The extreme political correctness of today’s Cancel Culture is making an alarming impact on human interaction. The new norms of speech and debate are debilitating, isolationist, and self-destructive.
Cancel Culture is a human trait. It is an evolutionary generational social change that has to be accepted and modified when necessary for humanity to have an honest dialogue about history, facts and the continued development of civilization. However, what we see these days is extreme illiberal, self-destructive, one-sided, dogmatic identity politics.
History cannot be changed or erased, though it can be re-written, as some vested interests do, and misrepresented. History’s mistakes are repeated when not honestly addressed or denied – and are the downfall of empires – a road the American Empire is on. A subject I address at length in Custom Maid Knowledge for New World Disorder in the chapter Empires and Leftovers – Hong Kong Melting Pot, and in Custom Maid Revolution for New World Disorder in the chapter titled Afterthoughts.
Humans have evolved from roaming hunter-gatherers lighting fires by rubbing two sticks, to today’s lockdown Internet junkies who can remotely light fires with lasers. Over that long period of evolution, we lost, without even realizing, what needed to be cherished.
An e-mail I received recently put it aptly: “Twenty years ago we had Johnny Cash, Bob Hope and Steve Jobs. Today we have no cash, no hope, no jobs.”
In Hong Kong, politicized Cancel Culture emerged through a series of events – like the Occupy Central sparked by the move to enact new laws under Article 23 of the Basic Law, the process of electing the chief executive, preventing the duly elected legislators from assuming their seat in the Legco because of their wrongful oath-taking, the 2019 protest rallies that began peacefully and later turned violent against a proposed extradition treaty, and lately the imposition of a Beijing-promulgated National Security Law (NSL) that allows China to demand Hong Kong extradite anyone who violates NSL to stand trial in a mainland court.
Those who are sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party would say that what Beijing is doing to Hong Kong is not much different from what the US president, Donald Trump, is doing to American cities – imposing his definition of Law and Order.
Nevertheless, the reaction provoked by actions like these has brought nationalists, progressives and conservatives in America, Europe and Latin America to launch movements like Black Lives Matter, and in Hong Kong, a mass protest calling for civil rights, democracy and, even, independence. These actions and reactions are rupturing the cornerstones of the civil society and the freedom of speech and assembly that are part of a community with the rule of law – factors that have made America and other liberal democracies thrive and Hong Kong, though not a democracy, prosper. No illiberal Cancel Culture movement, no matter how justifiable it might be, should be allowed to tear down the foundations that have served the people well in a civil society.
Time to go back to pre-Internet and social media generations practices and learn from their mistakes and successes.
The Covid-19 lockdown had brewed people’s pent-up economic, health and political frustrations. They were further agitated by the video clips circulating on social media of the police killing George Floyd in Minneapolis. It was a perfect storm that pushed people to spend more time online. They became victims of closed-minded group thinkers and refused to accept or trust people with different points of view.
Cancel Culture activists remind me of the religious fanatics and their holy wars over different deities and beliefs that resulted in the deaths, beheadings and crucifixions of millions of innocent people.
Institutional racism is a fact. A subject I have addressed at length in my books. Addressing racism constructively – not just in America, but globally – is long overdue. Listening to all points of view, with the right to disagree or admit being wrong, is essential.
Identity politics ideology, political intolerance and censorship of different political, cultural, religious, or sexual points-of-view, have reached extremes that are now infringing on free speech on university campuses, at the workplace and public square, not only in America, China and Hong Kong but globally.
Truth has to be told and acknowledged; not suppressed. The boundaries of Main Street political speech have to be expanded without fear of intimidation in our post Covid world.
All political ideas, no matter how politically sensitive, such as racism, anti-Semitism, white nationalism, sexual orientation, must be allowed to be expressed, listened to, discussed and debated. Ideas such as abolishing police, removal of statues from public places, human rights, sanctuary cities, immigration, climate change, housing, rent control, democracy, communism, socialism, freedom of speech and the press should be addressed and debated openly. Not only online, but in person in community gatherings when the Covid-19 pandemic is over, to determine what is best for all of us – individually and collectively.
A noteworthy lesson emerging from the Covid lockdown is, how much we despise isolation and crave human interaction – time to start practising what Johnny Cash, Bob Hope and Steve Jobs preached.
The post-Covid-19 world will present a more significant economic and political challenge than the post-Depression and World War II worlds. There will be little room for Cancel Culture if we are to meet head-on and take on the New World Disorder challenges.
Merit and competence must be balanced with political, racial and gender criteria. They cannot afford to be mutually exclusive. History teaches us that unique behaviours are unsustainable. So, let’s come to terms with this reality sooner than later – before it is too late and we all cancel each other out.
Download the free chapter titled Empires and Leftovers – Hong Kong Melting Pot from Custom Maid Knowledge for New World Disorder.
Download the free chapter titled Afterthoughts Custom Maid Revolution form New World Disorder.
