Let (s)he who is without sin
The lexicon of oxymorons—rhetorical self-contradictions such as bittersweet, deafening silence, and military intelligence—has been added to in recent years with the advent of cancel culture
. I really cannot think of anything remotely cultural about cancelling someone or something.
If what I've seen and read of cancel culture is truely representative, it seems to be a disease of social media; particularly Twitter, which is akin to a school playground at best, and a cesspit at worst. Those found guilty of wrongspeak
or wrongthought
are called out by a mob of self-righteous, self-appointed judges, who do double-duty as jury and executioner. Worse still, victims can lose their livelihoods, if not more, when spineless employers or sponsors give in to the mob for fear of retribution.
Even long-past transgressions can be called out. So if you have lived a blemish-free life for the last ten years, that thing
you did or posted to social media eleven years ago could still be used in evidence against you at your public trial.
Does a good person have to have lived a blemish-free life, and does one transgression sully a reputation? Or can we accept that to err is part of the human condition? There is some evidence that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was racist towards Afrikan-Black people; even if true, that does not negate the massive impact that he had on the Indian nation and its people. If you believe the criticism of Mother Teresa, she was not without controversy; yet that was not enough for the Catholic Church to not beautify her—then again, the Catholic Church…(exclamation)(rolleyes) Even Abraham Lincoln and George Washington have been demonised in some quarters for alleged links to slavery, abolishing it aside.
So, who gets to sit in judgement, and have they maintained the standards by which they judge others to have failed? It appears that many of those, if not all, at the vanguard of cancel culture are virtue signallers, activists
who've achieved nothing of note themselves. Not unlike the school mean girls, and filled with a combination of envy; bitterness; hypersensitivity; and self-loathing, they join with like-minded, poisonous trolls to microscopically dissect anyone crossing their predefined boundaries, who doesn't align with their social mores, or who thinks differently. They're no better than anyone else, and in most cases probably distinctly worse. They need to get off social media, and do something positive with their lives.
Anyone familiar with Nineteen Eighty-Four; Brazil; Equilibrium; V for Vendetta, and similar dystopian tales of authoritarianism, will be familiar with the concept of an all-seeing, judgmental autocrat. A population cowed by mass surveillance. Wrongthink. When George Orwell wrote of Big Brother, it was as a single individual, or closed personality cult. Social media has simply democratised the demonisation of those with differering opinions; thereby crushing freedom of expression and stifling dissent.
I guess the point of this is that no one's perfect, and no one deserves to be cancelled, unless their sins are truly heinous. And there are more suitable institutions and procedures for those cases. Since no one is without sin, no one should be casting stones.
Now, back to the playground; and play nicely!
