When you hear cancel culture apologists say "It's just a song" or "It's just a statue," understand that works both ways. If it's just a song, why the uproar in the first place?
The cancel mob chooses its targets to make the public's compromise, and eventual capitulation, as painless as possible. They want the authority to issue decrees, authority which can only be granted by public consent. The idea is to convince people they're consenting to something small, when in fact they're consenting to being controlled. Have you noticed the ubiquitous statement about "more work to be done" is attached to every announced compromise? It's another way of saying the mob's next maneuvers are to be determined.
The object of the mob's wrath is irrelevant, so a debate on the merits of whether something is "bad" also is irrelevant. When someone makes a factual claim in the form of an accusation, just say "I don't believe you." It disarms them of their claim to authority.
In the long run, I expect the University of Texas to capitulate to activists calling the alma mater racist. The only reason they haven't yet is many rich alumni have put their foot down and said the alma mater is not racist. The presence of a competing truth claim, backed by money, has left UT in limbo. The administrators are waiting for either side to relinquish their claim. This is narrative warfare's version of cold war. Who can bear the social costs of their claim longer will win. If, or when, UT gives up its alma mater, it will admit that it is a racist institution that requires works of redemption to be saved. The activists will dictate what those works look like.
Universities are notoriously weak. Against individuals the mob is hit and miss. Comic book artist Jeffrey Scott Campbell clapped back against people who criticized his drawings on ideological grounds. The hysteria he generated by disagreeing with the grounds for criticism was something to behold. Denied authority over Campbell's artistic style, Kevin Norman posted a lengthy thread justifying himself.
As silly as cutting off people over so small a thing looks, I believe no one is above this sentiment. There's nothing in our nature that compels us to share space with people we disagree with. I don't mean minor disagreements; I mean the kind of disagreement where one person calls the other a bigot. No friendship or union can withstand that level of enmity. When that happens, it's practical to retreat to opposite corners. Free men must be allowed to associate with whom they want.
Where options proliferate in a large, competitive space, the sorting is easy. Campbell draws his comic books and readers buy them or they don't. If someone doesn't like him, there are other artists to patronize. Where options are limited in a small, noncompetitive space, pray for God's mercy and His glory to be revealed to all.
As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like sci-fi, check out my books Seeds of Calamity and Tendrils to the Moon. You can find extended previews for each here and here.
Social justice has just become a nice-sounding camouflage for power-hungry psychos, like a fog bank or squid ink designed to hide who they really are.
ReplyDeleteThis seems to happen to every secular ideology. Whatever sincerity there is at the beginning of these ideas, by the end they all get hollowed out and remade into a whited sepulchre for assholes. If we knew who these people really were and the kinds of things they do behind closed doors, we would never take orders from them again.
I don’t think we’re the only ones getting tired of this crap.
Power is indeed their main objective, and they intend to use it to shame others and aggrandize themselves.
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