After decades of bringing joy to and instilling a love of reading in children, the late Dr. Seuss is now highly problematic.
What’s even more problematic — genuinely problematic — is the willingness of many media liberals to defend the attempts to cancel Dr. Seuss, if not outright participate in them.
Ben Shapiro explains:
The media Leftists have now hit upon a new narrative: cancel culture doesn't exist. It doesn't exist because book burnings are not ACKSHUALLY book burnings. They're just "cultural change." But what if that "cultural change" involves book burnings, as most cultural revolutions do?
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 3, 2021
Here is example #1, from Chris Cillizza at CNN. He correctly points out that conservatives are now making the argument that "Liberals are trying to cancel long-cherished cultural touchstones — solely because it doesn't comport with their preferred vision for America."
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 3, 2021
But, says Cillizza, "cancel culture" isn't happening. No, it's just "cultural change": "What is happening — in all three of these most recent instances — is that the culture is changing."
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 3, 2021
That "cultural change" might require a few book burnings here and there. But even book burnings aren't cancellation! Direct quote: "While six of [Seuss'] books will no longer be published, the remaining three dozen or so will still be on bookshelves. That isn't a cancellation."
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 3, 2021
Not to be pedantic, but that is definitionally a cancellation. There were other books in the Soviet Union while they were banning books. This did not make their book bannings a simple case of "cultural change."
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 3, 2021
It's not just Cillizza. In a particularly egregious column from Phillip Bump of WaPo, the argument is made that book burning Dr. Seuss works isn't actually cancel culture, it's again — that magic word! — just "change."
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 3, 2021
Bump claims "stated concerns about 'cancel culture' can serve as Spackle for frustrations over a changing world." But what about if things are indeed cancelled? That's fine, because they OUGHT to be cancelled.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 3, 2021
"The author, himself, is dead for one thing, which is about as canceled as a person can get," says Bump. "The vast, vast majority of his books, the ones without racist images or references, will still be sold."
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 3, 2021
If you oppose the whitewashing of history or the cancellation of books, you are complicit in racism or rooting for it, says Bump.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 3, 2021
And don’t forget about author and New York Magazine columnist Mark Harris, who thinks the “blowhard right” and “Fox News” are making way too big a deal out of Dr. Seuss getting canceled, especially since only six Dr. Seuss books will no longer be published.
This is patent idiocy. But it is authoritarian idiocy, since no authoritarian has ever claimed that their book burnings are anything other than an attempt to protect the public from "dangerous" ideas. And the authoritarians are winning.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 3, 2021
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Related:
Universal Orlando ‘evaluating’ its Dr. Seuss-themed area after book backlash
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