Is cancel culture good or bad ?

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I keep hearing about a lot of things even sometimes ridiculous things having to be 'cancelled' like for example, Mr Potato Head has just become Potato Head because of gender inequality because he was called 'Mr', Disney films such as Dumbo, Peter Pan, the Aristocats etc excused or racial stereotyping, and as I mentioned in a previous thread even novels written 100 or more years being called to be banned because they don't include other people, are racist, are misogynist, etc. Will Tolkien's books I have read be 'cancelled' because women in his stories weren't equal to men, and that some of his fictional races of people he created such as the Easterlings, the Variags of Khand and the Haradrim were based on Asian and Middle Eastern people, I do worry as though 'everything' will be under attack. I seem to think some people think the people who have been long dead are still alive and saying should be more respectful and inclusive in today's world in 2021 even though in the times they were written attitudes towards race and gender were different compared to today and its as though to them, we are still living in those times. Why can't we just say ''Okay look how far we have come now compared to then, rather than just going ''Nope! I don't care! that history and those attitudes needs to be erased or cancelled'' as though they are not prepared to listen and then accuse the people on the other side as being supporters of racists and misogynists when I am all for equality for women, people of other races etc but to erase the past and stuff rather than learn from it I don't think is helpful because we won't remember the bad or even the good.

Last edited by chris1989 on 19 Mar 2021, 11:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

Depends who is doing it and why.

The word is purposefully vague.

Society especially NT society since they are more social minded than we are and more small c conservative will always have its mores.

Always has done, always will do. Don't let people tell you differently about the past or about other cultures. Taboos are a deep-set part of what makes a culture.

I prefer the mores to be against bigotry and rape than against consensual sex and minorities and random stupid stuff like 'don't say swear words'.

My dad will say the T slur at the drop of a hat then get offended if someone says the sh word for poo.

If it cancels domination of American culture, politics, and religion by ignorant, racist, sexist, wealthy, white males, then it is good.

If it cancels the rights of poor people, women, non-whites, queerfolk, and immigrants, as well as the educated people who know and understand how science really works, then it is bad.

Basically this.

But only in American society of the 21st century.

If we wake up tomorrow and have been frozen and live in a TERF utopia of amazon women where men/queer folk are only kept alive for their semen, then it will change. Speaking up for men's rights will become an imperative.

Or if we live in a parallel universe where blacks enslave whites, it will change. Speaking up for white rights again...

It's about the history and power structures at play.

Study a bit of history and the reason why it's how it is when Fnord describes it starts to make sense for America and - with a bit of expansion into other areas like colonialism or settled versus nomadic peoples - the rest of the West.

Cancel Culture = Bullying
Is Bullying good or bad?

I think it is because it is so vague that we get this kind of discussion tbh.

Is criticism of art bad or good?

Is refusing to watch something because of your moral principles bad or good?

Is having moral principles bad or good?

Is withdrawing your own work bad or good?

Is choosing to retire bad or good?

I somehow doubt any traction would gain on cancelling due to the depiction of women. There are many heroic women who go far beyond what a traditional society might limit them to. Tolkien was a romantic not a male dominator.

I have seen murmurings on the racism front. I think its a not well thought out criticism that relies less on what the source material intends but rather how racist people interpret the meaning. The existence of races is not malignant racism. The orcs are not supposed to be POC or even a race proper. Demonic twisted creations. All the real worlds 'races' are the Children of Ilúvatar and share the same fate. They are not perfect nor are they evil, even the Easterlings that served the Dark Powers. The greatest evil deeds of men were committed by the Numenoreans and their ancestors.

If Tolkien is problematic, than so is every real world mythology/creation myth of traditional cultures.

Your parents/grandparents were around when segregation was normal. Things change as time goes on.
Personally, I hate cancel culture, because it sets a momentum to cancel more and more, spreading out in all directions until it's where it's at now; something that can't be contained. Everything is getting canceled, and it should be up to the individual on what media is worth enjoying.
There is so much I can rant about, but, to simplify, things should not be banned/canceled because a group of people are offended. I could say, being adopted into a family whose father is Irish, that we should ban Lucky Charms because the mascot is offensive. I could say to ban Black Eyed Peas because their song "Let's Get it Started" was originally "Let's Get ret*d." The thing is, I'm not doing that. I can bring it up in conversation and say I don't like what someone/something represents, and they may not get my money, but it is, in the end, up to the individual to decide on what's worth maintaining. Not everything that prospers pleases everyone. The books I'm trying to write are written because of how the story goes. I would hate to be canceled one day because of something silly in the future that's not even a thing in this day and age.

You are right but there are not even few people around who are hating all the ones who are thinking like that. Most people who feel easily offended because of political correctness issues seem kind of mentally ill to me. History teaches us that a culture needs to be protected very well against all enemies of it or it becomes erased and replaced by a usually much more sh*tty one.

Exactly! There's a lot of history that people have moved on from because, as a collective, we've moved past it. I'm sure you never heard of the mundane song Angela Jones, which I only know of because it played when my mother was in hospice and it was so bad that it stuck with me. I also own over 5,000 books (still growing) and own a lot of books that time forgot because they were free or seemed interesting to me at the time.
A lot of history will be forgotten over time, but I don't need a group of people to tell me what to forget. I can forget things well enough on my own, thank you very much. I will read Dr. Seuss if I want to while still treating everyone like people. I will still call it Mr. Potato Head while getting along with trans people and treating them like everyone else. I am thirty-two. I don't need a movement to tell me how to think.

Was it not Churchill who said
‘A culture who forgets it’s past is doomed to repeat it’?
We need the Confederate monuments to see how people saw their heroes.
We need to be able to read books exactly as written so that we can understand WHY our world and people’s (our ancestors’) viewpoints were as they were.
We need to face and acknowledge our history.
And educate American children as to WHY and HOW it came to happen.

Cancel culture is bad. I'm fed up with it and that's an understatement.