Cancel Everyone
Whoopi Goldberg is an unfunny comedienne, a poor actress, and a kooky political pontificator for the bored housewives audience. She recently commented, seemingly in the context of trying to reduce everything to white vs. black racial politics, that “the Holocaust isn’t about race,” but rather about “man’s inhumanity to man,” since both groups involved — Germans and Jews, apparently — were white.
For this kookiness — which, remember, is basically what she gets paid for, and the only reason anyone would give a damn about her existence at all — Goldberg has been “suspended” from The View by ABC News President Kim Godwin. (Yes, it seems that The View falls under the purview of ABC News. I think I see the problem). According to President Godwin, who apparently perceives herself as a God who must win, “I’ve asked [Goldberg] to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments.” Imagine a boss publicly announcing an employee’s suspension by explaining that the employee has been asked to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her error. And now imagine that the error in question is a political opinion.
Welcome to the Marxist tribunal’s re-education program, Ms. Goldberg. Luckily, your race, gender, and political affiliation all ensure that your remedial studies will lead to your eventual restoration to the ABC News family of fine establishment totalitarians in good standing, at least for a while — once you have paid your dues to the deities of cancellation and moral omniscience. For you see, in the tribunal’s view, there are certain points of view that must be adhered to, and when speaking about those subjects, one must always be careful to avoid saying anything that will trigger your social ejector seat. On those subjects, there is no room for discussion or disagreement. You are either speaking the Socially Approved Truth or you are not. And if you are not, you are a transgressor, and must be punished as a lesson to all others. There will be no discussion, no respectful disagreement, no debate, no changing one’s mode of expression upon reconsideration, no learning; just elimination of the offending view, and if necessary of the one who dared to utter it. Of course, Socially Approved Truths are changeable according to the temper and pragmatic needs of the time, which is part of the way they make life interesting for anyone who dares to speak about any of the untouchable topics: You can never know which remark will be judged unspeakable today. Best to avoid all topics not related to liking fluffy animals, then, and just nod one’s head when the tribunal’s approved spokesmen of the moment are speaking.
One may forgive Ms. Goldberg, however, for believing she was one of those approved spokesmen, since she had every reason to assume she was, until suddenly she wasn’t. And here we arrive at The Reality of the Tribunal.
I am hardly the first person to point this out, but just to state the obvious: Progressive authoritarianism is only fun when you are on the cancelling side of the ledger — but no one ever remains on that side permanently. No one. Because, to apply some wisdom from Ms. Goldberg in a more appropriate context, progressivism isn’t about race. It is about man’s inhumanity to man. And when the very goal of the system is inhumanity, the one thing you may know for certain is that in the end, everyone will get his. Including, as precedent demonstrates all too clearly, ABC News President Godwin. Her turn will come too. They all go down eventually, one way or another.
Perhaps the simplest thing, then, if progressivism is the unstoppable civilizational avalanche it appears to be, would be to spare everyone their hour of dread and despair, and just get the ugly act over with once and for all. Cancel everyone.
