Lately, there’s been a ton of cancel culture going on not only in this country, but around the globe. Cancel culture seeks to do many things- to instill fear in people, silence them, and oppress them. It looks to cover up wrongdoing, abuses of power, and atrocities. CC and bullying are no different.
When it happens in school or the workplace, we call it bullying. When it happens on a political or government level, we call it cancel culture. Understand that cancel culture and bullying are one and the same.
Cancel culture enforces a double-standard and holds targeted people to standards that no one outside the targeted group lives up to.
What is wrong for the targeted group is right for the in-group. What’s celebrated for one person or group is loathed in another. What’s deemed illegal for one person or group is legal, even heroism in another.
Sound familiar? It should.
This is bullying on a grand scale. Because one group has the right to commit crimes, hurt, and kill people. But the other group doesn’t even have the right to defend themselves or their families and homes against the same criminals who are given carte blanche to harm them.
Many people have lost their jobs, livelihoods, homes, even families to cancel culture. Understand that cancel culture is bullying and it isn’t right to refuse someone else’s right to speak, think, work, flourish, and exist simply because they have different opinions, beliefs, and perspectives than you.
If this isn’t mass bullying, I don’t know what is!
The message cancel culture send is, “We can, you can’t,” “Do as I say, not as I do,” “Rules for thee and not for me,” and dissenting opinions need not apply.”
So, what shapes our opinions, beliefs, and perspectives?
Several things:
- The family we’re born into
- The environment we grew up in
- Personal experiences
- Education
- Culture
Cancel culture isn’t just defamation and smear campaigns. No! It goes much further.
It includes doxing the target- digging up information about the target and their family and using it to cause harm to the target and his/her loved ones. Cancel culture seeks to take away the target’s good name and standing in society, their rights to earn a living and feed their family, and their physical safety. I don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on. Cancel culture is wrong! It’s evil and it has to stop!
I want you to understand that everyone has a divine, God-given right to their own opinions, to be neutral, or to stay silent. These are Human rights, and again, no matter what side of the aisle we’re on, we each have those rights!
Right before our very eyes, certain groups are being conditioned not to defend their most precious rights. They’re also being programmed not to believe what they see happening, nor to listen to their God-given gut instincts. And it’s scary!
Nowadays, it’s too easy to destroy someone’s life and take everything away from them- everything they’ve worked hard their whole lives for. The sad thing is that, if a bully wants to destroy you, they don’t need evidence to back them up. They don’t need proof to do it.
All it takes is an accusation, an allegation, or suggestion.
All it takes is a tweet, Facebook post, or any online post from ten-fifteen years ago.
All it takes is one harmless joke that’s deemed offensive, or a picture of you from the seventies or eighties in a Halloween Costume that is seen as politically incorrect today.
Bullies can dig up something from years ago, a high school photo, an old photo of you at a kegger or house party when you were a wet-behind-the-ears teenager and wipe you out! There’s no forgiveness or redemption on the internet!
Yes, people! This is the crazy world we’re living in now.
Cancel Culture doesn’t take into consideration that people grow up. It doesn’t care about the fact that people change as they get older or that we learn from our mistakes. Maturity doesn’t sway it. Cancel culture has no concern that we all do and say stupid things when we’re kids and that we’re all human beings capable of making errors.
Understand that if bullies cannot pin anything on you, they will either claim that you’re mentally imbalanced, or they will dig up something, anything from your past that puts you in a bad light.
I’ll say again. Cancel culture is bullying of the highest order. It’s also stalking and it’s dangerous. Cancel culture puts our very lives at risk and people have had to flee their own homes due to doxxing and having their lives and the lives of their family threatened. There are even a few that have gone into hiding. Some have even had to go underground.
It is my hope that people wake up and see the craziness and obsessiveness of cancel culture. Each and every one of us should take a stand against this madness.
Bullying under any name is still bullying. The ugly spector of social medium continues to produce an unproductive harvest of negativity.
Spot on, Buckeye! 💯🎯
Brilliant.
Thank you so much, Texas Jack! 🙂
I agree that cancel culture is bullying on a grand scale. It’s scary the way it has swept through the West, and become viewed as acceptable, in recent years.
Absolutely It’s scary! It’s terrifying!
Controversial opinion:
In addition to not considering that people grow up, cancel culture also does not take into consideration that society grows up, in a sense. Statements made or actions committed by older people when they were younger may have been objectively wrong but widespread in the culture in which they happened. The same, of course, would also apply to historical figures that cancel culture wants to remove from statues and monuments and such.
It’s a hard balance to find, because I understand not wanting to glorify the sins of the past, but many of these older people and historical figures who have been “canceled” have accomplishments worth celebrating and remembering, even though they were products of their time. And, of course, there are plenty of things that are considered normal today that can certainly be considered objectively wrong, although of course that requires a belief in objective morality, and society as a whole cannot agree on what is objectively right and wrong.
Great point! You are correct in this comment. Also, I meant to add that Cancel Culture can cause us to forget about our history. We can’t forget the mistakes of the past because, it we do, we’ll only repeat those mistakes.
The last thing we want to do is repeat the same mistakes which will only Divide us further. We must not forget our mistakes because it’s the only way we can learn from them.
Excellent point.
Thank you, Greg. 🙂
Okay I am going to to be controversial here but I say this as a true independent voter. I think a lot of people have been radicalized on the right under Trump. Things like “election stolen” is hogwash. In every court of law it was shut down, just a bunch of conspiracy theorists and networks like OAN and others have made that side intolerable to anyone with a different opinion. It is sort of like the attack on the Capitol. That was a radicalized group of people who will try to torment, attack others. Now on the left they definitely refused to give the right credit for anything so they aren’t perfect either. But getting back to the election a lot more people voted! Trump actually got about 15-18 percent more votes (in mass numbers) than he did in 2016 and Biden got about 15 to 18 percent more in mass numbers compared to when Obama won due to more people voting. My point being a lot of this Cancel Culture is occurring because both sides are acting like nut jobs.
There are radicals on both sides, that I agree with. What I don’t agree with is painting all who votes for a particular individual or is affiliated with a certain party with the same brush. That’s was my point in the post.
There are extremists on both sides. That is why I stay in the middle. I am not going to ever attack everything about the right or the left because I can find fault with both. I also avoid watching radical television like OAN or ever only listening to one opinion. I listen to the left’s take on things and the right and I don’t let other people influence my own belief
I listen to both sides too. It’s the only way you can get to the truth.
Part of the problem stems from the fact both sides have become less news and more entertainment and pandering to their particular audience. That is why people have to be careful not to get radicalized. Plus people have to learn how to channel their anger toward something and make sure they voice their opinion in appropriate ways, protest in the right way etc. Plus people also have to realize not everyone shares the same views and their opinion is just as valid.
BINGO! You said it perfectly!
Completely agree. Great article.
Thank you so much, Amber. 🙂
Excellent post. Right on.
Thank you so much! 😊
So true.
I really appreciate what you have written in this post; people need to hear this right now!
It reminds me of the plot of Les Miserables, how Jean Valjean was ostracized from society because of his past, the world wanted to keep him from growing and changing saying that his past forever defined him. It was a “once a criminal always a criminal” mindset. There was no love or grace or acceptance. There are so many similarities in cancel culture.
Wonderful comment. You’re absolutely correct! I haven’t seen Les Miserables but you’ve just peaked my interest and inspired me to order it. Thank you so much! ❤
Oh my goodness, it is so good! I’m glad you have decided to look into it, I do not think you will be disappointed. My two favorite film versions are the mini series produced by PBS and the musical version that came out in 2012.
This isn’t exactly an example of Cancel Culture, but your mentioning Facebook posts reminded me of something that happened because of judgement coming against someone through social media. A woman who was receiving food stamps won the lottery and didn’t report it. So much hate went out to her and about her over social media, and she overdosed. Not sure if she intended to, but that has stuck with me. We all get outraged, but that much outrage coming against someone— regardless of their intentions in what they do or say— it’s too overwhelming. I don’t think it’s intentional bullying. I wish somehow we could get to the place of constructive, gentle admonishment as a culture, or just overlooking those kinds of situations for individuals that we believe do offensive things.
Boy, that’s sad. And you just know someone that work at the food stamp office got that started because getting government assistance is a private matter, as it should be. Also, people were PO’ed that she won. They were jealous of her and used her wrongdoing against her. Yes, she was in the wrong in not reporting the money. But it sounds like these people just came unglued and went crazy on her. That, to me spells jealousy and it can make people vicious like that.
I completely agree!!
Interesting post!
Thank you so much.
Couldn’t agree more!! I’m so over it that I started a brand new blog! Feel free to check it out!
Here is my article about canceling Dr. Seuss!!
https://storytimewithbell.wordpress.com/2021/03/07/dr-seuss-books-discontinued/
Thank you so much! I’ll definitely read it!
It does seem there’s not much room for error in our culture today. And the standards we live by today are being filtered throughout history, almost in a “thought-police, 1984” kind of way. It would be valuable if there were those who were blatantly hateful and looking to cause harm, yet many targets aren’t like that. This is the problem with society getting too far ahead of the individual. It lives on its own with no accountability.
Thanks for posting
You’re so welcome! You’re spot on with your comment. I’m reading the book 1984 now and I’m astounded at how much it describes today’s world. It’s as if Orwell was predicting the future!