Too bad there's no protections against cancel culture.Originally Posted by jp1
Too bad there's no protections against cancel culture.
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein
It’s not like he’d respect those anymore than he does the first amendment.
The important thing is that the effective cancel culture can't be voted out of office so they can continue till they either grow up or become a modern Robespierre and are cancelled by their own.
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein
I tend to agree with the sentiment of the letter. But I'm reminded of an uncomfortable meeting that happened a number of years ago at my previous mega-corp job. Everyone in the company had been trained on a new "Way of Working (WOW)" where employees were given avenues to point out flaws in our processes that caused inefficiencies, with the goal of coming up with solutions to improve operations (and theoretically profits). One day not too long after we'd all been through WOW training a senior NY home office bigwig in my division was in our office and held a team meeting with the twenty-ish of our division in the San Francisco office. Having been WOW'd everyone was ready and eager to point out problems. The question and answer session turned into a gripe-fest of everything that was wrong with the company and how we managed things. After fielding questions for a good half hour the bigwig finally stopped for a moment to collect his thoughts and then said something to the effect of "I appreciate that WOW has given everyone the confidence to speak up about our shortcomings as an organization. That's all well and good. But you all seem to have forgotten the second half of WOW, which is equally important, and that is to bring solutions to solve these problems."
As I pointed out above, "cancel culture" runs all the way to the top of the country, with our president, literally the most powerful person in the US, engaging in it just as much as everyone else. Recognizing that it's a problem is a good first step, but what are the solutions? Personally I don't know what the solution is. This conversation reminds me of Ultralight's descriptions of meetings with his SJW friends/acquaintances who were just as ready to "cancel", or at least harshly deride, others for not being SJW'y enough.
30-35 years ago when I was in high school/college and still firmly in the closet I had a number of friends who at one time or another made homophobic remarks or slurs. At the time lots of people did this. After joining facebook ten years ago a number of these same people sent friend requests. I decided to accept those requests and see what these people were like now after not having been in touch with them for decades. Through my interactions with them on Facebook I've come to see that every single one of them are now staunch supporters of LGBTQ equality. None of them would make a homophobic comment today, and I suspect if I were to ask them about their past behavior all those years ago they would be embarrassed/ashamed to know that they had unintentionally hurt me and possibly others. I'm thankful that I didn't hold their prior actions against them when the initial facebook friend requests came through.
Jp1, related but not about cancel culture, were ANY gay men popuLar in your high school class? I mean, popular as gay men.
I ask because back in the 70s, early 70s when I graduated, there was one gay man who was “taken up” by the popular girls. He was the solidly in their clique for a couple of years. I’m not sure that it was ever stated that he was gay.I don’t mean he was their pet, he was solidly a participating member of their clique.
What I was thinking about today was that I’m sure there were other gay men in our class who didn’t get that treatment, maybe would’ve like that treatment, maybe would not have liked the treatment, I don’t know and I’m not sure who else was gay to this day. My best friend’s high school boyfriend has turned out to be trans, so that’s quite a surprise. I mean it’s a surprise considering how, er, randy he was around her. He still sort of seems like that for women, according to his Facebook page. But he also has mental illness that keeps him on an uneven keel.
IL, interesting question. To my knowledge, no, there were no out gay guys or even widely assumed to be gay guys in the 1600 kids in my high school when I was there. I truly had not known anyone to be gay until I got to college and my freshman (and the rest of my college career) roommate was gay. Other than him it wasn't until my summer job busing tables after freshman year of college that I met anyone who was openly comfortable with gay men or being a gay man. At that summer job most of the younger waitresses were part of a bigger scene of downtown Denver servers and their larger friend group included a couple of effeminate gay guys that they all seemed to really adore. Over the course of that summer I listened in on lots of stories of the fun they all had together. It was only after I moved to NYC post-college that I began to meet a lot of out gay men and became comfortable with the fact that it wasn't a particularly unusual or creepy thing.
I was madly in love with only two men in high school--the first one from my freshman year to my junior year and the other for the rest of my high school life. Both loves were unrequited, even though I sent plenty of signals.
They were both very popular, leaders in their classes, very well liked, funny and warmhearted. The first one, "J," bonded with me like glue when we were both sitting backstage while rehearsing for a school play and he mentioned his parents were divorced. As my parents were the ONLY OTHER parents I knew who were divorced, his admission attracted me like a magnet. I no longer felt alone.
He graduated a year before me and that left me free to pursue "P." We spent hours on the phone talking, and hours in his basement singing to records. I adored him.
They have both been married many years now to their husbands. I'm not sure if they knew they were gay at that time, but certainly no one in high school knew. As far as we knew, there were no gays in my high school of 1200 students in 1970.
"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
www.silententry.wordpress.com
It's not unusual for transpeople to choose partners of the sex they've transitioned to, in my experience.
I think we may be approaching Peak Woke, both in terms of elite and popular tolerance. Much like we stopped hearing about #MeToo when the focus changed from Brett’s high school yearbook to Joe’s alleged frolics, our upper echelons may be less enthusiastic about scalp-hunting. And at some point soon the general public will weary of the preaching from privileged celebrities, not to mention all the righteous destruction.
And in the likely event that Trump departs from office next January, we will lose the mad energies released by the weird symbiotic relationship he seems to have with his more obsessed enemies.
How about "respect culture"? Culture doesn't need to be cancelled, it should be respected. That doesn't mean you participate in it or agree with it, ect. - but you do respect it. And, before anyone says that means the statues/base names/etc should stay... I still disagree as they are "history" (BTDT on that conversation and NOT repeating it).
I know already that the arguments against the above would be that too many people have no concept of "respect" and the disagreements/fights/etc would turn into what constitutes "culture".
I also believe that for folks who have no respect for people they consider "not us, but them", there is no solution.
To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer." Mahatma Gandhi
Be nice whenever possible. It's always possible. HH Dalai Lama
In a world where you can be anything - be kind. Unknown
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