History Is Cancelled
Grade school curriculums erase the rough edges and rotten cores of history. By the time you reach a point where any of these missing details are taught, or even accessible, the rewritten history is not easily dislodged.
I try to take this awareness into interactions with people who say ignorant things. I try to show the same patience and understanding shown to me over my many and vast ignorances. If my angle on something is better than yours, it’s only because I listened to people whose angle was better than mine.
Information is sparse even in our high speed interconnected world. Perhaps moreso because of all the noise. It’s easy to point to people in past times who Got It. Abolitionists existed, after all. They Got It. Or at least by some quirk of ideology believed the treatment of some people was wrong even if they didn’t fully recognize the humanity of those people. But the majority of people of a time fall victim to its popular narratives.
Some commentators in our modern time of social media, falling victim to the era’s narratives, will tell you that one mistake is enough to end your social existence. They call it cancel culture.
