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Ken Schultz's avatar

Tara, thank you for addressing this topic.

Now, to something that may well see me cancelled.

I very respectfully submit that a lot - I mean a real lot - of this cancel culture comes from the leftish side of things. Not everything, of course, not by any stretch, but real lot of it is leftish.

There, I have said it.

Now, for a couple of stupid - my word - examples.

You will recall that we had a bout with Covid over the last few years. There were some folks who said Covid was not serious, was not really a thing. I thought them daft (a very polite term, to be sure) and I simply did not pay attention to them. There were, however, some folks, including medical professionals who were very thoughtful and mentioned some treatments that might be useful in addition to those that the mainstream establishment were requiring. Many of those medical professionals were forced to keep quiet after some of them lost licenses to practice, etc. My point is that, in addition to the "leftish" folks who dearly love cancel culture, there were the mainstream folks who felt forced to keep to the established narrative.

Oh, yeah, I read in the newspaper now that some of the latest "treatments" include some of the things that were put forth by those previously cancelled and prevented from speaking out.

Another example: the religion of climate change. You can, if you wish, openly criticize, say, the Catholic Church, the Mormon faith, even the Muslim faith [if you are TERRIFICALLY careful] but you cannot question the church of climate change. It used to be called global warming but, I guess, the globe is no longer warming; just changing.

Anyway, do you know anyone who has questioned the assertion that "97% of all scientists" support the notion [they say "science"] of global warming / climate change, whatever? Track it back and it is a terrifically interesting example of how an assertion is made but cannot be discussed.

If you wish to discuss climate change, etc. you can do so - but only in an approved and approving fashion. You cannot ask uncomfortable questions about it, obvious contradictions, etc. My point is that unlike pretty much any other scientific hypothesis / theory, it cannot be discussed in a way that challenges the orthodoxy.

There are a lot of examples of cancel culture.

I thank you for your essay on this topic. Cancel culture is very widespread [an opinion, to be sure] and is difficult to deal with. But we must. I have the right to not listen to something that offends me and contradicts my opinions; I have the right to do so but I do it at my peril because it precludes me from the possibility of learning something that I didn't previously know - perhaps, even, something that supports my idea!

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Daniel Burston's avatar

This is a balanced, thorough and thoughtful appraisal of a deeply disturbing trend. I only wish more people on the Left had the courage to speak out against it.

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