Cancel Culture: How The Modern Left Has Adopted The Behavior Of The 20th-Century Right.
I remember in the 1990’s, the biggest divide between the political left and the political right, more than anything, revolved around one major issue: freedom of speech. The right wanted to ban NWA because of what we, today, would refer to as “problematic language.” They objected to the music glorifying misogyny, drugs, gang violence and domestic abuse. What stood in their way? The left. Liberal America established itself as the champions of freedom of speech. Of the first amendment. The rallying cry of the left was I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will to defend to the death your right to say it.
Ironically, I used to argue with liberals (shocking, I know) about this very issue. My thinking was a lot more simple back then. 26 years (I joined America Online in 1996) of constant exposure to other cultures, other philosophies other lifestyles and other ways of thinking have broadened my mind while seemingly dragging the philosophy of the left backwards. I just couldn’t understand how people could defend songs about men beating on women. That was my biggest point of contention. What I was countered with was the idea of moral relativism. That I am not the infallible arbitrator of what is right or wrong, and it is not up to me to codify or regulate morality. (edit: four years later, it's been brought to my attention that people interprested this paragraph as me "falling in with the right online." Quite the opposite. This was all the stance of the left throughout the 1990's. This was the liberal position).
This last point, I think, is where the modern left is getting lost. Cancel culture is so disturbing to me. It is, in essence, modern-day McCarthyism. More on that later. And it’s honestly not so much that I always disagree with the things cancel culture is up in arms about at any given time. It’s that I don’t think people should lose their livelihoods and have their lives destroyed because of their politics and opinions.
Take Gina Carano. If you’re reading this shortly after I’ve written it, you may know who that is. If you’re reading it years later, you may not. Gina Carano is an actress and former MMA fighter, currently best known as Cara Dune in the hit Disney+ series The Mandalorian. Gina has said a lot of very controversial things on Twitter in the last few months. She criticized mail-in voting, she sympathized with Trump supporters, and she compared the way that the left is ruining the lives of conservatives to the earliest pre-holocaust treatment of Jews by the Nazis. The left decided that Gina needed to be “canceled.” And so the social media machine went to action. Hashtags formed, petitions went up, and boycotts were threatened unless she was fired. Within a month they got their way.
I want to make this clear: I very much disapprove with what she’s said. This is not - and will not be - a debate on the right/or wrong of what she’s said. But Gina never assaulted anyone. She committed no crime. Her sin was that she held opinions and personal politics that were found to be unacceptable by the majority.
History is full of Ginas. In the 1950’s, we saw the rise of Mcarthyism. The moral majority knew that Communism was wrong. Immoral. There was no question or debate. Something needed to be done. These problematic beliefs needed to be stamped out. Canceled. And so people were brought before hearings and asked are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the communist party. Any suggestion that someone had communist leanings were enough, really. People’s lives - people’s family’s lives - were destroyed. They lost their jobs because no business wanted to be seen harboring commies. They lost their friends, because no one wanted to associate with a dirty commie. Often their family abandoned them so as not to be labeled commies along side them.
Or if you don’t want to go back that far, look at how society treated gay people in the late 20th, early 21st century. All that prejudice they faced? That was because the majority truly believed that it was wrong. Immoral. That’s what made Ellen so “problematic” for the time.
Sure, now we see the folly of all that. And no, I’m not here to put what Gina said or how she’s been treated on the same level of severity. Obviously not. But the principle behind it remains the same: the majority decided that these people’s personal lives - their thoughts, their opinions, their feelings and politics - were wrong, and they believed that they had the right to regulate morality. They believed that anyone who didn’t “fall in line” with theit views of society - that communism was bad, that heterosexuality good, and rap music, Dungeons & Dragons and Married with Children would corrupt the children - had to be black-balled. Couldn’t be allowed to succeed based on the merit or quality of their work. They needed to be cancelled.
And here we are again. Yet somehow, for the first time to my knowledge, the left - the liberals - are the ones putting themselves up on a moral pedestal. Don’t believe that someone who fits every biological qualification to be classified as a woman is really a man? Cancelled. Sentiment is more important. Voted for Trump? Cancelled. Speak out on a societal trend from the left you find upsetting - you better believe you’re cancelled (luckily for me I’m an abject failure in life already! HOORAY!).
The message that the American left is sending is quite clear: We are the moral majority. We decide what is right and wrong, and you will agree with us and support our positions, or we will know. We are monitoring you for problematic speech and wrong-think. If you say something out of line we will contact your employers and threaten to boycott as long as you remain employed. We will dig through your past to look for anything you may have said or done that is inappropriate. Those edgy jokes you told to friends ten years ago. Any time you seemed a little too comfortable playing Cards Against Humanity. Anytime you associated with someone we don’t like. We will exaggerate what you’ve done, some of us will even invent new things that you’ve done; and even after those made-up things have been exposed, we will target anyone who dares point out that you didn’t do them (because that still counts defending you). We will make life difficult for anyone - friends, family or fans - who supports, defends, or even tries to comfort you. You are with us - you are like us - or you are the enemy. And God help you if we deem you as such.
I can’t believe how much the right and the left has changed roles. And quite frankly, it terrifies me.