCE Athens whereby those individuals considered too powerful or dangerous to the city were exiled for 10 years by popular vote.
World History Encyclopedia / by Mark Cartwright
March 2016
Without going into a history lesson, of which I’m certainly not qualified, Ostracism was a term in Ancient Greece (Athens, considered the world’s first democracy1) where citizens would anonymously vote to exile individuals considered too powerful or dangerous2 (Est. c. 508 BCE and executed c. 487 BCE. to c. 417 BCE2) for ten years.
Aristotle claims that the actual institution of the process [Ostracism] was made in c. 508 BCE under Cleisthenes in order to prevent tyranny by a single individual.
World History Encyclopedia, Ostracism, Mark Cartwright 30 Mar. 2016
Here’s The Deal With Ostracism
While Cancel Culture may (Or may not) have been derived from the term ‘Ostracism’, there were differences that seem to make at least this particular political process in Ancient Athens more human than what we abuse we dish out today.
First, the individual ostracized did not lose their citizenship or their property. After the ten-year exile was complete, that person was allowed back into the community with their status still intact as well as their belongings.
Today, a doctor loses their practice, a scientist loses their creditability, an actor loses their career. Military officers, long-time respected professionals, even the President, even an entire country – nothing and no one is immune from cancel culture and the damage has no limits. We hate, therefore we destroy.
Who Gets Cancelled?
The most glaring and fundamental aspect we need to acknowledge in the definition is ‘who’ gets ostracized. To prevent “tyranny by a single individual” is a far cry from the canceling we see today whenever someone speaks against authoritarian regimes, whether in the US or Canada. In Ancient times, Biden or Trudeau would have been more likely to be ostracized than Joe Rogan.
Sometimes the point isn’t to make people believe a lie – it’s to make people fear the liar.
— Anne Applebaum
The definition, “To exile individuals considered too powerful or dangerous” may make more sense. When YouTube, Twitter, or any other media “big tech oligarchs”, support a narrative, true or not, by silencing opposing voices in the form of restricting access, limiting exposure, or outright deleting content, it is fear, not virtue, that causes these attacks on our right to think and freely speak.
For example, ‘ostracism’ was used in this Wall Street Journal bleeding heart opinion piece calling for global cancel culture against an entire nation.
Ukraine deserves more support to raise the costs of war for Mr. Putin with arms, the toughest sanctions, and global ostracism.
— Opinion, WSJ, Ukraine Leads the World, 27 Feb. 2022
Not Everyone Can Be Canceled
Kid Rock Tells Tucker Carlson Why He’s ‘Uncancelable’.
Bottom Line – What Should Be Allowed?
We live in a complicated world. One person’s teasing will be viewed by another as bullying. A President will call the news media Fake News while they in turn call the assault hate speech and big tech effectively cancels that president. Can you imagine something like that? If that ever happened, we might get so angry we would put our foot down and say, “Stop! Enough is enough.” Or not.
Is Cancel Culture Hurting Society?
Can you remember a time of more division? Not since the peak of the civil rights movement have we been more divided as a people. Blame it on the government, Facebook, the school system, whatever you like. The fact is anything that encourages or enhances that divide is hurting society. So, yes it is.
Is There Hope? Will Cancel Culture Continue Or Go Away
The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.
Rocky Balboa | Rocky VI 2006
There’s always hope but, in my view, we’re too far gone. As a society, we’ve already swallowed the blue pill. We’re happy to have the convenience, ignore the control, and make excuses for our lack of spine.
We’ll attack one another on minuscule differences not only to prove or protect our beliefs but to feel good about the side we’ve chosen. We’re too stupid to understand that there are no sides beyond them and us, winners and losers. To believe there’s a left or right is doing exactly as you were told. Pick a side Citizen-Slave, it doesn’t matter which. You are divided – you are conquered.
So, will cancel culture go away? Certainly, nothing lasts forever – not even our species. I don’t see it going away anytime soon. I see it only evolving, strengthening as we adapt and accept the agendas our masters have demanded we accept.
Own nothing, live in pods, and eat bugs.
I guess that should do it for now. I have more to say, but I don’t want to come across all preachy and lecturie, that would be rude.
Bye.
Footnotes / Sources / Citations
- “Ostracism: ‘Cancel Culture’ Ancient Greek-Style.” Sky HISTORY TV Channel, https://www.history.co.uk/articles/ostracism-cancel-culture-ancient-greek-style. Publish date & Author: Unknown
- Cartwright, Mark. “Ostracism.” World History Encyclopedia, World History Encyclopedia, 30 Mar. 2016, https://www.worldhistory.org/Ostracism/.
Related Articles
Merriam-Webster / Word History: ‘Ostracize’: Making That One Person Go Away – When the world isn’t exactly your oyster
New York Times / Opinion / Guest Essay: Social Media Companies Want to Co-opt the First Amendment. Courts Shouldn’t Let Them
This article is copyright ©️ 2022 Mighty Mix Media and originally posted on brianDhawkins.com
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Brian D. Hawkins is a late-blooming thought leader in his mind. So please don't disturb his happy thoughts. It's all he has.
Brian D. Hawkins has been a blogger for over twenty years, having written thousands of public articles on dozens of websites. He currently blogs for NextStepSurvival.com and his personal blog at TheOpinionBlog.com.
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