I find it interesting that suddenly, as a society, we all have our drawers in a knot over cancel culture. The Left uses cancel culture as a means of testing progressive ideological purity and the Right uses it as a reason to whine and as a weapon to beat the Left with. Benjamin Wallace-Wells wrote an article entitled, “Cancel Culture Is Not a Movement,” that was posted on the New Yorker site on March 11 of this year. He writes, “When politicians or commentators talk about ‘cancel culture,’ they are typically speaking of a fear that even ordinary people who express ideas that are politically incorrect will be publicly shamed—that social media has enabled a universal speech surveillance, and that people and institutions are now self-policing, out of fear of it.” Basically our version of Orwell’s Thought Police.

Wikipedia defines cancel culture as, “Cancel culture is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person. Those who are subject to this ostracism are said to have been "cancelled". In other words, banishment and exile.

Gay men are well aware of this phenomena. Gay men have been practicing cancel culture forever – and doing so in broad daylight so it isn’t new to us. Cancel culture, behaving as if someone or something does not exist and/or does not have the right to exist. If you are not pretty enough, don’t have a good enough body, have the wrong skin color, are too old, not wearing the proper trendy clothes, etc., you are toast.

Picture yourself out walking through the mall, let’s say, and a nice looking gay guy walks into your line of vision. They clock you looking at them. If you are not someone they find attractive, they will look away from you using a gesture I have come to call the “Neck Snap,” in which they turn their head, thus averting their eyes, away from you with such suddenness and ferocity, it is a wonder it doesn’t give them cervical damage. And they get to pretend you don’t even exist and, thus, get to avoid having to acknowledge you as a living, breathing presence on Earth. What would be nice would be if we learned to at least acknowledge one another.

As powerful as words are, words do not create reality. Yes, there are a lot of hurtful, condescending, demeaning pejorative phrases out there. And I have no issue with it being politically incorrect to use them, as well as morally wrong in many instances. That said, political correctness has been in use for a while now and those words or attitudes are still around. Banning words doesn’t fix the underlying problem. And if someone calls me a faggot or a pansy or says I am light in the loafers, well, sticks and stones may break my bones but you can kiss my ass. Doesn’t mean I want you banished from society. Just stay away from me. Your bad behavior is a reflection of you on you and has nothing to do with me. What I need to know is what has made you think and feel and act this way. What would be great would be if we started to ask people what led them to beliefs or opinions we find politically and/or morally incorrect and seek to understand.

It is the underlying issues of why the bad behaviors continue, in spite of political correctness, that need addressing. Yes, human history is chock-full of atrocious behavior that needs to be faced and dealt with but dealt with in the sense of what we are going to do moving forward. Rather than cancelling, I think on-going public reproach and shaming of people or groups is way more effective than banning or ostracism. Personally, I would like to see the return of public stocks and pillories. Now, I wouldn’t let the public physically harm those thus confined. I simply want them to be publicly shamed for their bad behavior. Dunce caps would be fine. Making someone stand on the courthouse steps holding a sign that says, “I haven’t mastered three syllable words yet,” works for me. You get the idea. As a friend of mine says, “If you don’t know how to act decently, we’ll show you how to act.” Problem is that those we judge as being in need of being confined to the public stocks and pillories no doubt feel the same way about us.

We live in a world where we all decry the lack of civility and decency and the shamelessness run riot though our society. Banishing, ostracizing, excommunication, exile, cancelling, doesn’t make the problem go away. The only thing that goes away, at least for a while, is the particular offender or group of offenders. It was Joseph N. Welch, chief counsel for the United States Army, in his confrontation with McCarthy in hearings before McCarthy’s Senate subcommittee, in which he famously asked McCarthy "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" This was widely seen as a turning point against McCarthyism. (Wikipedia) The problem here is we all no longer seem to have a consensus on what constitutes decency.

Cancelling is a form of smiting. Very Old Testament. We end up judging those we deem or who have proven themselves as being beyond redemption, thus the need to banish. Does not the Judeo-Christian ethic teach us in the Bible about mercy and compassion over judgment? Mercy is taught in the Quran. Buddhism teaches compassion and mercy. You get my point. Now, yes, there are those in our history who seem by their acts and/or beliefs to be beyond redemption. And certainly, for some, redemption would be a long, hard road. But who among us, at some point in our life, has not needed compassion and at least the possibility of and chance at redemption? But, here again, those we judge and condemn as either needing redemption or being beyond redemption no doubt think we are as equally a lost cause.

Rather than cancelling, ostracizing, banishing, public shaming, exiling, etc., how about we learn to talk with one another again rather than at one another? We do still have the facility as thinking/feeling humans to create safe spaces in which we can begin to communicate rather than cancel. We can ask one another - How did you get here? What propelled you on your journey to these beliefs and actions? - We don’t have to agree with what we hear but at least we can begin to understand and in that understanding, odds are we will begin to once again find some common ground.

Living Skills offers positive psychology counseling, spiritual counseling, and life coaching services in Atlanta, and online. We are sensitive to the needs of the LGBT community. Sessions available by Skype. Please email us at livingskillsinc@gmail.com or visit www.livingskills.pro. Podcast: “The Problem with Humans” now available on Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, Google Podcast, Amazon Music, and Spotify, Overcast, Castro, Castbox, and Podfriend, as well as on my site. Follow us on Twitter - @livingskillsinc

It seems to me that in great part, what we see happening currently in our society is but symptom of a much larger crisis - a crisis of responsibility on both the Right and on the Left.

On the Right, there is the idea that they have the right to do what they want, without consequence, without accountability, without any responsibility - steal elections, gerrymander, run up deficits, lie to the American people about pretty much everything, make up "facts" out of nothing substantive, you get my drift. It heads in the direction of tyranny in that you hear now in the press that a minority of the country is imposing its will, due to gerrymandered districts, due to voter suppression, due to the stoking of fear and resentment, due to feeling it is OK to buy elections and politicians, due to its leaders feeling entitled to steal, is imposing its will (or trying) on the majority of the citizens of this country.

Our leaders on the Right avoid responsibility like the plague. Nobody - no Senator, no Representative, no Cabinet member, and through many state and local governments, through corporate business leadership, through the undermining of the rule of law, through the levels of corruption that no one even bothers to hide any more, ain't nobody responsible for nothing. They feel entitled to do what want, to take what they want, to bend the rules and the laws to what they want. And it becomes a form of tyranny over the rest of us that we are all at sufferance of.

The free press and, luckily, some federal and state law enforcement agencies are trying to hold people accountable and responsible but, as we are seeing, it is a long hard fight. Freedom indulged in without the balance and tempering of responsibility becomes tyranny and it becomes a sense of entitlement.

On the Left the freedom with no sense of responsibility manifests differently but it is no less tyrannical and no less entitled, though we tend to stay well within the confines of the law. We are at sufferance of the Identity Politics purists and the tyranny they impose. Here I am entitled because I am a member of whatever disadvantaged group with whom I identify. And as a member of that group, I need not hear or countenance that that offends me. And I am egregiously aggrieved and offended by pretty much everything everyone who is not politically correct to the purest and highest form says. I get to demand safe spaces and the vetting and potential censorship of any speech I decide I might not like.

Here is an example and it is a true story. In a discussion in a recent class that a friend attended, a discussion of people running for office came up for whatever reason. One of the attendees made it known that they found the term "running" for office offensive as it was potentially offensive and unjust to disabled people who are not able to run. Now, let's be clear, I am in now way suggesting that social wrongs should not be righted and people made whole. Don't even. Right? But in regard to this kind of example - seriously?

I have the freedom to demand political correctness; I have the right not to hear anything I don't like or want to hear; I have the right to impose the threat of my being offended on everyone so they must walk on eggshells around me for fear of my wrath. And because of my membership in whatever identity group, I am also entitled to feel this way and insist that everybody else feel this way as well. That is a form of tyranny and entitlement.

Further, with the exception of the recent elections and maybe what had become the rule is now broken – please God, please God, please God – is that the Left sabotages itself with these demands of purity. If someone wasn’t progressively pure enough, if we didn’t agree with everything thing they did or said, if their views or voting record did not conform to a strict party line – not unlike that same demand made by the Right on its peeps – then they were no good. Either you were perfect or you were the goat and there was no in between. This led to a rigging of the primary process in the 2016 primaries – something we are not going to litigate here. But the people responsible felt free and entitled to impose their will on the rest of the party and look at where that got us.

Now. Both sides are guilty and we are in the process of leaving a financial and environmental mess for the Millennials to fix and leaving Millennials in a financial mess due to student load debt, exorbitant health and housing costs, stagnant wages because God forbid we raise wages and decrease shareholder value. It is a damned disgrace.

We aren’t being responsible for the environment, health care reform, fully funding education that will prepare people for the new and emerging economy, infrastructure, etc. Instead, we continue to fight the culture wars, trying to impose our will, our values, our understanding, our sense of what matters, our sense of morality, etc., on the other side who we view as ignant troglodyte morons upon whom we are entitled to impose our world view.

Point is that in our world, in our country, in our society we see a lot of tyranny – corporate, political, personal – and a lot of entitlement and lots of hand-wringing over it but very little in the way of responsibility – responsibly responding to the things that really matter most. Where is the seeking middle ground so we can come to some practical solutions? Freedom without responsibility becomes tyranny and freedom without responsibility becomes entitlement and that freedom to dictate to others and to be entitled has now becoming our prison. Time to respond and free ourselves before it becomes too late.

Living Skills offers positive psychology counseling, spiritual counseling and life coaching services in Atlanta for the LGBT community. Also available by Skype. If you have questions, comments or want to find out about our services, please email us at livingskillsinc@gmail.com