Cancel Culture is Rotting Society (Photo Credit: Skypixel)
In late August 2020, a report submitted to the Mayor of Washington, D.C., Muriel Bowser, outlined a vision to reexamine the meaning, impact, and legacy of numerous American luminaries immortalized by symbolic tributes scattered throughout the city. It proposes that memorials dedicated to those persons who “author[ed]…legislation that suppressed persons of color and women” or “propo[sed]…legislation that suppressed persons of color and/or women” be “renam[ed],” “remov[ed],” or “contextualiz[ed].” Inevitably, examples of monuments effected at the whim of the local government would include the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, and other, rather minor, sites which pay homage to great leaders.
I view contextualization as requisite to any symbolic tribute to those who preceded us. It behooves us as discerning individuals to scrutinize the contradiction this presents within examination of the full scope of these men and women’s illustrious legacies. Our own University has sought to contextualize many of its more controversial actors, most notably Woodrow Wilson; even prior to his name being stripped from the School of Public and International Affairs, a monument outside of Robertson Hall entitled “Double Sights” displayed both “the positive and negative dimensions of Wilson’s legacy.” But the disturbed version of “contextualization” considered by the D.C. city government appears a veiled attempt at mass revisionism. Our historical leaders’ nuanced contributions are sacrificed in favor of uncredible claims frequently devised by those who neither grasp nor experience their impacts, and institutions endowed to the American public subsequently fall as mere byproducts to the scorched-earth strangle of cancel culture.
With radically-oriented thought-leaders and litigators at the helm, cancel culture has pervaded many facets of American society, media, and culture, its doctrine applying asymmetrically based on social or political status. The phenomenon, as demonstrated by the cancelled production of Nike sneakers displaying the Betsy Ross flag, a seltzer company forced into the spotlight of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, or NRA representatives being shouted down at a CNN town hall meant to “advance the national conversation on gun control and violence,” churns ordinary entities through an eternal crucible of moral arbitration to determine whether they are aptly suited — and preconditioned — to conform to superficial mora. It relegates those with any semblance of infraction to the outer fringes of the societal framework, no matter how minor or how long ago acted, and tentatively permits those deemed “acceptable” to return to their day-to-day affairs. The ghastly specter of cancel culture broods over the mundane and the extraordinary, yielding to no bounds and percolating among the unsuspecting masses. While misunderstandings of cultural difference arise in any functional society, cancel culture establishes an untenable barometer through which we judge both our coevals and preceding generations.
The fringes of the American polity have weaponized the concept to sow discord among hard-working Americans whose careers would be made uncertain by such developments, while the most prominent members of the political fray have emerged unscathed from far more egregious acts. On the weekly, stories abound that cast an Orwellian shadow over the body politic, whether it be the fate of professional soccer player Aleksandar Katai, who was dismissed from the LA Galaxy following his wife’s criticism of the Black Lives Matter organization over Twitter, or celebrity Dee Nguyen, fired from an MTV show after she disavowed the Black Lives Matter organization.
Meanwhile, the “woke” class seems immune from the cancel culture purge. While stumping on the campaign trail in South Dakota during his 2016 bid for president, Senator Bernie Sanders detoured to Mt. Rushmore and marveled at its imposing presence, noting, “you have four great presidents up there… just the accomplishment and beauty, it really does make one very proud to be an American.” Sanders’ grandiose comments would not fly under today’s parameters. In fact, President Trump’s July 4th visit to the site was met with excoriating criticism from his detractors on the left. In an article entitled “For some Native Americans, Mount Rushmore is a Symbol of Broken treaties, White domination,” the authors wrote that “the 79-year-old Mount Rushmore, with four white faces carved into the granite, is a symbol of… oppression, especially offensive because it’s located in South Dakota’s Black Hills, which [the Lakota Sioux] regard with reverence.”
It would be mistaken to mollify the historical experiences of our country’s Native American populations. But for CNN, it seems to be solely because of Trump’s appearance that the site’s symbolic value is no longer apropos. Those same restrictions were never levied upon Sanders four years earlier, and the Senator’s leftist cohorts seldom question him over his statements. To several media sources on the left, the conservative outsider was always subject to a far harsher standard of judgment, and the liberal career politician went along scot-free. The hypocrisy is palpable and is destined to only intensify as sectionalism further grips our nation. It should be of grave concern to any citizen with a modicum of common sense.
The Senator from Vermont’s case is hardly anecdotal. While cancel culture prides itself on uniform examination of one’s past comments and actions with a fine-tooth comb, entrenched figures of the American left and right seem conveniently exempt from investigation. To negligible backlash, Democratic Representative Tom Malinowski, whose northern New Jersey constituency houses the nation’s premier supplier of Lysol disinfectant, joked in April that he would “hold up the Lysol [shipments] to Kentucky” unless Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell passed his election security bill — a prima facie prod at the ordinary reputations of Middle Americans, inculcating the very animosity towards “coastal elitism” that ushered President Trump into the Oval Office. Despite a noted history of pro-life sentiments, which are understood to be antithetical to the progressive cause, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey recently pulled ahead in a grueling primary race for his seat with vast leftist support. In Kansas, state house candidate Aaron Coleman remains favored in his race despite credible allegations of rape, to which he responded, “it is true I was abusive to my ex-girlfriend.”
Our own President relinquished some of his populist backbone when doing the same; his recent calls to “boycott” Ohio-based Goodyear Tire and Rubber, whose new policies which forbade employees from wearing “MAGA” hats while encouraging pro-Black Lives Matter merchandise, were observed by many as an executively-sanctioned “cancellation” of the company. Boycotts mark a healthy form of dissent in usual circumstances, but one-sided approaches envelop all involved parties in a perpetual cycle of deflection as each side accuses the other of promoting cancel culture. Substantive discussion morphs into ad hominem attacks, and a stalemate always ensues.
Many who have ascended to the halls of power malevolently misconstrue our comments behind a veil of ignorance in an attempt to sensationalize and slander. We must attend compassionately to those assertions which challenge our worldview, catalyze healthy debate, and uphold the constancy of our institutions. Let us assume this current opportunity and strive to dismantle cancel culture, so that we might liberate society from its onerous chains.
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