Cancel Culture in 1974
jayriverlong.github.io
jayriverlong.github.io
I try to avoid placing myself on the political spectrum, I tend to believe politics need to take a well rounded view on things, so I guess that would place me center or something.
I tend to believe in a decent amount of personal freedom while believing the government exists to serve and provide social systems for the population.
I tend to find both the 'left' and 'right' push me away. Both are so extreme and exclusive in their views that they're blind to whatever common ground they might have with eachother if they have even the slightest difference in views.
It's ridiculous. Both far left and far right of the political spectrum have become caricatures of themselves. They've both lost all reason and critical thinking abilities and resort to black and white, yes or no, all in or out, fuck on or fuck off statements.
Human beings aren't like that, society isn't like that. Humans are a million shades of grey ans everyone likely falls somewhere not so extreme when asked candidly and given time to think on their beliefs.
Too much time is spent on alienating eachother, finding the smallest faults with eachother to show why they are 'them' and we are 'us' and not coming together over common ground.
I truly believe, the average person wants what a good majority of other people want and if people were given time to think and understand rather than react, the majority of us, whatever side you fall on, where ever you're from would likely have more in common then we all think, were we more able to look past all our differences.
However, I think what people say online will leach into what they truly believe, particularly with repetition. I believe humans have a cognitive bias towards consistency, particularly with respect to their self-image. If there's a large disconnect between what you truly believe and what you say online, I think there's probably a psychological pressure to alter your self-image to be more inline with what you've been saying.
Generally, this has always been true. It's difficult to form and hold an extreme view while also having an open mind and having discussions with people of differing opinions.
All said, this doesn't mean extreme views are necessarily wrong - slavery abolition, racial equality, etc. were at one times extreme.
Americans are so conditionned by bi-partisanism that most will be surprised when it happens. But it will happen. You are not alone in thinking that both Republicans and Democrats have lost their ways. After 5 years spent in the US (in NYC) I would even say that you are, in fact, the majority. Anecdote, obviously, but I know just too many conservatives who can't (and don't) support the Republican party anymore.
From another perspective, if the DNC lost its mind and for some reason put together a Klobuchar/Clinton ticket to run against a Palin/MarjorieGreene, would someone like Michelle Obama be able to be more likable than either other grouping?
As both tickets grow more silly, and more extreme, it leaves more space for an establishment player to step into the middle and look sane. Bloomberg thought he was that person, and obviously didn't get his closet skeletons in order.
Fox News and trump are not victims of a cancel culture they are the cancel culture, which I think is a perfect term to describe the injustices of a system these people represent.
Who’s really being “cancelled”? Ivanka Trump or millions or disenfranchised people, mostly poor, who’s voices are never heard unless they go out to the streets or boycott a random corporation who’s been lobbying the government in order to bypass and subvert democracy for profit?
He points a ginger finger at the left and its tendency of late toward puritanism, but I think this is too polite. (The modern right has its own tendency and gets no pass, by the way.)
One thing I find interesting amid the modern polarization of ideologies is how clearly the essence of "conservatism" and "liberalism" can be seen in their extreme lights. You get a much clearer picture of "where" each ideology goes when taken to its extreme.
Embarrassingly I grew up tacitly seeing "conservatism" as the "bad guys"; I reject that simplistic thinking these days.
People are people: the right and the left are cut from the same cloth, and both are subject to fundamentalist thinking. I'm speaking not just from media but how certain ideas falling from it have been trickling directly into my friend circles over the years without any kind of thoughtful skepticism or individualization.
I think this describes Gawker more than the current howling mob. There is someone to blame at the end of the day, and there is a clear malevolence in motives.
Today what we have is closer to the medieval village in winter where there is nothing to do but go to the town square and watch the witches be humiliated.