I've not been contributing since about September, and I apologize for the long gap. I apologize only because it's rude to disappear without letting people know where you're going and I do my best to avoid being rude. In a nutshell, I've been overwhelmed at work, which is a good thing. After not working for many months, I managed to land a (much lower level) position which is working out very well for me and my long-term prospects have improved dramatically in the last few weeks. Of course, improved opportunity means additional responsibilities. Which means more time at a desk, at least in my current role. At my age (pushing 60), that's something many others cannot say. They're either at or near the pinnacle of your career, or winding it down. As I have done 4 other times in my life, I'm winding up again and feeling great.
One thing I do is try to go for a walk each day for at least an hour. Fresh air and exercise enables me to be nimble of body and mind. I'll listen to history podcasts while I walk, or just think. Recently, after a particularly difficult conversation with a friend who has gone full-on Woke, I chewed the mental cud and began to wonder where all this Wokism is headed.
It suddenly struck me what the essential problem of Wokism and Cancel Culture represent. In the name of creating and expanding opportunity, these people are limiting it severely. I wondered what history would look like if Woke and Cancel mindsets had been in place for a longer time than just the last decade or so. Not that we need another discussion on Wokism, but I felt this was a good mental exercise.
I felt if I could frame the discussion in such a way, so one could see the damage cancelling history, or destroying lives, over self-righteous indignation can cause. I realized I knew a story, particular to me, involving a former employer asking me to remove a picture I had hanging in my office. The attached Winston Churchill picture with a tommy gun.
Assuming I have any heroes, and I have very few, Churchill is right about at the top. He had many positive qualities. His sharp wit is remembered well. He could navigate treacherous political waters. He was astute enough to know when to alter his views. I believe he is the only Prime Minister to have changed parties, but is certainly the only one who changed parties twice. It is hard to see how the UK may have hung on without his presence. Alternative histories are notoriously difficult and I don't put much stock in them. Given the alternatives at the time he took office, it's likely others would have turned to some form of acquiescence. To make my point, I'll work from the belief that without Churchill, Britain may have been unlikely to have continued the war effort in a meaningful way. Understand this may not be the case, so please don't engage a wide-ranging discussion on the alternatives.
Churchill had this picture taken because Hitler had called him a gangster. He decided to play the part for PR purposes. It's a great picture which I picked up at the War Rooms. My picture was cancelled by my employer because he was holding a gun and this presumably "frightened" someone (it didn't, but that's another story in itself). Imagine that - canceling Winston Churchill. But my employer did. In fact, the person canceling the picture did not even know who Churchill was when I asked. I was just told to remove "the picture of that gangster." A bit of bittersweet irony. I'm sure Churchill would've have chuckled then taken the poor sap down a few notches.
What if Cancel Culture existed just before WWII?
If you ask a Wokester what they think of Churchill, they'd say he's a racist old white man and should be cancelled.
In fact, they have called to have his statues removed.
Let's assume this kind of thought process existed pre-WWII. Churchill finds the loudest voices want him cancelled - he's a racist, and even if he apologizes, he's with the 'wrong party' so that won't get him any clearance. He can switch parties yet again, but who wants that turncoat? His career in the tank, he's unable to give a speech which the press is willing to cover. If they do cover it, it will be misconstrued to show how truly awful he is. In the midst of all this Winston heads off to Chartwell to spend his last days. Meanwhile, Chamberlain goes to Munich and screws the pooch and....what?
Let's put it this way. The UK may have survived without Churchill. But it would have been much, much harder for the UK to have prevailed. In fact, it's likely Germany would have invaded (as the US barely was willing to support Churchill...it's hard to imagine them working with Halifax or any of the others who were ready to roll over to Hitler) and the war would have had a very different tincture to it.
Cancel Culture ruins opportunity by limiting it in the name of "improving" or "expanding" it. In reality, Wokism and Cancel Culture destroys lives and opportunities. I am fine with sharing ideas - we exist in a marketplace of ideas and all of them should be heard. But these have been heard before. Long ago, many times. From 1789-1799 in France, from 1905-1991 in Russia. Since 1949 in China. We've seen it before and somehow this behavior keeps popping up again and again as being somehow meaningful and useful to people. It's worth noting Lenin once said Robespierre's problem was that he "didn't go far enough."
A Wokester may reply "But Hitler was really evil and we'd have fought him, too." No, I really doubt they would. First of all, Hitler was not widely recognized as the monster he was until at least 1939, and possibly later. The US continued to maintain a working relationship with the Nazis until they declared war. Furthermore, most people felt Hitler could be dealt with politically up until he began the war in 1939. That's why Chamberlain went to Munich. Wokesters are so poorly educated, they really believe they can recognize evil in advance of its appearance. Which is why they cannot see it in their own behavior.
As I said, I admire Churchill, and that is more strange than it may seem, particularly to a Wokester. After all, I am of Irish ancestry and there are few people in British history who are loved less than Churchill, by the Irish. His history with my forebears was vicious, at times. He was brutal and cunning.
Recognizing flaws in people and personalities is what makes history interesting, and what makes choosing leaders who you'd like to follow difficult. Nobody is perfect. That's what Wokesters and Cancel Culturalists miss. They are so wrapped up in creating what they hope will be a perfect world they don't recognize they are performing activities best described by William F. Buckley as "immanentizing the eschaton." They eat their own, as soon as their own show weakness or flaws of any kind.
The New Left needs perfection and perfection does not exist. So much so that even AOC is now under attack as not being a 'true Progressive.'
It would all be quite laughable if these weren't the most absolutely frightening group of people since the Committee for Public Safety.
