Imagine a world in which no unpleasant statements were ever uttered. A world in which one could never be insulted or mocked. A world in which anyone who ever dared to offend us would be immediately silenced and confined to an oubliette.
Ever since the advent of social media, many have attempted to create a simulacrum of this utopia through online censorship. This has taken the form of Silicon Valley tech giants intervening to prohibit the expression of certain opinions, or users actively campaigning to have other users removed from platforms. Many have taken it further, using the internet to track down offending parties and complaining to their employers. This attempt to destroy people’s livelihoods and reputations for causing offence has become known colloquially as ‘cancel culture’.
Typically, this is a tactic of those who identify as Left-wing, but the authoritarian instinct is common throughout humanity and is therefore not tied to any one specific political group. This week, we have seen many campaigners on the Right attempting to cancel those who have made unpleasant comments about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and the murder of Corey Comperatore. The less imaginative have repeated the identical joke – “Make America Aim Again” – while others have expressed what appears to be genuine irritation that the gunman missed his target.
Grim stuff, obviously, but hardly unexpected. For years, we have seen that those who style themselves as being on “the right side of history”, who apply hashtags such as #BeKind and #LoveWins to their online bios, are often the most ferocious and unrelenting bullies. Their confidence in their own compassion seems to bear an inverse relationship to their actual capacity for empathy. The guise of virtue is naturally appealing for sociopaths seeking a cover for their cruelty.
Elon Musk has been so inundated with complaints that he felt obliged to post the following:
For some, there have been real-world consequences. A few days ago, an employee at Home Depot (a home improvement retailer in the U.S.) was filmed at work by a man questioning her about a recent Facebook post regarding the assassination attempt. She had written: “To [sic] bad they weren’t a better shooter!!!!!” The video went viral and she was fired.
Many of us will find the sentiments that she had expressed contemptible. Her words do not come close to the threshold for incitement to violence, but they do express an ugly flippancy about the sanctity of human life. Is this sufficient reason to see her lose her livelihood? This is likely a worker on a minimum wage and not somebody who can afford to be unemployed, let alone endure the ongoing stigma of such a targeted online campaign. Why could her detractors not have responded with criticism, or blocked her account, or simply ignored her? There’s a very good reason why the singer Nick Cave described cancel culture as “mercy’s antithesis”.
While emotions are running high the need to lash out is understandable, but that does not make it justifiable. I take the view that companies have no business monitoring the legal social media activity of their employees, and nor should they capitulate to demands to see them fired if others take offence. One might counter this view by pointing out that there are certain jobs in which a respectable public profile is essential. It would never occur to me to post any kind of endorsement of violence on social media, but if I did I would not expect to be hosting my show on GB News this weekend. It would be an immediate violation of my contract, one that I had willingly signed. This would not be a free speech matter.
But the vast majority of jobs do not in any way involve maintaining a public profile, and it seems grossly unfair to penalise people for mistakes that would in usual circumstances be almost instantly forgotten. The complainants often rationalise their position by claiming that no company would wish to employ “that kind of person”, and so by revealing their true colours these people deserve to lose their jobs. But this is to reduce humanity to a Disneyfied narrative of Goodies and Baddies. It is simply not the case that good people say good things and bad people say bad things. It is perfectly possible that the woman fired from Home Depot might later have regretted her words, perhaps written unthinkingly in the heat of the moment. But even if she hadn’t, is public shaming really the answer?
All of those calling for cancellations this week might want to ask themselves a simple question. If all the private messages you had ever sent were suddenly uploaded online for all to see, would you be happy with that? Are you really so pure that no statement you have made in the past could be weaponised against you?
In one of the more high profile cases, Jack Black has announced the cancellation of his Tenacious D tour after fellow band member Kyle Glass made a joke about the assassination at a show in Sydney. While blowing out the candles of a birthday cake on stage, he made the wish: “Don’t miss Trump next time.” Black later wrote on Instagram that he “would never condone hate speech or encourage political violence in any form”. But can anyone honestly claim that this was the intention? It looks to me very much like a tasteless joke.
The expectation that human beings ought to be infallible is unrealistic and cruel. I do not approve of many of the comments I have seen about the violence of Saturday evening, but nor do I suppose that all of those making such comments are inherently evil. Even those who consistently and explicitly take joy in the suffering and deaths of their political opponents have the right to free speech. I do not ever wish to associate with such people, and so there is some benefit in their tendency to expose their sourness so willingly.
At heart, cancel culture is a form of revenge. Most people are rightly distressed by the spectacle of violence, and are resentful of those who appear to have no regard for human life, or are so wrapped up in their ideology that they have surrendered their basic empathy. The best response is criticism. There is nothing wrong with letting people know how we feel about them, particularly when they have behaved so badly. To leap directly to punishment and public shaming may make us feel better about ourselves, but its utility ends there. Either we are for cancel culture or we are against it. There is no middle ground.
Andrew Doyle is a writer, comedian and broadcaster who hosts the GB News show Free Speech Nation. He is the author of Free Speech and Why It Matters and The New Puritans. He created satirical Left-wing activist Titania McGrath, whose two books are Woke: A Guide to Social Justice and My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism. This article was first published on his Substack page. Subscribe here.
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Interestingly enough on this subject I have just had an eye consultation refused this morning at my local NHS clinic in St Albans because I declined the offer of wearing a mask in the facility. I had a very repetitive conversation with the medical care professional there who explained how good they were at keeping everyone ‘safe’.
I failed to succumb to her less than compelling persuasion and left as neither of us was going to give way.
I’ve emailed the NHS outfit that manages this service to seek confirmation on whether we have a de facto refusal of treatment and access to services if a face mask is not worn. I asked for a one word answer. I will await a reply.
Based on my experience and speaking to doctors and nurses I know over the years, I am pretty certain that people who work in the NHS don’t like the patients. That is of course not true of every doctor and nurse nor of every patient, but for the most part, the staff find interaction with patients not very pleasant and something they can’t wait to get over and done with.
This impression is somewhat validated by the experience of the last 2+ years. Every opportunity that has presented itself to push patients away has been taken, be it cancelling service, online consultations, barring visitors.
It also explains partly why the NHS has legions of staff doing all sorts of jobs that in aggregate make up the service to patients. Think of a typical visit to the NHS. You’ll see a chain of people, none of who spend more than a few minutes with you at most before you get passed on to someone else. Everyone is very rushed and simply have to get on to something else (rarely another patient, but rather writing something down, looking something up, checking something).
I see masks as part of that effort do push patients away. Masks create a barrier between people and for doctors and nurses, they serve to put distance between themselves and their patients. A doctor I know confessed as much to me, saying that she didn’t mind the masks and in some ways was grateful for them as it saved her having to put on an empathic expression when she was tired or low on energy – which is most of the time.
If they could anaesthetise us at the door, wheel us in, carry out a diagnosis without our participation, treat us, attach a set of follow up instructions for us read, then wheel us back out and wake us up, that is exactly what they would do.
And they would claim it was the best thing for our safety.
Nurses used to train on the job, as such there was never any doubt in their minds about what the job was about.
These days, they have to “study” for ages and are perhaps then a little dismayed when expected to do the actual work. They are also, in my experience, looking to be promoted to one of the endless “management” or “consultant” positions; they have been patronised by their “education”.
My qualification required to register with the NMC was a three year DipHE of which 50% was in practice and 50% in university. In the good old days, when my father trained, it was two years for SEN and 3 years for SRN. Yes the training was ward based, but there were classroom sessions as well. The other difference was that student nurses were included in the numbers as they were employed by the hospital.
Personally, I don’t think that there would have been a difference for me whichever training scheme was used, I was 50 when I qualified after a previous career as a systems/software engineer.
However, and it’s probably truer now that it’s all degree only, it is a means to obtaining a degree.
To fulfill the role of nurse practitioner I needed courses at level 7 post graduate level.
Your inalienable right to refuse to consent to a NPI as stated in Article 6 of the UNESCO Universal Declaration of Bioethics & Human Rights has been breached. It states that not giving consent to an intervention, which masking is, does & should not be detrimental to an individual’s right to receive medical care.
Stating that one is exempt, as you lawfully are exempt just by deciding not to submit to wearing a muzzle, is a route which is unchallengeable & they have no right to question the reason for the exemption.
I hope that you receive a reply.
Correct. That is why it was possible, right from the start, to download all the graphics for creating “exemption” badges from a gov.uk website. Not well advertised, but it’s up to us to use it if required. Soon after the scam started, there were some cases (in the legal definition) in which damages claims were made against organisations that refused to provide services on those grounds. The Discrimination Act 2018, and the Equality Act 2010 were also useful. The ones I read about appeared to have settled outside court, but cash changed hands on account of that.
Along the lines of selective publication, the bureaucrats kept quiet about the fact that there was never a requirement for a third party to grant exemption. Unilateral declaration, and printing out the bits and pieces published (quietly) by themselves, was what I did, almost two years ago.
P.S. This was the original source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/face-coverings-when-to-wear-one-and-how-to-make-your-own It says that it is “withdrawn”, but that’s no surprise. What I have attached above was a DHSC publication back in August 2020.
Well done for not giving way, Savage. Horrible times indeed. Yes, do please let us know the response.
WTF a downvote???
Earlier this week I was refused a mammogram because I refused to wear a mask and I also refused to use hand sanitiser. When I pointed out that there was no mandate for hand sanitiser, I was met with stunned silence. My refusal to wear a mask was met with even more incomprehension.
So basically the people there felt that the risk to them of Covid (all ladies under 40, healthy) was greater than the risk of me having undiagnosed breast cancer – despite having a family history of that.
Thanks NHS.
I think they just wanted your compliance.
They all carry out normal unmasked lives on trains, in pubs and supermarkets.
It’s just that when you are in their little fiefdom, you do what they say. They don’t care about you, obviously. They care about themselves and their own authority.
Authority without responsibility; the happy hunting ground of incompetent bureaucrats to bully the people who pay their wages
What a surprise. Perhaps they have actually learnt about it all? I never used them anywhere during the last two years.
There was a fair bit of useful information, from the British Standards Institution, and others. In particular, much of the junk on sale had tiny labels that most people would not read, that said that they were NOT masks to any standard, so as to avoid being prosecuted under trading standards. Much of it was a con, and an opportunity to sell junk.
I have pointed out the very same label to many people wearing masks, they stare at me vacantly.
Lights on, nobody home.
I still remember the inscription on the set I bought when they were mandated. It said (in the kind of broken English one expects from the Chinese) Fashion mask. Not a medical mask. Use for dust protection, sun protection, fashion. Yet, there are still people clinging to them.
Here in Thailand we had the mask mandates lifted yesterday, HOORAY.
I chucked the remainig box of masks in the cupboard and checked the price I paid for them
50 ‘masks’ 40 baht = 95p sez it all really.
It’s really good to see Niall is still fighting.
When you see people still wearing masks you ask yourself “do the no wonder how all these unmasked people are not dropping dead?”
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Deserves to be mentioned here again (and it may be useful in such disputes): The Ebola stations set up during the most-recent Ebola epidemic represented a serious attempt at preventing viruses from escaping into the environment and infecting health workers or other patients. Despite all these efforts, some people still got infected. That so-called Sars-CoV2 infection prevention measures never even came remotely close to that is a conclusive proof that they’re nothing but theater and that neither actors nor directors of this penny dreadful drama take it seriously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism “Something must be done” etc. Many so-called experts were attempting to create an impression of competence; with some of us, it’s backfired.
Can nobody read, it says on the box that the masks are not intended to prevent infection??
Right. Something’s happened. I’ve just been to Tesco and a significant number of shoppers were masked. All varieties out in numbers, from the anxious elderly to the virtue-signalling young. What’s happened? How have they been nudged?
Nothing particularly unusual. Just another ONS junk estimate about rising levels of infection in healthy people. The only noteworthy thing about that is that Omicron variants have now supplanted Sars-CoV2 variants in official messaging and that the UKHSA is trying to pull a WHO by labelling some of them as variants of concern.
As I’ve already written in the past: Until the professional pandemic bullshitters have their microphones disconnected and other resources repurposed, we’re only out on bail and the nonsense can start over at any minute.
I have noticed recently that more and more adverts for NHS services are creeping in on tv and are showing people wearing masks.
Oh Lordy ! Will they ever leave us alone?
Well done Niall and those who have to put up with this nonsense. I’m retired but do my best to challenge maskers where possible. As ever, the NHS is a postcode lottery. I was refused access (without facecloth) to a gp surgery for stitches removal by a young nurse who claimed she was “vulnerable”. Not so far away the nurses at the Minor Injuries Unit were more accepting. We are living amongst the possessed – people who barely function because they see threats everywhere – but must keep chipping away and staying sane.
This kind of nonsense is still going on all over the world and much worse besides.. The basic problem is global leaders aided by the media can not admit that most of the rules and regulatons that were imposed on their societies have been utterly pointless. As a consequence Covid zealots (who were afforded unprecedented influence during the panicdemic) continue to persecute people by whatever means is available to them.They want lockdown or semi-lockdown to be made a permanent way of life. Why? Look at the Green movement. It is full of nutters too!
I believe the WHO do not regard masks as PPE either—this should further remove question one from the equation.