20/01/2023 00:34
What is cancel culture?
Here it is. Straight outta google..
“Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. [It's] generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.”
Which is long-hand for slagging someone on-line so hard that they run away in shame and are never heard from again.
It’s a prodigious task when you think about it. To eliminate an identity. Especially if said persona is enormously famous. A lot of hard work needed by millions. But does it work? I still haven’t encountered a single example of anyone who has disappeared completely, short of being found guilty of a criminal offence and locked up as a result. In which case, the law has ultimately done the job.
But the fact remains, a lot of very successful artists have arced up recently to express their deep concern over this behaviour.
And what direction culture might be taking as a consequence.
Even Nick Cave has joined the chorus and it doesn’t get much loftier than that.
He decries peoples’ ‘refusal to engage with ‘difficult ideas’..
Or ‘moving toward a more equal society (meaning) essential values being forfeited’..
Or, ‘political correctness (having) an asphyxiating effect on the creative soul of society’..
Not to disrespect the dark lord, but what does any of this actually mean?
What ideas? What values? A shutting down of creative diversity? Whose?
It’s all so ethereal.
In the world right now, do you see any lack of argument, debate, diversity of opinion, or whatever else you want to call it?
Not by a long shot. Sure, it spills over into outrage, which is disturbing at times. Outrage can be ugly, personal and vexatious
but there’s one thing you can say about outrage. It’s a sure-fire sign that people are ‘engaging with difficult ideas’..
Like it or not.
So ‘difficult’ in fact, that they spill onto the streets. Cars are torched. Thousands arrested. Some even shot. Accidentally or deliberately.
In light of all this societal carnage, what of ‘political correctness’? What is it exactly? Is it a complaint about too much difference? Or not enough? Or is it just some vague concern that people are getting needlessly upset with each other to no great effect?
But see, the problem is, people will claim the right to be bigots, and they will also claim the right to be offended. We can all go round and round, arguing about entitlement until we’re blue in the face
but when it gets down to the burning of cars and indiscriminate gunfire you know that language really does matter on a whole other level..
and care needs to taken as to how it is used.
Suddenly all this genteel chat amongst the hugely gifted about the worrying decline of ‘essential values’.. sort of pales into insignificance in the face of the real state of humanity.
Unless you’re willing to talk about the specifics of why the anger is out there, and stop indulging in all your ethereal hand-wringing..
So why don’t we then? Get specific. After all. Many do. We could talk about racism for example. Or domestic violence. Or countless other forms of societal oppression.
Consider all those angry youthful voices, who have risen up down the ages, to throw light on whatever form hypocrisy has taken in their lives. To mock the oppressor. To rage, laugh, or sneer.
The oppressor can be anything of course and the counter culture as equally diverse. To rail against your self-obsessed grandmother, your gormless narcissistic boyfriend or even the ageing rock star, long adored, now sadly wallowing in his own self-importance.
Which is not to relish the oppression. Oppression is always with us. It is to point out the hypocrisy. Art is the consequence that hypocrisy. Not its panacea..
In our era, cancel culture may well be useful and exist for good reason. There are any number of instances where it has erupted to annihilate the oppressor. And advanced to good measure.
Perhaps Cave has a point though. When outrage morphs into sanctimony there is a problem. Judgment over tiny things far removed from the real crime.
Still, rage against it my friend. Don’t appeal for ‘Mercy’ and ‘tolerance’ here. And spare us all this guff about ‘redemption’. There is none. And never was.
Great art has always flourished through adversity. Rock culture is no exception. The vapid pop of Thatcher’s Britain was not dissimilar to the dead hand of cancellation of which we now speak. Nick Cave thrived in that world. His was brilliant beyond belief.
So why now whimper over these esoteric questions?
Far better to grasp the nettle of why oppression is even there. Look for the source.
Grotesque poverty, homelessness, political corruption, homophobia, racism, environmental destruction.
Things far greater than the self.
Great song-writing is forensic. As is great art.
Yes. People are angry. Cancel culture is merely a manifestation of that anger. No more or less.
So what of this idea that artistic expression is being ‘asphyxiated’?
Well really, it just isn’t.
Attwood, Rushdie, Rowling.. Cave.. these people are visionary giants. But make no mistake. There are other reasons they have achieved so much, apart from their talent.
On going success in the Arts lies in your ability to control the narrative around your own work. Anyone in PR will tell you this.
The arts are industrial. Like all human endeavour. Success brings power. Public perception is crucial to the management of that power. Otherwise your image will fracture or grow obscure, overly rarified, or perhaps, so saintly to the point of irrelevance.
What makes modern public discourse so dangerous is that it is almost impossible to control, which means that for those artists whose notoriety has grown through having and maintaining that control, the anarchic possibility of the public ‘pile on’ looms large.
A phenomenon these artists aren’t comfortable with. Nor should they be. But let’s not forget, none of them are young.
But hey, I’m the same.
I’m all for a ding dong argument but really, I’d much prefer it took place in a room with real dickheads, as opposed to bots posting pictures on my FB page of refugee children with their heads blown off.
Still, if I was a young songwriter right now, lurching nervously forward, I very much doubt that ‘cancel culture’ would matter a jot..
To my self-expression.
What’s more, you’ve got to expect to pay a price for becoming famous. It’s called a thick skin, which alas, might lead to a sort of desensitization. Oh dear. Are we really that fragile?
If ‘political correctness’ really is a threat to self-expression, well, it’s coming from both ends of the political spectrum at the very least, which means sometimes it’s just easier to admit your wrong, apologise and get the hell out of Dodge.
‘I never set out to cause offence but if I did I’m sorry.’
As my mother often said, “You can’t please everyone sweetheart.”
Still, there are cloisters of sanctimony everywhere. Sometimes judgement is laughable. The circular firing squad as Barack put it. So vividly foolish. Even sanctimony is fodder. Great songs have been written about fools. Many times over.
Find the priest. Describe the source of his corruption.
But as to the question, are we or are we not DOOMED?
Well, as in any age, there are wanna be prophets everywhere who are desperate to be right.
Any question as to what degree artistic culture is ‘under threat’ is pure speculation, impossible to prove at any given moment, one way or another,
and so… basically useless.
In the meantime, there are millions of artists the world over, whose work flourishes as a consequence of their oppression. Artists you and I have never heard of and probably never will.
Even as we speak.