Good Morning All - hope you remembered to spring ahead!
A new issue has arisen: Cancel Culture.
Various portions of pop culture are being taken off the shelves, or out of circulation, because they have been deemed unacceptable by today's standards. These include entertainment products, sports team names and logos, and literature.
The reasons for their removal and rejection are based on good intentions: namely, combating bigotry. Since we Respect All, it is valid to remove prejudice and hatred from our own thoughts and actions.
On this blog, we have explored a similar issue: Boundaries.
We have accepted the fact that there are people and things that we do not need or want in our lives. We cannot make them behave the way we would prefer, because they choose that. We most certainly can, however, remove them or limit contact with them, because we have absolute power and control over that.
It seems that Cancel Culture is attempting to set boundaries against undesirable expressions and opinions, but doing so on a society-wide scale, rather than a personal scale.
Both of these principles can be easily harmonized:
(1) Rather than penalizing the creators of older intellectual property produced years or decades ago because the words and expressions that they chose, at times when they were not considered offensive or hurtful, does not seem to be the most equitable remedy. Rather, it seems a more responsible choice to simply not purchase or view the items, to the point where they are no longer considered valuable. And if there are still others who consider them valuable, let them possess them instead.
(2) Instead of globally "canceling" such ideas and expressions, why not leave it up to each individual to decide what they will and will not accept? Wouldn't this be tolerance and coexistence? Wouldn't this be respect? And most importantly, wouldn't this be the type of detachment that Emotional Maturity brings?
(3) The Stoics taught us that there will always be people and things in this world that we don't like. We can't make them disappear, and we can't force them to behave the way we want them to be. What we can do, instead, is to either accept the fact that our world is less than ideal and proceed regardless, or when possible, to remove that which we find objectionable from our own personal realms.
So let it be with Cancel Culture. Don't like what Dr. Seuss said in that book he wrote 80 years ago? Don't buy it for your child. Don't like what that football team wears on its helmet? Don't watch them - in fact, cheer for the other team to beat them! Don't like what's in that Disney cartoon? Don't view it, and don't let your children view them either.
We Can Accept People For Who They Are, Because We Cannot Control Them. We Can Also Reject People For Who They Are, Because They Cannot Control Us.
The operative word here being, "control."
I EXIST, I MATTER, I BELONG, I DESERVE.
RESPECT ALL, BEFRIEND FEW, LOVE ONE, HATE NONE.
DO NOT DEMONIZE, DO NOT DEIFY.
POINT OF EVAPORATION.
