The Western Cultural Tug of War
Unless you are interested in German history, few will have ever heard of the WW2 Allied air raid devastation of cities such as Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, or a host of smaller towns and villages. It has been estimated that 410,000 German civilians were killed by bombing raids with the vast majority of deaths coming in the last year of the war. Paradoxically, the German public did not rebel against Hitler’s National Socialist Party and the hoped for civil unrest against the Nazis did not materialize.
Now let us do a little thought experiment and imagine for one second that I felt it was appropriate to create a symbol to remember all the innocent Germans who died in those attacks. Sure, some critics would say most of them deserved it because they were personally rounding up Jews, gays, gypsies, and other undesirables for the ovens. But there were plenty of innocent German children literally burnt to death during the fire-bombing of their cities. The guiltless dead should be remembered.
Let us continue this hypothetical exercise and visualize the creation of a red poppy with a stylized swastika in order to commemorate those deaths. The resulting unholy, apocalyptic firestorm would be legendary. Except for a handful of neo-Nazi groups, there would be swift, universal condemnation of such a creation along with probably calls for my prosecution for Hate Speech and Crimes Against Humanity.
The reason I am bringing up this touchy topic is to highlight the cultural tug of war within society over which particular symbols, phrases, thoughts, statements, etc. are deemed acceptable for public consumption or exposure.
The brouhaha over poppies earlier this November clearly illustrated the divide over what used to be culturally acceptable with what is now becoming the norm. Don Cherry’s ‘You people’ statement has become a racist euphemism. It is old, white male privilege and misogynistic to suggest that Canadian immigrants should wear the poppy for Remembrance Day. Not that long ago, it was deemed patriotic and respectful to remember Canada’s war dead (all of them despite which ‘group’ they belonged to) with a sacred symbol that tied all Canadians together for a brief period of solemn remembrance.
Here in Manitoba, a young, female, high school student was berated, accused of Hate Speech, and disproportionately punished with suspension due to a poster stemming from an alleged incident over Rainbow poppies. It is deemed to be a ‘call to incite violence‘ against the gay community by using such phrases as ‘Keep it in your pants’. This is despite the societal norm and actual laws against public nudity. But if you are marching in a Pride parade with your penis flopping around, that is given a pass. Throw a Rainbow poppy on your lapel for good measure to help flaunt your Freedom of Expression and the assemble against white male oppression is complete.
From my personal experience, I attended a 2010 Vancouver Pride parade and witnessed plenty of bare chested women and one group of about 20 men proudly displaying their penises to the 200,000 plus crowd. Somehow, I do not see this as acceptable behavior if I wandered into a crowded women’s public washroom and whipped it out for a piss. Of course, I could get away with those type of actions if I identified as a Transgender woman.
As an aside, I have reached out to the young lady’s father to see if anything has come from the incident but he has declined to answer. Plenty of hate and attention has been directed at the student, school, and staff, so I will trust that the local School Board has done their due diligence on this matter.
Another percolating story to do with verboten phraseology is gathering steam regarding Bill Peters, the head coach of the Calgary Flames. A decade ago when Peters was the coach of an AHL hockey team, he supposedly committed the unforgivable sin of using the word ‘nigger’. The accuser, Akim Aliu, who according to some pundits such as CTV’s Jess Allen, does not represent the standard white colour of hockey players. Therefore the use of that specific pejorative directed towards him was doubly racist. Using slur words to put down entire categories of people, races, or genders have been used since time immemorial and there are hundreds of different words used to insult others. Did the 20 year old Aliu have such tender feelings and naiveté to be so mortally appalled by gutter language to the point that it destroyed his subsequent hockey career? Or perhaps, the man just was not that talented and is looking to cash in on the flooding tide of moral outrage culture. Ironically, it sounds as if he was playing offensive rap music for the team and Peters was ticked off about the choice.
Are insults and verbal abuse acceptable in polite society? Of course not. There are definitely better ways of motivating and interacting with people especially if you are in a position of authority over them. I had an Executive Officer onboard HMCS Athabaskan who yelled and berated me on a daily basis. To be fair, he was surly and abusive to most of the officers. Also, I was not particularly talented as a MARS officer, so looking back, I can see some of the man’s frustration. But instead of choosing to melt from those experiences, I choose to see them as a metaphor related to the tempering of steel and see myself as a stronger individual from the abuse.
The idea of exposing people, especially the young, to adversity and difficult topics is the thesis of a book I recommend, ‘The Coddling of the American Mind’, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. As our hyper-sensitive, Western nanny culture fueled by social media justice warriors seeks to ‘protect’ more and more of society, they create the intolerance of an Orwellian totalitarian state. If you think the occasional banning from Twitter or Facebook is infringing on your right of Free Expression, soon it might be steep fines as being contemplated in BC. So despite laws on the books against actual Hate Speech and Hate Crimes, politicians are being encouraged to erode Canadian Charter Rights. Soon, biased politically appointed tribunals reminiscent of witch hunts or the Inquisition may be deciding to fine/banish/destroy the heretics because of hurt feelings. As described in the book I mentioned, society is trending towards adapting to the ‘most sensitive’ person as opposed to the previous paradigm of catering to the ‘most reasonable’ person. Less and less will the average person be inclined to speak up for fear of swift and damning retribution. The road to Hell, a.k.a. Political Correctness, is indeed paved with good intentions.
The pendulum of ever evolving culture swings back and forth between the vocal, minority progressives and the silent majority. Time will tell regarding which aspects the bulk of the population will adapt to and which will be rejected as a step too far. What is disturbing is the creeping, fascist tactics of the progressives who seem to act as if all methods of distributing their narrative are warranted. Free expression is universal and just because you think something is hateful and offensive does not mean that it needs to be banned or cancelled. People do have the option of ignoring ideas or actions they do not agree with.
Oh, if you feel like becoming a social pariah and enjoy receiving death threats from anonymous social media users, feel free to run with that swastika poppy idea that I posited.
Good luck with that little piece of Free Expression.
Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.