Let’s Cancel “Cancel Culture”
October is usually one of the happiest months in Dallas. The weather is nice, hunting and football have resumed for the sporting crowd, and Halloween is in the air for the kids.
Also, every four years, the politics heat up with presidential and other elections.
This year it’s all as off-kilter as an untuned piano. Football is anemic, we’re still reeling from hurricanes, and who needs Halloween? We’re already in masks while the evening news provides us with alarming images daily.
Perhaps there’s hope on the horizon. With any luck, a COVID-19 vaccine may soon be available.
I’m sending all my positive spiritual energy toward getting another shot in addition to the regular flu.
Then we can swap out our facemasks for noise-canceling headsets to drown out the shrillness of “cancel culture.” The iconoclastic notion that our American history, civilization, and culture is so offensive, abusive, punitive, and exclusive that it needs to be canceled out is becoming normalized in universities, social media, and Hollywood.
Having lived as a child in Brazil and as a student in Europe, I beg to differ. When we have problems, we confront them. Certainly, we are evolving as a nation as we always have, unlike fossilized and repressive dictatorships. It’s by fits and starts, and it’s messy. Yet what other nation self-flagellates the way we do?
Why is it many in our culture now seek to shame, blame, and denigrate generations past while Eastern cultures venerate their ancestors?
No generation has been perfect. Yet my father and grandfather fought in world wars to give those who do nothing but criticize this right with zero gratitude.
I am proud of Yankee ingenuity, Southern courtesy, and Western rugged individualism.
It’s so attractive that armies of migrants seek to enter the States to attain what many want to cancel.
Coca Cola, movies, McDonald’s – anything associated with Americana is now “imperialist” and needs to be stamped out or canceled.
Hey, don’t like it? Then don’t drink it, watch it, or eat it. Stop being professional victims.
Regardless of who wins in these elections, could everybody just stop emoting? In a blog the other day, I came across this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Let us never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”
The views expressed by columnist Len Bourland are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of People Newspapers. Email Len at lenbourland@gmail.com.
For nearly 40 years, People Newspapers has worked tirelessly to tell the stories—good, bad, and sublime—of our neighbors in the Park Cities and Preston Hollow. To support our efforts, please contact advertise@peoplenewspapers.com for advertising opportunities. Please also consider sharing this story with your friends and social media followers.
