Woke-ism and its negative brother/sister cancel culture have flooded the planet like a new virus.
Being “Woke” grew first in black communities and meant to be awake and present to injustice and discrimination, as Merriam-Webster states;
“Stay woke became a watch word in parts of the Black community for those who were self-aware, questioning the dominant paradigm and striving for something better.”
It has now extended to almost every other arena of society, which I found not necessarily a bad thing. It’s great to be awake and act against any injustice done to people, vulnerable groups, or society as a whole.
Until it got hijacked by cancel culture.
Cancel culture is modern cancer invented by social media.
The marriage of wok-ism and cancel culture brought an absurd fear and rejection of anything other than the prescribed moral reality.
It’s the biggest enemy of free speech and free expression, of being different.
This is driving the most insane collective social dynamic we’ve ever experienced. And why you might be next.
The good serf or the enemy
Expressing anything about any sexual or racial in-group is walking a slack-line the size of a spiderweb thread. Stars like J.K Rowlings, Matt Demon, Piers Morgan and Lea Michelle have been cancelled after simply speaking their truth.
Political cancel culture has gotten a totalitarian twist: you’re either a good obeying serf or you’re the enemy of the state. Or a bio-hazard. Or whatever they come up with.
Because of the totalitarian trend humanity embraced during COVID, you either follow the main narrative or you’re out. Cancelled. You either condemn Russia or you’re the enemy. You either subjugate yourself to crazy nonsensical rules or you’re the non-jabbed outcast.
The middle way took the highway.
In all cases, there’s no more room for discussion, arguments, distance, objectivity, critical thought, real science, real justice, any thought at all.
Toxic cancel culture destroyed public jokes and humor too.
It’s powered by collective emotional outrage. People got a pretty narrow emotional span these days for acceptance of otherness. And jokes, as Will Smith showed the world, giving Woke-ism a whole new slap-in-the face dimension.
On a daily base, mainstream media offers a new head on the cancel culture chopping-board. Mob justice wants blood. Millions gather every hour online on digital town-squares to see the new diligent hang. Deleted from future history.
Careers are destroyed, and people's public lives are ruined. The crowd hums in approval. The in-group grows an inch stronger with every enemy cancelled.
How dare they, those non-humans.
Origin
I would like to argue that the core reason for this phenomenon is collective trauma and fear.
The trauma has been imposed and built up during COVID. We’ve been imprisoned, stripped from most of our rights, been tortured by ever-changing nonsensical measures that are proven to be not working, and the biggest trigger for our collective trauma is 24/7 never stopping fear-mongering.
The people that have given up, and I don’t blame them, have now delivered their authority and sovereignty on a silver plate to their governments.
To remain safe, they need to do only one thing: show their outrage and hate to the next appointed enemy.
It's pretty much 1984 really.
In this book, the 5 minutes of hate pretty much resembles our 24 hours of online hate that leads to online public beheading.
How woke-ism, hijacked by cancel culture, works on a personal scale
There is a real cancel button for personal use. It’s built-in in all social media apps and in this platform for example. It’s simply called:
Report (this feed)
When you push this report button, since you feel uncomfortable with somebody still thinking critical thoughts, you can report them. Now you’ve done your duty in a society that has become nothing less than a clan ruled by fear. A bullying Government that threads you with social exile when you don't follow suit or take shots whenever they tell you.
When you track and trace a divergent opinion or even thought, you can also call in the thought police. They are called the Ministry of Truth. No really, I’m not kidding. Joe Biden has put in a new centre to combat Misinformation, and it's called the Ministry of Truth.
The Guantanamo Bay for real free thoughts and speech?
The Ministry of Truth will brain bombard you even further telling you that this is all done to combat dangerous lies, in the name of free speech.
And now a billionaire tech overlord that has no interest in human rights since his factories violate them continuously, bought Twitter. To safeguard free speech.
I get it if you’ve lost me here.
It’s information warfare and part of the war on sense-making. It’s all done on purpose and driven by A.I.
Really, you should read 1984 by now.
How it works on a collective level.
On the meta economic scale of things, sanctions are the biggest weapon the righteous West has at the moment to punish and cancel the enemy of the day: Russians.
All Russians.
In international law, only governments and military or otherwise persons directly engaged in war can be punished. Never innocent civilians.
This changed rigorously, and nobody seems to care.
We all want to be recognized on the woke side of things and people have completely lost their empathy or any common sense to realize Russian civilians suffer just the same.
When you start to dehumanize other humans, you slowly but surely lose your own humanity with all its beautiful treads like compassion, forgiveness and empathy.
You slowly become a non-human yourself.
That’s exactly where they want you. Makes it easier to transform you into a cyborg in the coming years without you noticing it.
Dare to look beyond your safe zone.
The core motive or psychology behind woke-ism and cancel culture is the same. It's a profound fear for others or the “other.” From an anthropological point of view, this makes sense. Our brains are hardwired to search for safety in the in-group and go to war with the out-group.
The Yolgnu clan of the first peoples of Australia call themselves people. Yolgnu means people, or humans, or even humanity. The rest are not.
This doesn’t mean you need to fight them right away.
I believe this profound fear of otherness blocks inner growth. To be open to other cultures, beliefs, opinions and humans mean you’re open to growth, to dare to look beyond your safe zone.
Make sense, not war.
Humanity got stuck on a collective level with social and cultural woke-ism and cancel culture. When you cancel persons with other opinions, they won't just fall from the planet.
Russian oligarchs, anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers, freedom truckers, cancelled Nobel Prize winners, Putin’s friends: they won’t take the next SpaceX to Mars.
Cancel Culture is like getting stuck in a one-way belief fueled by blind righteousness.
An intellectual and social dead-end street.
We humans need to have different opinions to arrive via good faith communication at a higher truth together.
Wok-ism and cancel culture block this. It's like staying in the corner because of fear, hoping the world around us will change for the better when we hate more.
Hate and war never worked.
Love, inclusion, compassion and embracing the other with an open mind do.
Lucien Lecarme
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