WhatsappThe left-wing today has completely shunned the ideas of liberalism and adopted cultural totalitarianism. Melanie Phillips says it so well and so eloquently. She understands and knows how to explain the nature of the absurdity of cancel culture better than anybody else today. Reason, argument, discussion, and open-mindedness have been tossed out the window.
How did this happen and when did this happen? This was not the norm in the crazy 60’s. In the 70’s and 80’s, this was not the case either. It seems to have begun sometime in the 21st century. The political landscape was very volatile in the 60’s, between McCarthyism still being a force, civil rights marches on Washington, and race riots across the United States. But, there was no cancel culture even after a popular President, a Civil Rights Leader, and Presidential candidate were all assassinated. It was just a very emotionally charged atmosphere.
The Vietnam War pitted masses of youngsters against the leadership of the United States. But, even the opposition to the Vietnam protesters knew that the Vietnam War was not going well. The protesters had a point – even if they were extremists. And the protesters knew that Communism was indeed a threat that needed to be contained – just not via American lives in Vietnam. Each side knew that the other side had legitimate logic backing it up.
But today, young people – in the masses – are flocking towards hard to fathom values that are completely at odds with basic concepts of existence – such as the very existence of genders. And these ideas are not based on respecting the values of others, as anyone who thinks otherwise is repudiated and cancelled as a member of the Dark Ages.
Discussion and difference of opinion are not praised but tossed aside as negative phenomenon. What has really been thrown away is the placing of any concept of truth at the top of a pedestal of priorities. That is why Melanie argues that truth has become a right-wing concept. What a horrible tragedy for mankind.
Can this be reversed? Can the left-wing repudiate the obsessive focus on gender issues and woke concepts of reality? Today it seems hopeless. But the world does not only spin out of control in a negative fashion. Sometimes, concepts that were thought to have been gone from the world come back into fashion.
What is needed on the left is a big dose of some old-fashioned open-minded liberalism. Difference of opinion needs to be embraced. Striving towards truth needs to be a common goal among those who disagree. Recognition that no specific political persuasion can rule over the other needs to be the norm.
It is indeed a battle over the culture. The culture of basic decency.
