Cancel Culture - does it exist?

No other generation has ever tried to rewrite history - its disgraceful
 
Rascal said:
Liz Truss has an invite withdrawn because of Windrush and she claimed she had been cancelled. Yes she had, she had her invite withdrawn because of events.

As for statues, and as you mention the USA, take the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a slave owning Confederate General in the American Civil War, who became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, does he deserve a statue, does his role in history change because his statue is removed? Of course not because history does not live in statues, it lives in stories and in books. There are no statues of Hitler in Germany, has that changed opinion of him? There is a statue of Lenin in Kharkiv has that changed opinion of him?

Maine Road, our former home was once called Temperance Street, Does that change the history of the place.

Social mores change over time, if you watched an episode of Love Thy Neighbour today, the language used at that time was socially acceptable, now it is not, in the same way we no longer speak Shakesperian English

The big question is though who do you want to decide on these matters?
Click to expand...
The problem is we all want 'our' culture to prevail and that is the main war being fought, especially in the political area. There are some who want statues of slave traders to remain because they subscribe to the lobby that there were good things about subjects like the British Empire. This isn't because they're racist but because it's a factual part of British history and so they therefore feel it's part of their cultural beliefs and identity.

This just goes back to the problem though because when we talk of the empire there are people who can't accept anything other than the empire was only a bad thing. To them because it was a bad thing we should tear down any reference to it and instead of debating they'll try to cancel, disrepute or ostracize the people who argue otherwise.

As they say there is no light without dark and how we define what's bad and good should always remain open to debate. The problem nowadays is no-one wants to debate, they want what they want and that's it. If they can't get what they want then that triggers anger and the main outlet for that is often places like Twitter or even this forum which is where it gets nasty.
 
Rascal said:
Liz Truss has an invite withdrawn because of Windrush and she claimed she had been cancelled. Yes she had, she had her invite withdrawn because of events.

As for statues, and as you mention the USA, take the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a slave owning Confederate General in the American Civil War, who became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, does he deserve a statue, does his role in history change because his statue is removed? Of course not because history does not live in statues, it lives in stories and in books. There are no statues of Hitler in Germany, has that changed opinion of him? There is a statue of Lenin in Kharkiv has that changed opinion of him?

Maine Road, our former home was once called Temperance Street, Does that change the history of the place.

Social mores change over time, if you watched an episode of Love Thy Neighbour today, the language used at that time was socially acceptable, now it is not, in the same way we no longer speak Shakesperian English

The big question is though who do you want to decide on these matters?
Click to expand...
There is a great Ted talk which I'll try and find about the statues. In the (particularly southern) US many are deliberately inflammatory and put there comparatively recently by people who were basically pissed off with the end of slavery and racial equality. Here our statues steemed ok at the time and have gradually become inappropriate over many years.
I don't really care about statues, but when we get rid of them I feel we are destroying evidence rather than confronting our uncomfortable history.
 
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