The achievement matters, not the achiever

2024-03-19

If you know me, you know that I am all for a society where everyone gets to say exactly what they want to say. If you want to be politically correct, sure. If you want to be an edgy 4channer and speak your mind in public, you should be free to do so, provided you don't harass people personally. This is necessary in a society that I would deem truly free. People aren't forced to listen to your opinions and ideas, but you should be free to state them, without facing persecution. If not, citizens will over time lose their rights and democracy. And, while the rights in a country do not apply to the internet, they really should. After all, if the internet is the new town square, it needs to provide citizens (users) with these same essential freedoms. Free thoughts lead to a more productive society and a more fulfilled life, where society can move forward rather than backwards.

Over the past ten or so years, a phenomenon often called "cancel culture" by people such as myself has arisen. It's when a mob of people will pressure an individual into being what they see as politically correct, by as the name implies publicly shaming them for their views and in some cases destroying their livelihoods. While this doesn't directly censor them, it will cause them to hold back on saying something they otherwise proudly believe in. This practice has been very prevalent among minority groups, though I will not name any specifically because I'd rather not be hunted down for this blog post, but it really doesn't take much imagination to think of any. These are also the people who frequent social media and make their minority status their entire identity. And, as you might imagine, often it is people who, let's say, have conservative views who are targeted by this. If the person truly has done something that is against the law, it is up to law enforcement to deal with the case appropriately, it is not up to the citizens, or in this case, the users of a social media platform. If you support cancel culture on the internet, why is it that you wouldn't go hunt down criminals yourself? Why don't you play cop? It's because it's stupid, and we all know it. Why are we accepting this practice on the internet? The answer is, these people don't believe any principles in the real world overlap with the internet.

In any case, what happens when these people have actually done something amazing? What if this person who has differing political views? Well, those who support cancel culture are the same people who are likely to ignore any of the positive effort this person has put in, simply because they have views that you do not agree with. People probably disagreed plenty on Charles Darwin's politics and views on anything, really, but that doesn't mean his contributions to society are inherently bad and evil. The problem is that these people simply cannot separate the achievement from the achiever. What do you think would happen if a Nazi cured cancer? In a healthy society, people would despise his political views, but listen to his wisdom regarding cancer, because everyone benefits from a cancer cure, but as long he doesn't break the law in any way, his political views don't really harm society in any way. He's an absolute moron and his political views are moronic, sure, but that doesn't mean his cure is worthless.

The achievement matters, not the achiever. Thank you for reading my blog post, have a great rest of your day!

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