Let’s Cancel Our Parents Along with Joe Rogan
Retroactively punishing people for acts committed when those acts were accepted social norms is a recipe eternal persecution.
Is it ok to punish people today for acts committed at a time when those acts were socially acceptable?
My mother spanked me. Her mother too raked a few knuckles across my head in church.
Growing up in the late 70’s through the 80’s, that was pretty normal. And it was not simply out of momentary rage. I remember sobbing in anticipation of the belt snaps while my mother very calmly discussed how many swats I should get and why I was getting them. It was all quite well planned out and reasonable. It was no secret either.
It happened in church in front of other kids and adults. A swift slap across the face for beat-boxing. Nobody reprimanded her for it.
Even today, how long can you go on social media without seeing someone share a meme about how today’s kids are a mess because they haven’t been spanked? Many of us are quite proud of the manner in which we took a beating. How would that go over today?
What would you do if you saw a parent pull out their leather belt and start whipping their child? What would you do, if anything? Tell them they’re wrong? Call the cops? Simply gasp in horror and look away to avoid getting involved? How quickly would Child Protective Services along with law enforcement be having a serious discussion with that parent?
And yet we spend holidays with these people. People who today would be charged with assault. Is it time we looked back into the history of these assaults and cancel our parents from our lives? Should we contact their employers and tell them that they need to be held accountable? I mean, it wasn’t just some words they hurled at us, but actual bruise causing, blood drawing, violence.
That’s not generally what happens. Well, possibly if they were abusive to a level that even thirty years ago would at least raise some eyebrows. Even though we now know through scientific literature that spanking or hitting is not the best way to parent, we understand that it was their norm. There were no social taboos against it. Nobody pulled my mom aside and said, “WTF?!” But we know now and we should deal with these cases within a framework that fits today’s expectations.
So if we are not “cancelling” our parents for what today is unacceptable, why are we doing so with anyone else? What’s the difference? It’s not like it was that long ago. Many of these people are still alive. It’s only been one generation since these acts took place regularly.
Punishing people retroactively for acts they committed at a time when those acts were accepted social norms is unacceptable.
I’ve read about this happening in the past. This is in part how Soviets rationalized arrests while filling their Gulags.
And now that cancelling Joe Rogan for ‘misinformation’ isn’t working, they are trying to do so by calling him a racist. What has been found is old tapes of him using the “n-word” and this is supposed evidence of racism. Not once did he use it as a slur, but only in reference to something someone else said. It wasn’t long ago that this was perfectly acceptable. Our president himself is on video doing the same during Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings.
Even if you pretend that people actually care about what Joe Rogan said whenever he said it (which somehow just now came up out of nowhere), to punish someone for what they did prior to a time when it was frowned upon is to work from a world view with no possibility of moral growth. It also presumes moral certainty today. As if we already have morals and ethics figured out and there’s no way that tomorrow what we’re doing is going to be frowned upon like spanking was in our past.
If you’re also pretending that referring to a racial slur is the same as using it against somebody, everyone knows you’re lying.
This “cancellation” process always has been and continues to be morally bankrupt, hypocritical, and incredibly shallow. If you support it, it’s time to take a good look into your own soul, look at your own humanity, and treat others the way you would want to be treated today, and in five years.
I won’t hold my mother accountable for actions she committed when those actions were accepted social norms. We should afford everyone else the same consideration.
