Pay It Backward and Cancel Culture

 

     Western society has undergone dramatic social change in the past decades, but never more  than in the past five year years with the MeToo movement, the pandemic, the death of George Floyd, gender issues, a revision of black history and a nit-picking comb-through of bad celebrity behavior resulting in woke cancellation. 

     Sexism, racism, pedophilia, fat-shaming, homo-phobia and trans-phobia are all social issues being re-scrambled in the dawn of new social protocols. We must retool the collective consciousness and build new inclusive norms for the intellectual and emotional well-being of our fellow citizens. Once, these individual topics were swept to the side, along with the fruitcakes who lived in an alternative universe. Any one of these topics, or individuals, were too contentious to even contemplate public discussion.  

     In our search for a more humane way through the process of scour and scrap, the current stripping away of injustice in one area has bled into layers of injustice in others, affecting aspects of our lives in ways we weren't cognizant. Have we gone too far in our search to rout out the bad apples? Should we leave no stone unturned in our need to hold the guilty accountable? It depends. Some crimes are more obvious and less defensible than others. 

     We have a switch. Instead of paying it forward, aggrieved victims of past injustices are now paying it backward. Like an aneurysm spreading through brain matter, truths from the past are leaking out and bleeding through all sectors of society - rich and poor, male and female (and other), culminating in a righting of the wrong of past injustice. It all started when child sexual abuse came out of the woodwork and it's been in high gear ever since. Personal and public sphere memory banks are being scoured, historical records are being re-examined for discrimination of any nature. Racist military figures and statuary of the past is being dismantled in order to right the wrongs of the past and, where possible, hold those deemed guilty accountable for their speech and/or behavior. But can we really go back and right wrongs when the social norms of two hundred years ago were so different from today's? Social status in the deep south meant owning a few slaves and how many depended on how rich you were. Protesting values of yesterday doesn't change history, nor right any wrongs.  

     One social reckoning started with the outing of Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, not as upstanding, wealthy men of character promoting creative films and television shows for mass consumption, their image for years, but as predatory, serial rapists who bullied, belittled and threatened women. The creation of the MeToo movement, as a result, saw hundreds of women (and men) come forward to speak of their assault at the hands of powerful men. Bill Cosby received 5 - 10 years in prison while Harvey Weinstein, who was sentenced to 23 years, will perhaps die in prison unless he wins an appeal. The death of George Floyd continued in the same vein as the MeToo movement and the list of new movements have grown ever since.   

     We live in a time of social reckoning. We've turned black into white and green into blue. The emperor has no clothes but we pretend he's wearing a tuxedo. But perhaps instead of a reckoning, some are seeking revenge (and money) or to capitalize (make money) on a grocery list of first-amendment infringements. What better way to cash in than to sue for any perceived slights to your sex, your gender, your race, your religion and your obesity.     

A Gloomy Date

 

The following vignette is about a somewhat typical (because of its outcome) but untypical (because of the setting) date. 

A date for Saturday night. I was going to play music, drink beer and play pool with an educated man I'd been chatting with for a few weeks. I'd never met him in person. I drove up and down a gravel road out in the country trying to find the address. But upon locating the place and finally driving up his long, gravel road, I found I had arrived at the House of Usher, an overwhelming gloomy woodpile of washed-out gray boards and an octagonal window with stained glass rising up against the cloudy sky. 

As it started to rain, Scrooge's doppelganger came out to greet me, a great giant of a man, and my mouth was still open in surprise as I carried my accordion across two planks stretched across a veranda that was still under construction. The oppressive air continued into the dark, dimly lit house with unfinished projects scattered in repose against various walls and a row of windows so thick with film it was difficult to admire the greenery beyond the frames. But evidently, the outside world was of little interest.

We stood chatting beside a counter in the kitchen a dreadfully long time, until finally I asked 'May I sit down?'  and 'Should I put this pie in the fridge?' We talked for half an hour and he didn't offer me a drink, he had forgotten me, although he was drinking a beer. Later, I stumbled around in the dark with my arms full-on zombie in order to find the washroom. 'Do you think you could turn on a light?' I asked.

After a lackluster accordion performance and a confessional or two by the host about how he loves to be alone and finally, the offer of a beer that came wa-a-a-a-y too late, I left.