And I was persecuted as an outlier most of my young adulthood from fundamentalist Christian authoritarian types, often in "gang up on me" scenarios. It's from those experiences that I began noticing similar patterns from the cultural left, and I'm not surprised other people are picking up on it after George Floyd.
A lot of them came from that background. It's not hard for people to fall back on what they know. For instance, if someone grew up believing that they shouldn't read things that contain viewpoints they find threatening, it's not wholly unexpected that they might still continue with that response to alternative ideas even after they've left the church.
Any large group is going to have some fools present. I don't base my associations on the actions of the dumbest members. Two things are relevant:
- Which group has the most fools?
- Which foolish behavior has the most negative impact?
With regards to politics, if we must divide things into two groups, then we have one group with a large, significant number of people who consider public health to be totalitarianism, and we have a group that does not. This is sufficient to convince me that I have backed the right horse. Perhaps you think cancelling J.K Rowling (I was never a huge Potterhead to begin with) is worse than the public health thing. I do not.
In any case, I have never been into cancelling people, in part because I can think of many times in which my own behavior did not meet my own standards. Cancelling, too, is all too often a low-effort, purely symbolic act, and symbolic acts are not what we need now. I also read and watch a significant amount of older media that would not pass muster if it were made today, as well, which possibly also factors into my opinions about cancelling.