Putin it simply

American journo interviews a Russian, other Americans lose it, cancel culture is nuts

A journalist of one country interviewed the big boss of another country, which started a war that’s grinding on two years later. What’s the problem? Guys in news should be interviewed. Yet many Americans got outraged at a politically rightwing journo, Tucker Carlson, who interviewed Putin – even before the interview aired! Cancel culture means different things to different people. But this is its core silliness and danger, to seek to shut down a disliked voice. To try to have it kicked out of common spaces and screens.

Joke poke | “Man, I love being cancelled,” comedian Dave Chappelle has crowed. Because after taking heat for some jokes, his shows made millions. SRK likely did the same after #boycottPathaan proved counter-effective. Munawar Faruqui’s stand-upcareer is soaring as well, having seemingly made peace with all his legal harassment. But for every such success story there are countless tragedies of employment lost, reputation destroyed, psychological trauma.

Lazy daisy | People need to dust off forgotten lessons in classical liberalism. Healthy coexistence of individualism and diversity needs you to meet speech with speech, instead of shouting, ‘Shut up!’ It’s not only unfair but also lazy that if you don’t like the trailer of a song or movie or book or interview, you jump to asking for it to be banned. How about actually engaging with it? Although be warned, it is quite brain-consuming to build a logical case for one’s disagreement.

Hurt spurt | Hyper intolerant sensitivity is also the worst treatment for social tensions. Consider the way in which speakers are getting cancelled left and right on campuses continents away from Israel-Gaza for their supposed blinkers on this war. ‘You are either with us, or against us.’ There is nothing uglier than pretending that people with different beliefs cannot have a conversation.

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