A scapegoat by any other name...
Every time I check my social media feeds or flip on some news, someone else has been cancelled for something they said. Sometimes it’s a statue of Thomas Jefferson, or someone else who’s been dead for hundreds of years. What is “cancelling” someone, and how exactly does that happen? People have had opinions for as long as we’ve been recording history, so why are some opinions now valid while others are cause for immediate removal from relevance?
As always, here are my biases: I am a registered Libertarian. I believe that the best government is the smallest possible size to still exist. I believe that people are entitled to their opinions, however, as a Christian I also believe that some things are not up for debate and that there are good and evil at play in every situation. I believe explicitly in every word of the Bill of Rights, especially the freedom of speech, religious practice, and gun ownership.
Recently, Joseph Epstein wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal criticizing Jill Biden for calling herself doctor. She does in fact hold a doctorate, making her in fact a doctor. His opinion is his own, and whomever wishes to share that opinion may do so; however, it’s not grounded in fact. His piece prompted Northwestern University to entirely delete his existence from their website and roll and to release a statement, not just saying that he was not factually correct, but that he is a misogynist. Nothing he wrote in his piece was in any way misogynistic. So why would they say that? Because it’s now acceptable to use falsehood against someone you disagree with. The current and former U.S. Presidents do it with impunity. Professors, politicians, actors, and many, many others do the same. What is required to wield such a terrifying weapon? Victimhood. A victim is a person who is deceived or cheated, as by his or her own emotions or ignorance, by the dishonesty of others, or by some impersonal agency. The key to this definition is “by his or her own emotions or ignorance,” which means you either let your emotions control you or you didn’t know any better. In the case of victimhood, it’s the former. In the case of an elderly widow trying to help a Nigerian Prince, it’s the latter. When you let your emotions dictate your actions, you are practicing victimhood. If anything that happens to you can be blamed on someone else, you have a victim mentality. Refusal to accept personal responsibility is the key to victimhood. Cancel culture is about taking something like slavery and pinning the wrath of its horror on individual people. That’s somehow supposed to make the victims feel better. This is called scapegoating. In ancient Israel, during the proceedings of Yom Kippur, they would symbolically place the sins of the local population onto a goat and send it into the wilderness to die. They cancelled the goat because it represented all their sins. Cancelling someone is just like the poor goat. Instead of taking responsibility for their sins, the Israelites afflicted a poor, innocent being. In the case of slavery, cancelling someone by just dismissing them as racists fails to actually open up a conversation about slavery and its ills to humanity. It fails to recognize the pain and suffering of those who were actually enslaved by transferring focus to those who were not. Additionally, pretending to be victimized by slavery by tying modern-day struggles to their plight disparages the pain and suffering of those who were actually treated as the property of someone else while at the same time distracting from the truths of actual modern day racial struggles. There are race-related struggles today and I would never pretend there are not, but these are their own struggles and deserve attention for what they are. My observations are influenced by the fact that I am white, and I don’t claim to have any perspective other than that, nor do I have further commentary.
As always, here are my biases: I am a registered Libertarian. I believe that the best government is the smallest possible size to still exist. I believe that people are entitled to their opinions, however, as a Christian I also believe that some things are not up for debate and that there are good and evil at play in every situation. I believe explicitly in every word of the Bill of Rights, especially the freedom of speech, religious practice, and gun ownership.
Recently, Joseph Epstein wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal criticizing Jill Biden for calling herself doctor. She does in fact hold a doctorate, making her in fact a doctor. His opinion is his own, and whomever wishes to share that opinion may do so; however, it’s not grounded in fact. His piece prompted Northwestern University to entirely delete his existence from their website and roll and to release a statement, not just saying that he was not factually correct, but that he is a misogynist. Nothing he wrote in his piece was in any way misogynistic. So why would they say that? Because it’s now acceptable to use falsehood against someone you disagree with. The current and former U.S. Presidents do it with impunity. Professors, politicians, actors, and many, many others do the same. What is required to wield such a terrifying weapon? Victimhood. A victim is a person who is deceived or cheated, as by his or her own emotions or ignorance, by the dishonesty of others, or by some impersonal agency. The key to this definition is “by his or her own emotions or ignorance,” which means you either let your emotions control you or you didn’t know any better. In the case of victimhood, it’s the former. In the case of an elderly widow trying to help a Nigerian Prince, it’s the latter. When you let your emotions dictate your actions, you are practicing victimhood. If anything that happens to you can be blamed on someone else, you have a victim mentality. Refusal to accept personal responsibility is the key to victimhood. Cancel culture is about taking something like slavery and pinning the wrath of its horror on individual people. That’s somehow supposed to make the victims feel better. This is called scapegoating. In ancient Israel, during the proceedings of Yom Kippur, they would symbolically place the sins of the local population onto a goat and send it into the wilderness to die. They cancelled the goat because it represented all their sins. Cancelling someone is just like the poor goat. Instead of taking responsibility for their sins, the Israelites afflicted a poor, innocent being. In the case of slavery, cancelling someone by just dismissing them as racists fails to actually open up a conversation about slavery and its ills to humanity. It fails to recognize the pain and suffering of those who were actually enslaved by transferring focus to those who were not. Additionally, pretending to be victimized by slavery by tying modern-day struggles to their plight disparages the pain and suffering of those who were actually treated as the property of someone else while at the same time distracting from the truths of actual modern day racial struggles. There are race-related struggles today and I would never pretend there are not, but these are their own struggles and deserve attention for what they are. My observations are influenced by the fact that I am white, and I don’t claim to have any perspective other than that, nor do I have further commentary.
Cancel culture is not sustainable. It takes people who were once willing to share their valuable insight and drives them away. Public discourse cannot survive if the American people will not stand up for the First Amendment. Our legislators, judges, and law enforcement are all a reflection of our society. If we as Americans fail to stand up for the First Amendment and end cancel culture, then there is positive incentive for the institutions that are intended to protect our rights to refuse to do so. A quote often attributed to Volatire states,
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Americans used to believe this in their souls. It was a founding principle of our republic. If we do not return the proper respect to the First Amendment, it will not be long before it’s too late and we will wish we had.
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