Two days ago a bunch of celebrities including the infamous J.K Rowling signed an open later, speaking out on how “cancel culture” is bad and that it should stop! I’m going to be honest here, cancel culture can’t be stopped, because it’s already in motion.
Like the X-men Juggernaut, once in motion, cancel culture is damm near unstoppable! It’s a force that gains its power from the masses! It’s the public condemning someone for what they’ve done or said! It’s public execution in the virtual sense. And just like a knife or a gun, can be wielded for good or bad! Simply signing a piece of paper or a petition won’t do shit! In fact, the way I’ve interpreted it, it sounds like they want to say whatever they want without consequences, something which is not possible in reality! They want their freedom of speech back, or their idea of it back and lets be real, they can say what they want but they also have to accept that people will react!
I get their argument though, it used to be that we’d cancel people formisconduct, assault charges, manipulation, abuse and anything that violates human rights. Nowadays we just cancel anyone that says anything another group doesn’t like. You don’t like Black Panther as a white man? Cancelled! You don’t think kids should go through transgender hormone therapy at such an early age? Cancelled! You’re starting to question the Black Lives Matter movement and the direction this leaderless group is going? Cancelled! You’re going to vote Trump? Cancelled and I hope you burn in hell! You get the picture. It’s getting to the point where we’re not even having a dialogue anymore! Basically, say what the mob likes or shut up! This isn’t healthy and leads to tension and grief in a society!
However, I also think people are not aware that they don’t have freedom of speech to a degree that they think they have! The truth of the matter is that freedom of speech is to be valued, but is not a right! For example, let’s say you do have freedom of speech, where in our society do you have this right? Once you ask yourself that question you’ll soon come to realize that it’s very limited! In fact, the only place you truly have that right is in your own house! This article explains it rather well! Outside of that, it’s limited. Private companies including Facebook and Twitter can determine what you can and can’t say, and you have the choice to either agree and use the platform or disagree and leave!
I understand that these juggernauts have a responsibility to try and make things balanced in terms of the voices that can be heard, however, they can do whatever they want and we can see that the “majority” are relatively cool with it! For now! A shame really, seeing as it’s important to hear the opinions of different people is vital as that’s how we learn as a society! Nevertheless, when you shun a lot of people, it creates resentment, and in turn that turns into hatred! It’s gotten so bad that now anyone who supports J.K Rowling can actually get fired!
It’s kinda interesting to see that the cancelled are the ones who are complaining when it should be we the ones who’ve yet to be cancelled that should be discussing whether what we’re doing is the correct path to a civil society! Because otherwise, we’ll end up creating an anti-force that will become just as bad as they pro-force!
