I believe that social media laid the fertile ground for what we now know as the cancel culture. I see social media as the ossuary of the human mind. It might help that we explore the evolution of this culture.
I witnessed a group of insecure people looking for validation among people who they wanted to be their friends. In the animal welfare movement, people found kinship in animals. To garner attention, people would get themselves talked into adopting animals and later cast out for returning the animal that they were ill prepared to care for. In an effort to be liked, they were cast off.
Next came the Me Too movement that was intended to give women a voice, Clearly something that everyone should embrace; but it gave forum to women who abused their new found authority to showcase that men were seen as people with uncontrollable toxic masculinity; thereby untrustworthy. Woman had the upper hand and even their lies would ring true. This movement said that only women could be trusted.
We have entered the Black Lives Matter culture, one that I embrace because I believe all lives matter; however, this movement was hijacked to push the message that it is wrong to be white and the police are evil. Oddly, every time people protest on behalf of black lives, violence breaks out and looting begins. The only way that you can truly express your support is through acts of destruction. This hijacked movement says that it is wrong to be white (and books have been written to help us understand our failings) police need to be eliminated..
It is not surprising that crime is on the rise. Communities are now instructing their citizens to surrender to an assault and give the criminals what they want. I am sure that telling people to back down is not going to decrease the crime. This movement says that police cannot be trusted. The best way to control our police is to eliminate them. In my mind, only criminals would support such a concept. The problem in government service is that training is the first line item to be eliminated during budget cuts. If there is a problem with a few police officers, then funding needs to be increased for training and for greater supervision.
We are being asked to now cancel our lives. Allow ourselves to be victims and hope that we are not killed in the process. But I digress, this is a blog about animal welfare, where we have been engage in the cancel culture for years.
Pitbull dogs can relate to the Defund the Police movement, in that a few bad dogs paved the way for cities to completely ban the breed. That is the problem with our cancel culture; a few bad eggs cause the carton to be thrown out. Of course, in our current age of overreaction, the chicken coop is burned to the ground and looted.
We are all subject to this cancel culture. I started boycotting a company that wanted to show how Woke they were by attaching their company to the cause de jure. When you ostracize half of your customer base, you have to expect to lose some customers. Some of us are so hard headed that we find it difficult to find a middle ground.
Sometimes we just need to step back, take a breath and try to find that portion of our being where our conscience resides. We need to rise up against the insanity of our times. If a cause is worthwhile, then it should be protected from those that would abuse it.