||| ORCASIONAL MUSINGS BY STEVE HENIGSON |||
Cancel Culture has arrived on Orcas Island!
“Cancel Culture”?
What’s that?
“Cancel Culture” is the state of being so certain that your own way of thinking is the one and only right way of thinking, that you set out to cancel (that is, to censor, and thereby to erase) any other thought, and to chase all of those other thoughts out of your social environment.
In the recent past, we have seen sporadic, but rare, occasions when one or two political-advertising signs have been pulled out of the ground and stolen, and when verbal political debate has become temporarily vociferously acrimonious. But now we are seeing something much worse.
A few days ago, the signs promoting one specific political party’s candidates were defaced, each with a big “NO!” scrawled across it. A few thoughtful Orcasians pointed out, in this particular public forum, that whomever had done that had abrogated some other person’s right of free speech and expression, as guaranteed by the First Amendment of our Constitution.
This sort of one-sided behavior is irrational, in that its most effective product is the prohibition of meaningful discussion and useful compromise. But we need discussion and compromise, because both are the necessary foundations of truly good government. Without those foundations, we will eventually devolve into dictatorship, probably led, at least at first, by some self-righteous fool who just absolutely knows that he, and only he, is right.
However, cancelling the points-of-view and the opinions of other people — for instance with a scrawled “NO!” — is proof of the desperation of a self-righteous fool who is running scared. He knows that his own behavior is unacceptable to most other people, so, in jealous retaliation and by using force, he will try his best to harm those people whose behavior is more acceptable to society than is his. He can’t fight the opinions of those better-behaved people, so, instead, he aims his fight at the persons who hold them.
Doing this requires descending into vandalism, and also into innuendo, ad-hominem attacks, and outright lies. The technique requires taking a page or two from both the Soviet and the National Socialist playbooks. Vandalism, if it’s destructive enough and anonymous enough, is a really fine intimidator. And then, if you tell a big enough lie, and you tell it often enough, some people will eventually come to believe it. And if you lie about an opponent’s aims and beliefs, and you do so loud enough and keep it up long enough, eventually your opponent will give up in disgust and leave the lectern, and maybe the entire floor, to you alone.
The solution to the problem of the self-righteous fool and his destructive behavior is isolation. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, and very soon he will tire of producing his useless demonstrations of thunder and lightning. Finally, he will pull his cloak over his sheepishly-grinning Guy Fawkes mask and quietly creep away home. Replace the defaced signs. Refuse to engage in acrimonious “discussion” on his terms. In short, do as he does: Cancel him! Don’t rise to his bait, for ignoring him is the only appropriate way to defeat him.
If you have civil dialog long enough, all things will come back to peace.
I’m pretty sure I saw Sharon Kivisto’s sign defaced as well.
Yep. And it’s the same culture, on a larger scale, that’s defacing/destroying historical statues around the Country; if you can’t debate, destroy!
In totalitarian states, the Future is certain, the History is always changing! Yep.
Full Disclosure, can’t even correctly type my own name on the poster. No!
Surely you can understand this behavior, though. If a political party is determined to undermine the constitution and the rule of law; if when it takes power it devotes itself not merely to implementing its policies but also to illegal disenfranchisement of everyone who is not in their tribe; then surely you can understand why the people being disenfranchised might resort to brute tactics against it.
The Republicans have become the party of Putin and stupidity. As a former Republican I’m appalled.
A point worth noting, the man who destroyed the Lopez BLM memorial on the 13th while ranting about his Trump signs also attempted to attack two innocent bystanders with an excavator mounted flail mower, and was charged with two counts of assault. So much for your “better-behaved people” theory.
https://orcasissues.com/lopez-black-lives-memorial-destroyed-third-try/
https://www.islandssounder.com/news/lopez-man-arrested-vandalizing-memorial-signs/
Luther, I don’t understand your comment.
The person who destroyed the signs on Lopez was part of that “Cancel Culture” about which I wrote.
His political affiliation is not a part of the issue, but his destructive activity is.
How is his behavior any different from that of Orcas’s “No!” writer?
I agree. But, ignoring is not the best long term strategy. We need to connect and unite by fully hearing each other. Tooth for tooth, cancel for cancel is just more of the same destructive division. Instead, can we ask this person to come out with courage, in the light, and speak out. Or, if he won’t do that, just find others who think like him and ask caring questions. Can we listen to each other and be able to see the passion driving each side with understanding and compassion? Being righteous is indeed childish and destructive. The response you offer will stop the aggressive behavior, but will not heal the divide. To heal the divide we must be proactive in reaching out to each other and truly listen.
Naomi, if we don’t know who he or she is, it becomes very difficult (or impossible) to listen to, or speak with, the vandalizing canceller.
Doing nasty deeds in the middle of the night, or in daylight but with a mask on, is a very effective way of, well, cancelling any possibility of holding a meaningful dialog. Dialog requires a willingness to come out into the light, to be identified, to let the other side speak, and to be willing to listen.
But the cancellers don’t think or act that way. Quite the opposite, actually.