Cancelling Cancel Culture

It is scary how prescient the movie Network (1976) was with regard to the evolution of TV news. If you recall, a failing US TV network resorts to drastic measures, starting with allowing their anchorman, played by Peter Finch, who is clearly in the throes of a mental breakdown, rant and rave live on air. (‘I’ve had enough and I’m not going to take it any more’). Well, nowadays we have the largely unwatched GBNews wheel on once respected TV historian Neil Oliver every week to spew out barely coherent conspiracy theories. Apparently, it is the only thing that gets them registering viewing figures, as a devoted following of reactionary cranks hang on to his every word, as he burbles his anti-vaxxer, climate change denying and globalist conspiracy nonsense. For them, he’s some kind of Messiah. For the rest of us, with his unkempt hair and straggly beard, Oliver is clearly having some kind of breakdown. (Most recently he had an honest to goodness holocaust denier as his guest).  But, never mind that he speaks utter cobblers – for his followers, they are words of genius. Which is a story as old as civilisation itself – that there are always those who will take as profound the babblings of a lunatic. Just so long as they fit some preconception of a ‘wise man’, the actual words don’t matter. Back in the days of ancient Athens, Aristophanes satirised the phenomena in his play ‘The Clouds’, which portrayed Socrates as an old fool whose nonsensical ramblings are taken by his acolytes as philosophical brilliance. (This allegedly led to a falling out between Aristophanes and his friend Plato).

Still it continues – while we can dismiss Neil Oliver as a sad, past his sell by date, media figure desperately trying to cling to some public attention as his career slides away, let’s not forget all those loons in the US who still see Donald Trump as their saviour, and hang on his every word. Or the idiots here in the UK who still ‘back Boris’ and think his resignation was the result of some sort of coup. Before that, of course, they fell for all of the bollocks woven by Johnson, Gove, Rees-Mogg and Farage in favour of Brexit. (Remind me of the ’benefits of Brexit’ so far, apart from being able to fill the sea with shit without that pesky EU intervening oh health and environmental grounds. The woke bastards). But Brexit is just one of many nonsensical ideas that the gullible have been convinced of in recent times– ‘austerity’, the existence of WMD in Iraq and the existence of ‘Woke’ are among the others. ‘Woke’ is just another version of ‘political correctness’ a mythical threat to the very fabric of our society. In reality, what those peddling these lies really object to is anything that tells them that they are no longer allowed to do or say something considered by decent people to be objectionable. Because that’s what so-called ‘Woke’ and ‘political correctness’ mainly consist of: a demand that we be civil to each other and not call people by racist or sexist names, for example.

One of the most prevalent of these idiocies pushed as being fact when it is actually a fallacy, is ‘cancel culture’. Let me elaborate. My viewing enjoyment of various US streaming channels is currently being blighted by the presence of Mike Lindell in the commercial breaks. You know the guy – proprietor of ‘My Pillow’ and leading Trump supporter. Anyway, he has clearly bought up a lot of advertising time on these channels in order to complain about ‘cancel culture’ (as well as plugging his products, naturally). According to him, it has blighted the lives of millions or ‘ordinary Americans’ and he and his company have been ‘cancelled’ by the media, even banks. Of course, he never explains why he was allegedly cancelled, that he was one of the loudest voices trying to get the 2020 election result overturned and reinstate Trump as president. It wasn’t so much that he was ‘cancelled’, rather that a lot of legitimate businesses and media outlets decided that they’d rather not be associated with his attempts to subvert American democracy – it could taint their brands and be very bad for business. But if we’re to take his reprehensible ads at face value, it is all about those left wing schmucks who hate God and the American way trying to subvert him.

What I find particularly offensive about the ads is the way he clasps his hands, crucifix prominently displayed on his lapel, in a gesture of fake humbleness: ‘Look at me, I’m so humble, I’m so pious, it is so unfair that I’m being treated this way – all I wanted to do was try and overturn the result of a democratic election and illegally reinstate the worst US President ever!’ But is there really such a thing as ‘cancel culture’? It seems to me that this case typifies the sort of misdirection being used by many on the right to try and create yet another non-existent threat to get hot under the collar about. Surely we all have the right to decide not to engage with and even ignore, others who behave in a manner we feel is unacceptable. Hasn’t this always been the case? Society has always sought to ostracise those it judges to be transgressors of its rules and norms. Yet suddenly, if we choose to take this form of peaceful, non violent and non-confrontational action, we’re ‘bad’ people because we’re suppressing the views of those we ignore. Which is nonsense – nobody actually is stopping them from coming out with their bile. We’re just saying that we don’t have to listen, share a platform with them or even engage in any transactions with them. That’s our prerogative.

In some of these alleged cases of people being ‘cancelled’, what they’re really upset about is the fact that they’ve publicly said something objectionable and offensive and don’t like the fact that they’ve been called out on it. Again, it is perfectly legitimate to do so – and it hardly constitutes ‘cancelling’ them. Criticising yes, cancelling, no. But Mike Lindell (and his ilk) think that this just isn’t fair, we shouldn’t be allowed to ignore or criticise him. His words and actions shouldn’t have consequences. Quite frankly, I think his actions (and continued support for the pro-Trump conspiracy theories which seek to find a basis for over throwing a democratically elected government), are nothing less than treason – and the penalty for treason is death. You know how they should execute him? Smother him with one of his bloody pillows.

Doc Sleaze