So, I have been following the Harrison Butker controversy and frankly, I don’t understand the outrage. People are losing their shit over what Butker said. Don’t believe me? Well, just check out the online petition demanding the Kansas City Chiefs “dismiss” Butker for “discriminatory remarks”.
First, let’s understand, that the petition characterizing what the Kansas Chiefs kicker said as “remarks” is just a little misleading. This wasn’t some post-game interview or even an appearance on one of the many podcasts out there (not, that this matters one iota to me). Butker had been invited by Benedictine College, a Catholic post-secondary institution located in Atchison, Kansas City, to deliver the graduation address. It is important to note that this is a CATHOLIC institution, promoting CATHOLIC values. Anyone can disagree with these values but remember… context matters. The audience was… CATHOLIC. Butker wasn’t speaking to anyone else.
The fact that the speech went viral does not change the audience. Just because some people viewed the speech (or in many cases, just excerpts) and were outraged speaks more about those individuals than Butker. To be clear, anyone can be offended but it’s what individuals do after they are offended which interests me.
Any reasonable person would conclude that Butker – a devout Christian – is walking the walk of the faith in which he believes. I wonder if this school were, say a Muslim school promoting Islamic values if the outrage would be as pronounced? My guess is that with terms such as “Islamophobia” being used pretty liberally by media, politicians and the public the response would be muted.
How did we get here? When did our society become so polarized that we cannot just disagree with another’s opinion? Now, the collective feels the need to silence opposing voices and deplatform the speakers. Harrison Butker is just another in a long list of targets of these attempts at censorship.
This is just an opinion but the cancel police appear far more prevalent on the left of the political spectrum than on the right. Don’t mistake me saying this with any possible support I may have for opinions on the far right or far left. I find both equally problematic. It just appears that the silencing of opinions calls are coming predominantly from the left.
Now, on the Butker brouhaha, I have heard the same old arguments like “free speech doesn’t mean speech free from consequences.” While this is true what exactly does that look like? What are the “consequences”? Who is the arbiter of “acceptable” speech?
Increasingly, the answer to the second question is that taking away someone’s professional career is the required “consequence”. To the latter question, the only answer appears to be… the left. And not just the sane/reasonable left formerly known as liberals, but rather the radical left.
For anyone who believes I am over-reacting I give you the case of Nobel laureate scientist Tim Hunt. The esteemed UK scientist had his decades-long career ended so swiftly that it defies logic. The 39 words he said at a conference have “haunted” him. He apologized for saying them but that was not enough for the cancel mob. He had to be “ended”, from a career perspective. That happened effectively during his flight from the conference to his next destination. When his plane landed he was already cancelled.
Keep in mind, this is a 2001 Nobel Prize winner and his crime was saying something that, although offensive, was nothing more than a clumsy mis-step at a speaking engagement of fellow professionals in his industry.
Here are those 39 words.
“Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab. You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them, they cry,”.
Offensive? Yes. Worthy of the vitriol Hunt (and his wife, a fellow respected scientist) received as a result? Worthy of him losing his job and his career? You can decide but in my opinion if there is ever a punishment that didn’t fit the crime in the crazy world of social media/online cancel culture, this may be the best example.
Despite the fact that Hunt and Butker are involved in professions which probably could not be more different they share three things in common which make them an easy target for cancellation. They are both male, they are both white and they are both straight. The leftist mob loves to cancel those from this so-called “privileged” group. With Butker, throw in the fact that he is a Christian and the cancel feeding frenzy on the left becomes fever-pitched.
There is no consistency to the rules the left applies to cancel an individual. The goalposts are constantly moving and in some cases they have been removed altogether. The only rules which apply are that you are more or less of a target based solely on your group identity. As mentioned above, the left cancel mob delights most in figurative trophies of white/straight/males. Give them an opportunity to cancel a POC/LGBT person and the mob loses their taste for blood. According to the unwritten rules of cancellation for the radical left, certain individuals fall under the oppressed category due to their group identity and cancelling them is seen as a leftist sin.
One thing that is heartening is the number of people with a platform who are jumping to the defence of Harrison Butker. Many of those have pointed out that, like me, they don’t agree with everything that Butker said in his speech. However, like 18th century french writer Voltaire pointed out, you can disagree with someone while still defending their right to say it.
There is one thing all of us should remember (well, maybe some more than others based on whether the radical left views you as oppressed or oppressor based on your group identity) that should you tolerate the type of cancellations we see with more and more regularity what happens when the cancel mob comes for you?
One Dad With a Blog
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