Singer Nick Cave (The Bad Seeds, Grinderman) recently denounced cancel culture for its complete lack of mercy by holding people to account for past statements or actions for which they can never recover.
In a post on his website The Red Hand Files, Nick Cave pontificated on the fallout of cancel culture after a fan from Los Angeles asked him to share his thoughts about the subject. According to Cave, without mercy, a society cannot claim to be “functioning and tolerant.”
“Mercy ultimately acknowledges that we are all imperfect and in doing so allows us the oxygen to breathe — to feel protected within a society, through our mutual fallibility. Without mercy, a society loses its soul, and devours itself,” Cave wrote. “Mercy allows us the ability to engage openly in free-ranging conversation — an expansion of collective discovery toward a common good. If mercy is our guide we have a safety net of mutual consideration, and we can, to quote Oscar Wilde, ‘play gracefully with ideas.’”
“Yet mercy is not a given,” he continued. “It is a value we must nurture and aspire to. Tolerance allows the spirit of enquiry the confidence to roam freely, to make mistakes, to self-correct, to be bold, to dare to doubt and in the process to chance upon new and more advanced ideas. Without mercy society grows inflexible, fearful, vindictive and humourless.”
Regarding cancel culture, Nick Cave labeled it as “mercy’s antithesis,” fueled by a cultish political correctness that brings unhappiness wherever it reaches.
“As far as I can see, cancel culture is mercy’s antithesis,” Cave wrote. “Political correctness has grown to become the unhappiest religion in the world. Its once honourable attempt to reimagine our society in a more equitable way now embodies all the worst aspects that religion has to offer (and none of the beauty) — moral certainty and self-righteousness shorn even of the capacity for redemption. It has become quite literally, bad religion run amuck.”
Going forward, Cave believes that cancel culture will ultimately stifle creativity and strangle artists from exploring ideas that some might find uncomfortable.
“Cancel culture’s refusal to engage with uncomfortable ideas has an asphyxiating effect on the creative soul of a society. Compassion is the primary experience — the heart event — out of which emerges the genius and generosity of the imagination,” he concluded. “Creativity is an act of love that can knock up against our most foundational beliefs, and in doing so brings forth fresh ways of seeing the world. This is both the function and glory of art and ideas. A force that finds its meaning in the cancellation of these difficult ideas hampers the creative spirit of a society and strikes at the complex and diverse nature of its culture.”
Just last week, singer Kelly Rowland (formerly of Destiny’s Child) equally denounced cancel culture for its lack of mercy by empowering people to play god.
“In this ‘cancel culture’ we live in, I am SO grateful God NEVER canceled me, and I’m sure he could’ve many-a-times!” she stated.
“Let us TRY to remember NOT to judge others,” she added. “We HONESTLY don’t have the space nor authority too [sic]! Let us remember to lead with love & kindness, the world has enough negativity, for you to pour more into it!”
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