Earlier this month Leftists provided another example of how the COVID-19 reflex has empowered would-be totalitarians to abuse power in the name of protecting feelings from facts.
In an ironic move, State Library of WA organizers of the Disrupted Festival of Ideas cancelled a Livestream panel discussion on cancel culture, because of heterophobic influenced concerns about Augusto Zimmermann’s presentation.
Zimmermann, a Professor, writer, former Western Australian Law Commissioner, and occasional Caldron Pool contributor et.al, said the ‘event was supposedly about the free exchange of ideas and challenging the status quo and the establishment.’
Instead, it became an example of how ‘privileged individuals’ use cancel culture ‘to suppress dissenting ideas [in order] to prohibit opposing voices that challenge their hegemonic discourse in our democratic society.’
According to The Age, ‘an SLWA spokesman said the livestream of the cancel culture discussion, held on Saturday, had been cancelled due to one of the panellists not giving permission for it to air ahead of the event. The spokesman said the panellist was concerned the discussion could upset some of his followers on social media.’
The event was tabled as an open discussion on whether Cancel Culture exists, and if so, what defined it. Or whether Cancel Culture was an “alt-right” and “boomer” term used to crush the dissent of militant millennials?”
Graeme Paton, another panellist, defended sexologist and “LGBTQ specialist”, Kai Schweizer’s requests to ban the livestream on the grounds that Augusto’s “position was lacking in nuance.”
Paton argued that in seeking to censor Zimmermann, Schweizer was protecting ‘the vulnerable [Trans] community’ from ‘topics that might have been disturbing.’
Ignoring the unequal treatment shown towards Zimmermann, and the importance of social distancing livestreams under the shadow of COVID-19, Paton claimed that Zimmermann was “exaggerating” what had happened, because he “still got to say his piece; and nobody was against him coming out in a public space.”
Organizers and fellow panellists deploying cancel culture tactics in an event asking whether Cancel Culture is “right-wing” fiction or fact, is peak Leftism.
Like all human self-righteous, self-appointed “paragons of virtue”, they’re oblivious to stench in their own backyards. The Left is, without a doubt, plagued by Plank Eye Syndrome.
The event panellists, and organizers have successfully shown what Cancel Culture is. What defines it, and how it’s weaponized.
Cancelling Zimmermann’s livestream. Pompous mockery in ambiguous appeals to nuance. The asinine refusal to acknowledge the significance of the “COVID SAFE” livestream ban, and the posturing of virtue, as though cancelling Zimmermann was a selfless act, saving lives by protecting the feelings of the vulnerable from facts, is Cancel Culture.
Much the same as abortion, Cancel Culture pivots on a ‘life unworthy of life’ doctrine. True to this, while Schweizer’s concerns were taken seriously, triggering immediate action, Zimmermann’s concerns were dismissed as an exaggeration.
One of the integral foundations of this culture is the arbitrary use of the term “hate speech.”
Under the faux lordship of Cancel Culture, reasoned, verbal disagreement is falsely reduced to an act of physical violence.
Under this, Cancel Culture creates harmful safe spaces, the dismissal/dehumanization of opponents, and the outlawing of ‘honest debate.’
As Martyn Iles wrote:
Rational discussion and mutual respect is ‘a thing of the past. We increasingly live in a culture of power by almost any means… There is an ever-growing strand of left-wing thought which is utterly incapable of understanding anything except by reference to power. It’s the Marxist bilge pumped into kids’ brains all their lives[…] Power is a higher goal than morality[…] That is why they never engage. They just abuse, dox, cancel, and do whatever it takes – ie seize the power.’
I’ve had the privilege of exchanging some one on one correspondence with Augusto over the course of this year. By all counts he’s a good man. Smart, well respected, experienced. Zimmermann knows his stuff. This cancellation nonsense is another sign of the times.
The reality is that hate speech isn’t reasoned, verbal disagreement. The development of good arguments requires engaging with an opposing viewpoint.
Taking into consideration all of the above, “hate speech” is really nothing more than speech truth-haters, hate hearing.