Cancel Culture is killing democracy
If you don’t like it, you don’t need to watch it. This idea of voting with your feet, or eyeballs, works well in a country like the UK, where there’s lots to watch. But from Jeremy Corbyn’s calls to regulate the wrong kind of media to demolishing monuments and airbrushing troublesome actors from films, the unifying cry of the knowing tells us that the public cannot be trusted. Only censorship can save them and deliver the truth. But once the censorship begins, no one is immune from curtailments on free expression as panicky Cancel Culture holds sway:
Cancel culture is spreading for one simple reason: it works. Instead of debating ideas or competing for entertainment dollars, you can just demand anyone who annoys you to be cast out of polite society.
Way back in the mists of time, say five years ago, if you didn’t like a TV show or movie, you wouldn’t watch it. Now you can ensure that no one watches it, just by slinging some outrage on social media.
Our woke mentality is America’s new Puritanism. Instead of a handy list of sins written thousands of years ago, modern sins are ever-changing. A joke that was deemed progressive a decade ago is retroactively condemned as hate speech.
“If you say the wrong thing,” [Sarah] Silverman said, “everyone is, like, throwing the first stone. It’s a perversion. It’s really, ‘Look how righteous I am and now I’m going to press refresh all day long to see how many likes I get in my righteousness.’ ”
When the mob has burned one witch, they tighten the buckles on their hats and pore through old YouTube videos for their next victim.
Compliance is all.
Posted: 19th, August 2019 | In: News Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
