A democratic sensibility undeniably cuts against the grain of history. Most of human history is the history of elites, of kings, queens, princes, prelates, magistrates, potentates, knights, earls, and squires, all of whom subordinated and exploited everyday people.
I think one of the ideals of America was that it was supposed to cut against the grain of what was commonplace at the time. Obviously it was not perfect, and still today there are many issues with America that need to be worked on.
He recognized the absurd in American society and realized that being Black in America is to be a problem
History has shown this to sadly be true. We have made a lot of progress with civil rights as a country but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.
“a lethal and unprecedented linkage of relative economic decline, cultural decay, and political lethargy.”
America has gone through many changes since it's creation, and the past 20 years were no exception. There have been economic problems, cultural disputes, and political issues that have done more to divide the country rather than unite it.
“The question is: are you a victim of cancel culture or are you being held accountable for your behaviour?”, she said.
People always need to be held accountable for their behavior, but I don't think it is as extreme as being a victim. Usually the truth has a lot of grey areas and lies somewhere in the middle. While people need to be held accountable for the things they do, they shouldn't have to worry about being publicly shamed for making a mistake.
Or the cancellation of the career of the Grammy award-winning, black gospel singer Chrisette Michelle for singing at Mr Trump’s inauguration in 2017.
When I say that there is a cancel culture, what I mean is that there are people in this world that are focused on taking down the lives of others for whatever reason they can find. This is a good example of this, as people decided to hate Chrisette Michelle for deciding to perform for a president that was not liked by the general media.
We live in a twilight zone where people are yelling ‘cancel culture ruined my life’. When in reality there is nothing that powerful politicians and police officers can do to get cancelled.”
Having government power and having money sadly can protect you from a lot of things in life. The government does not hold itself accountable for a lot of things but that's a whole other can of worms.
Mr Trump himself compared cancel culture to totalitarianism in 2020, whilst calling for multiple reporters and politicians to be fired.
Why does this not surprise me? A lot of people don't understand (and I probably don't either) how cancel culture works and what it really is. People want other people fired/canceled for one reason or another, and that behavior is what's being promoted with this.
If you don’t like the narrative or are losing an argument, throw a ‘dead cat’, or otherwise shocking statement or bit of news, on the table, and all talk on the former topic will end.
I've experience people doing this or something similar to this before as a way to divert attention from the main argument.
The writer said: “It’s almost exhausting to have this conversation about this mythical cancel culture. It’s a very fictitious thing. It’s a weapon that a lot of powerful, privileged people use as a shield to avoid accountability.”
There are arguments that are in support of and against the idea of cancel culture. I agree Ms. Hubbard when she says people use it as a tool to avoid accountability, but I would argue that it is not fictitious. One does not have to browse twitter for very long to find someone arguing about why someone else should get cancelled from the internet.
So, the cancellation of actual culture, not a culture of cancellations.
This is what makes cancel culture so dangerous. It carries a heavy bias and is unwilling to listen to the views of others. Cancel culture is a culture built around getting rid of everything we don't like but everyone is different.
Its modern use may have first popped up in mainstream, popular culture in the 1991 cult movie, New Jack City, starring Wesley Snipes as crime boss Nino Brown, as spotted by Vox in 2019.
It's unsurprising that an example of this culture can be seen in film. Films have a large impact on culture and seeing this behavior portrayed by actors and artists is a great way to promote this way of thinking.
Public shaming, or ‘mob justice’, is not a new concept. The earliest recorded use in English of a pillory, or stock, in which disgraced citizens would have their hands and head locked in public spaces, was 1274.
Cancel culture is a form of public shaming. It effectively excludes people who don't fit the expected views of society, and sends a message that people will look down on you if you don't share the same views and opinions as them.
It was the theme of last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), titled “America Uncancelled”, which ironically hadn’t even begun before it un-invited a guest speaker who had allegedly expressed antisemitic views.
Ironic, isn't it. Talking about cancel culture is something I think is necessary in today's world and we need to learn to recognize cancel culture behavior when it appears.
to digging up old social media posts and re-examining what is acceptable language.
There are things that people would say ten years ago that would not be considered socially acceptable today, so punishing someone today for something they did ten years ago doesn't accomplish much of anything.
But some conservative figures like Donald Trump Jr and Fox News have eagerly seized on it
I think both sides were eager to pick a side on this one due to how Dr. Seuss has been viewed culturally over the past generation. It can also be an easy source of publicity to pick a side.
Unsurprisingly, the last one caused the biggest backlash, with right-wing pundits claiming that ‘childhood is cancelled’ after the estate of Dr Seuss quietly removed six lesser read books which they said featured “hurtful and wrong” racial stereotypes, first published in 1937.
Racism was very common and generally accepted during Geisel's life, so it would make sense if he held some racist beliefs that managed to show up in his work. While he was able to create books that have been beloved by many, he also was only human and had his own bias that people need to be aware of.
In fact, my efforts to understand a small claim of cancel culture suggest that it’s less intentional but more pervasive than we realize.
It's human instinct to want to get rid of what we don't like. What makes things difficult is that people have different points of view on life and different opinions.
The Wall Street Journal recently sanctified Rush Limbaugh as “patient zero” of today’s cancel culture, which suggests just how successfully conservative voices have been muzzled by this fantastical plague of liberal harpies.
Cancel culture has really become something of interest in today's world. This article is going to have some level bias and that's a good thing.
“I think when there is something in a book that you find offensive, what a great teaching opportunity,” Ms. Lewis said.
I agree with this. It is better to learn from situations like this rather than to simply cancel the author.
“Minimizing, erasing or not acknowledging Seuss’ racial transgressions across his entire publishing career deny the very real historical impact they had on people of color and the way that they continue to influence culture, education, and children’s views of people of color,”
I agree with this quote and think Dr. Seuss's racial transgressions and the impacts they had should be recognized.
Scholars have long noted racism in his wartime political cartoons, which he later offered a halfhearted apology for, saying they were the result of “snap judgments that every political cartoonist has to make.” Others have noted anti-Semitic and Islamophobic overtones in the comics and advertisements he wrote before and during his career as a children’s book author.
It is important to recognize Geisel for who he really is and not just blindly cancel him out of existence. He wrote numerous children's stories that influenced thousands but at the end of the day he is someone who had his own view of the world just like you and I.
Occasionally, publishers have made tweaks to illustrations and texts to refurbish outdated picture books
This may be a good idea on paper, but this could be seen as tampering the author's work to fit the modern cultural view.
In recent decades, librarians and scholars have led a push to re-evaluate children’s classics that contain stereotypes and caricatures. Editions of illustrated series like “Tintin” and “Babar,” which have long been accused of promoting colonialist and imperialist viewpoints, have been withdrawn from some libraries following criticism that their European authors depicted nonwhite characters as savages.
In theory this is a good idea, but the road to hell is always paved with good intentions. While there have been children's books that contain outdated stereotypes, cancelling them for it may not be the best solution.
“There are parts of his legacy one should honor, and parts of his legacy that one should not.”
I agree with this quote. Nobody is perfect, and both the good and bad should be recognized.
The announcement seemed to drive a surge of support for Seuss classics.
This doesn't surprise me. Negative publicity is still publicity and this will make Dr. Seuss more popular for better or worse.
But some aspects of Seuss’s work have not aged well, including his debut, which features a crude racial stereotype of an Asian man with slanted lines for eyes. “Mulberry Street” was one of six of his books that the Seuss estate said it would stop selling this week, after concluding that the egregious racial and ethnic stereotypes in the works “are hurtful and wrong.”
It is interesting to see how an author like Dr. Seuss is able to create content that portrays ethnic stereotypes. During his lifetime American society was a little bit different and these portrayals of racial stereotyping were seen as completely acceptable.
Is it really impossible, however, to shed or significantly mitigate one’s biases?
I don't think so honestly. Everybody has a bias and everyone will always carry some level of bias that can never be completely mitigated, but if one is willing to listen and have an open mind then the level of bias could be changed.
Present bias, by contrast, is an example of cognitive bias—the collection of faulty ways of thinking that is apparently hardwired into the human brain.
Hardwired is a little bit of an extreme way of putting it I believe when it comes to cognitive bias. I think it can be a result of one's upbringing and the environment one grew up in.
which is the tendency people have, when considering a trade-off between two future moments, to more heavily weight the one closer to the present
This is how I operate in a lot of my daily life. In my personal experience I have found that I live a lot closer to the present and not think about the future too much
democracies across Europe and North America are leaving the “acute crisis” phase of the COVID-19 pandemic behind for now and are learning to live with COVID-19.
We (as a country) were not able stop the pandemic so now we are learning more to coexist with it until a solution can be found. I wonder how America as a country would have reacted if we knew this was going to be the outcome of 2020?
From the very beginning, the COVID-19 pandemic led to an “infodemic.” Overwhelmed by uncertainty and confined in their homes, people obsessively searched for information. At the same time, malign actors multiplied the production of fake news, conspiracy theories, and manipulated information on an ad hoc basis.
The amount of uncertainty that was happening throughout 2020 allowed for people to be easily manipulated by various powers to believe misinformation about COVID-19 and how dangerous it is.
The hyper-politicization of COVID-19, combined with the devastating consequences of lockdown measures, has also created a fertile breeding ground for domestic disinformation activities. The “Plandemic” video in the United States,49 French moutons enragés,50 and Italian Orange Vests51(along with neo-fascist CasaPound) all maintain that the virus was a scam — some blame political elites, others blame 5G technology — and all complain about the lockdown measures imposed by the government.
There was a large amount misinformation about COVID-19, especially when it first hit counties such as Europe and America. Incorporating it into politics allowed information about the virus to be warped by political views on both sides.