Do we want a society the breeds success, or a culture that cancels everything it even slightly disagrees with?
I was knocked all over the place because I actually thought that I would be doing this for many, for the rest of my life. I wanted to tour, continue, I loved it. I particularly loved touring and being on stage.
It became a, it went up all the trending charts, and was a news story, major news story both in my country and your country. It was even a segment on the view, and Tucker Carlson by the end of the weekend. I'd said the wrong thing. I'd committed wrong speak.
In the heat of this weekend where there was an online dogpile, including from many people in the music industry there was, it's like you hit some of these activists, it's like hitting a hornets nest. For example, one of my dear friends was up all night that night of the tweet in battle on Wikipedia because one of these activists was trying to change my Wikipedia bio from Winston Marshall is a banjo player to Winston Marshall is a fascist.
Eventually I came to the conclusion not only that I shouldn't have apologized, but that the apology I made was participating in the lie.
Ron asked “Can they can tell on the phone if you respect them?” Oh yes,” he replied. “If they feel disrespected, they’ll kill a hostage. It’s as if they are saying, if you don’t respect me, at least you’ll fear me. Now let’s talk.”
McMillan continued “Here is a hostage negotiator who could give someone his respect regardless of their actions, almost in spite of their behavior. This is amazing! I always thought respect is something you had to earn. But, in fact giving someone your respect is something you can choose to give, regardless of their words or actions.
He said, “One of the most important things we learned in our research is if you can make it safe for the other person to talk with you, they almost always will. Make it safe enough, you can talk with almost anyone about almost anything. There are two conditions that make it safe to talk. If both are present in a large degree the other person will feel very safe. If these conditions only exist to a small degree there is very little safety. If either condition is missing there will be no safety and constructive conversation is unlikely.”
McMillan shared, “The two conditions that make it safe to talk are Mutual Respect and Mutual Purpose. The hostage negotiator taught us the importance of Mutual Respect. Always choose to be respectful. Mutual respect doesn’t require you to love the other person or even want them to be your best buddy. You don’t have to agree with them, but you do have to show respect to them so you can have an effective conversation.
Mutual Purpose means we both want the same thing. This reduces conflict. There’s no need to do battle with me if I am helping you to get what you want. Creating Mutual Purpose begins by honestly answering this question: What do I really want?
He said, “Crucial conversations work best when our intention is this: ‘I want to understand why you think that way. I want to understand why you did what you did. I want you to understand why I feel the way I do. I want to see if we can come up with some resolution. When those things are in your mind, you automatically check yourself. You put the brake on before you say hurtful words.’”
“What do I really want? That’s a question that takes the reasoning and logic side of your brain and plugs it in to your values and beliefs. We call it Start With Heart. Get your heart right before you open your mouth and you will have dramatically increased the likelihood of having a helpful rather than a hurtful conversation.”
McMillan said, “The strategy that makes sense to me is a Steven Covey principle. “Seek first to understand, then seek to be understood.” If I work on you first. and you feel really understood, then often your defensiveness comes down. I am not attacking you. I am listening. It introduces reasonableness to our conversation and without even noticing it, we are talking, without yelling or threatening.
Some lie in wait in our day, as during the ministry of Jesus, seeking to "provoke him to speak of many things," seeking to "catch something out of his mouth that they might accuse him." (Luke 11:53–54.) The Pharisees actually "took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk." (Matt. 22:15.)
Political correctness has grown to become the unhappiest religion in the world. Its once honourable attempt to reimagine our society in a more equitable way now embodies all the worst aspects that religion has to offer (and none of the beauty) — moral certainty and self-righteousness shorn even of the capacity for redemption. It has become quite literally, bad religion run amuck.
I witnessed students refusing to engage with different points of view. Questions from faculty at diversity trainings that challenged approved narratives were instantly dismissed. Those who asked for evidence to justify new institutional policies were accused of microaggressions. And professors were accused of bigotry for assigning canonical texts written by philosophers who happened to have been European and male.
Why should racial consciousness be the lens through which we view our role as educators?
The more I read the primary source material produced by critical theorists, the more I suspected that their conclusions reflected the postulates of an ideology, not insights based on evidence.
There are two sexes. You can talk about gender if you wish, and that’s subjective.
Cancel Culture uses social media to shame individuals and eliminate support for public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Once reserved for high-profile individuals, the practice has spread to include everyday people. Canceling’s greatest “benefit” is as an intimidation tactic to silence heterodox thought on issues such as gender identity and conservative politics. Once upon a time, stifling speech through fear and harassment would have been considered un-American. Not so much today.
In the past, bullying would have been considered an underhanded means of forcing compliance. Today there are actually those who frame cancel culture as a positive method to “reduce perceived harm to an individual or demographic, thereby creating social change.”
Scholastic’s “anti” student rightfully identified cancel culture for what it is – public condemnation without context or humanity. But lost in the debate over the pros and cons of cancel culture is the foregone conclusion that anyone expressing an “offensive” opinion is by definition wrong. Society does not just cancel youthful indiscretions or outdated opinions. It cancels in order to stamp out the arguments of those opposed to the reordering of society by cultural elites. Proponents know the power of cancel culture to effect social change because it encourages self-censorship by you and me. We just stop sharing our thoughts out of fear. And what happens then?
Author Robert Henderson argues that when people are afraid to speak their minds, they begin to lie about what they do believe, which, Henderson points out, was common in Communist circles. Soon “honesty becomes unfashionable,” and people begin to “operate under the assumption that others hold certain opinions, which, in fact, they do not.” In the end, Henderson contends, as “individuals lose jobs or prominence because of things that they have said in the past, we will all become more adept at expressing falsehoods. It is likely that such a system will select for individuals predisposed to being comfortable with deception. Over time, only liars will speak openly.”
In a 1999 address at Harvard Law School, the late Charlton Heston described what we are experiencing as a “new McCarthyism.” He said, “I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural war that’s about to hijack your birthright to think and say what lives in your heart… Now, what does all of this mean? Among other things, it means that telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can’t be far behind.”
Heston also gave us the antidote to this conspiracy of silence – a willingness to “disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives, and onerous laws that weaken personal freedom.” That means speaking up and taking action – in civil and peaceful ways – when we see or hear that which is harmful. It is risky, and it takes courage, but it is the only way for us to resist this tyranny of political correctness.
“If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it…does not make you anti-religion. If you accept but don’t celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe.”
“If Americans believed in political correctness, we’d still be King George’s boys—subjects bound to the British crown.”
How ironic that people allow Cancel Cultural bullying as a way to make people behave the way they want, but call it "psychological abuse" when a marriage partner or parent does it in their family. If you don't like psychological abuse in a marriage, then don't accept it in regular society.
Boycotting a company is the right of a consumer. Cancel culture is demanding that other people can't consume a product you don't like.
You Don't rewrite history by taking down statues.
Do we want a society the breeds success, or a culture that cancels everything it even slightly disagrees with?
Missing Reference