Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Grace Must Prevail Over Cancel Culture
Cancel Culture is an unfortunate development in our world born out of the social media hell we all seem to live in. It feels as if social media has given us a binary choice which most gladly follow: either conform or be destroyed.
The pressure to conform to a certain ideology is immense for young people. I am worried young conservatives trying to separate themselves from progressives who try to be offensive in order to “own the libs”.We must realize just because our time has abandoned civility does not mean we should not take steps to restore it. Fighting back is not going around a college campus in a Native American costume; that is simply provoking. I have been told many times that the time for being “civil” is over because progressives will not be civil. The problem with that perspective is that while online outrage monsters probably will not be civil, your progressive neighbor might be.
Conservatives have long said to turn off the news and talk to your neighbor, and I strongly recommend we do just that. The 2016 moment has passed, and the time for trolling is over. We are better than our current culture and we must be better to one another.
This is not to say we should not fight back against progressivism, but we cannot become what we are fighting against. In a society where a social media mob acts as judge, jury, and executioner it is hard, but important, to keep dreams alive after everything collapses one needs to breathe fresh air.
Young minds today are poisoned by the idea that any disagreement culturally or politically is an affront to their personal well-being and ego. The cult of open-mindedness has shunned and cancelled anyone they perceive as a threat to their death grip on culture. This “cancel culture” has created a toxic environment for discourse, but more importantly, mental well-being. This mob is relentless in its pursuit of control. Due to this Orwellian thinking dreams can evaporate as quickly as they appear.
The New York Times published an article titled “Tales From the Teenage Cancel Culture;” telling a story of 17 year old girl named “L.” “L.” was “cancelled” by her classmates and when inquiring as to why she was told she was, “an emotional leech who was thirsty for validation.” L would later state, “I am very prone to question everything I do; ‘is this annoying someone?” she would go on to say, “I have issues trusting perfectly normal things, that sense of me being some sort of monster, terrible person, burden to everyone, has stayed with me to some extent there is still a sort of lingering sense of: what if I am?”
These online rage sessions grown adults are having is showing kids how to treat one another. This anxiety sticks with children. Society now acts as a court of law trying to make bad people look good and good people look bad. Unfortunately, grace has left our society. Someone saying or doing something bad in their youth will now define them. The proponents of “cancel culture” seem to think grace is a quality to be overlooked, until they need it. The societal pressure to conform is an issue that deserves great urgency. Society now needs to breathe fresh air. A new breeze must blow. Author Jonathan Haidt writes an article for The Atlantic titled, “The Coddling of the American Mind” in that article he states, “Safe spaces where young adults are shielded from words and ideas that make them uncomfortable. This movement seeks to punish anyone who interferes with this aim. You might call this vindictive protectiveness. It is creating a culture in which everyone must think twice before speaking up, lest they face charges of insensitivity, aggression, or worse.” The guise of equality has been an excuse for abhorrent behavior and causes everyone to act irrationally. It is simple when doing something wrong, correct it not for them but because it is the right to do. Not bowing down to the altar of cancel culture is important, but so is being decent in the process. This movement wants control, not an equitable society. The mob goes after anyone, which is why it is important not to bow down. As French philosopher Albert Camus said, “The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.”
Published in General
Nah! But we have had a number of Trump Skeptics leave from HeavyWater to The Gold Tooth. So when you hear from my, add two likes to my comments!
True. The Sopranos were part of a very old, very illiberal, and conservative organization. Modern Conservatives are members of no organization. But Modern Conservatives are part of a very old, very liberal, and conservative body of believers.
I think that there remain hundreds of Trump Skeptics on Ricochet. We aren’t mostly as radical as you and The Gold Tooth when it comes to the question, “OK, but pragmatically speaking should we do about the problem?” But we are out there. We hundreds of patriotic Americans know that, although Trump is an unprincipled, emotionally stunted self-promoter, he is the best enemy of our enemy for now.
Sorry my comment invoked such a harsh response – my point reminds you of Corrie ten Boom? Good grief.
Good point – especially with the new tracking systems coming up on phones and AI, all to keep us “safer” from each other by “detecting” a corona virus carrier………
This is not my experience, Bryan. If you listen to left wing talk radio you can easily get the impression that everyone on the left believes that to be a conservative is to be evil. Just like you could get the reverse impression by listening to some right wing talk radio. But in the real world, most people don’t hate everyone who votes differently than themselves. The people who join online mobs to cancel other people are a very small portion of society.
So what? They win.
It only takes a small group. See Russia. I will not be civil to people who attack me. I am not looking to start a fight, but if presented with one, I will fight to win.
Your previous comment did not distinguish between people who attack you and The Left in general. I’ve got no problem with — and actually find it satisfying — when some individual who marshaled people to cancel someone for some imagined grievance gets cancelled themselves. I don’t think it’s cool, though, when someone says that “the Left” cancelled someone on the right, therefore everybody on the left is a fair target.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
They set the rules, so those rules should be applied equally.
The problem is, the people in general who support the left are fellow travallers. If someone supports cancel culture, then they are not innocent at all, they are part of the mob, but maybe in the back.
This is the mentality that says that black people should hate all white people, because some white people have treated black people like garbage. Or women should think of all men as likely rapists. The fact that someone votes Democratic because they are pro-choice or because they want a higher minimum wage does not mean that they support the worst behavior of the worst members of their party or ideology.
That is not true at all. I see anyone as subscribing to the ideals of cancel culture by supporting it, as an enemy of my way of life. Injecting race is akin to being a leftist to shade me as a racist. Or sexist.
For the thundering herd who supports cancel culture. Not all who vote democrat are that way, per say, but they do support the party that is for it. Support for the Democrat party is support for Abortion, it is support for Supression of Speech, it is support for Taking Away guns, it is support for Higher Taxes and more Wealth Redistrabution. That is what the party stands for, and I darn well can hold that against someone for wanting those things to pass.
Sheesh, if I cannot condemn people for their choosen ideology, then there is nothing I can do that for. Yours is the pathway to destruction of all I hold dear. No Sir, I will not follow you down a path of passivity. Not when the other side is supporting actual modern brownshirts.
Yes. Your point was that being confined against your will by the government resulted in good experiences that would not have occurred otherwise.
That reminded me of Corrie ten Boom, whose being confined against her will by the government resulted in this good experience that would not have occurred otherwise.
It is an example of the same fact, that God works in mysterious ways. It does not seem an odd thing to think of to me.