Again, for the Win: Ricky Gervais Completely Demolishes Cancel Culture

Article written by Alex Parker in "RedState":


Thanks to cancel culture, we’re living in a state of arrested development. A few recent jailings: The Dixie Chicks have become The Chicks, Lady Antebellum’s become Lady A, Drew Brees has become a villain, Hamilton’s become problematic, and a New York Times editor has become unemployed.

And as we go, comedian Ricky Gervais continues to say common sense stuff.

And that continues to make the news. Why? Because so few people in his line of work are saying it.

As noted by The Daily Wire, in a recent interview with talkRadio, the creator of The Office pegged cancel culture — it’s “a “weird sort of fascism.”

This should be obvious to everyone, but for some reason it’s not — much in the same way, it seems, that people branding themselves “anti-fascist” while doing what is literally fascistic appears to get very few call-outs.




Why isn’t all of society recognizing these real and dangerous components on the rise?

Ricky gets it. Here’s more:

“There’s this new weird sort of fascism of people thinking they know what you can say and what you can’t. And it’s a really weird thing.”

The comedian asserted ‘Free Speech’ is being dismissed as a mantra of the malicious:

“[T]here’s this new trendy myth that people who want free speech want it to say awful things all the time. This just isn’t true. It protects everyone.”

And how ’bout that hate speech:

“This new thing, “hate speech”… The two catastrophic problems with the term…is one, what constitutes hate speech? Everyone disagrees. There’s no consensus on what hate speech is, right? And two, who decides? And there’s the real rub.”

It’s phony virtue:

“[O]bviously, the people who think they wanna close down free speech because it’s bad are the fascists. … These people hide behind…a shield of goodness — ‘We’re good. We’re doing this for good, and what we say goes.’ And they don’t realize how corrupt and wrong that is. It’s just nonsense. … It is mob rule.”

The scourge has gripped entertainment quite firmly, so much that Ricky’s said The Office would be difficult to make today. Networks don’t want complaints:

“They’re not worried about right and wrong. They’re worried about how many letters they’ll have to write and how it will look bad.”

With regard to comedy specifically, Gervais insisted satire must be defended:

“[S]ometimes it needs to be explained, but it needs to be defended as well. You put something together that’s ironic or satirical, somebody says, ‘Somebody’ll be offended by that. Let’s lose it.’ No, let’s not lose it. Let’s defend it. … What are you doing? This is madness.”

He also pointed out that, just as free speech is rightfully protected, abuses via speech are also:

“Let’s not forget — there are loads of caveats to free speech already, but I agree with all of them: libel, slander…all these things are already in place. What’s not in place and what never should be in place is that you mustn’t say something that someone somewhere might find offensive. Because someone somewhere will find everything offensive. And as I’ve said so many times, just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right.”

And not just that, but this:

“Offense is good. Because it makes you think.”

He believes it’s dumbing us down, and he’s 100% correct.

“[W]hat’s happened recently is ‘I’m offended’ has replaced an argument.”

The guy ain’t just whistlin’ dixie.

 Oh — I apologize to the offended. The guy ain’t just whistlin’ The Chicks.

https://www.redstate.com/alexparker/2020/07/13/ricky-gervais-talk-radio-interview-cancel-culture-offended-doesnt-make-you-right/