By Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel
CHULA VISTA, California — I must confess. I am a sci-fi fan. One of my favorite films of all time is the Matrix series. People like me cannot help but feel excited that Matrix 4 will soon be coming out. When I first saw a Matrix film, it made me think about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.[1] In my younger years, I wondered whether this world is a simulation–God’s video game, as it were. But now, my appreciation for the film has morphed into something more political. Now I think the Matrix offers a remarkable lesson about today’s political reality.
Consider this: In the film, Mr. Smith (the villain) has the ability to appear in virtually any body, at any time. His enemy is Neo, who is trying to break out of this artificial world.
Is Mr. Smith only a figment of science fiction?
Not really.
I suspect you have run into Mr. Smith in the coffee shop, or at a synagogue kiddush, or at a family gathering. After you converse with a friend or a family member after two hours pass, something unusual takes place.
- Imagine being a teacher in the United States, and you receive a memo from the National Education Association informing you that they will be voting on an anti-Israel motion. One of the motions claims that Israel is guilty of “ethnic cleansing,” and another bill plans to use your union funds to advance an anti-Israel campaign by partnering with a U.S. designated terrorist group.[2]
If you are a Jew who loves Israel and teach at public school or at the university, the minute you express your outrage toward your peers’ plan to discredit Israel, you suddenly encounter Mr. Smith, who threatening your job with the cry of cancel culture. When I went to university, I remember when our professors encouraged spirited debate about the issues that define our Jeffersonian democracy.
But today’s institutions of education—especially “higher” education assert that these institutions must discourage people from engaging in intellectual dissent. Our society’s most powerful institutions must act as the ideological gatekeepers defining the boundaries of “acceptable” ideas and discourse.
Mr. Smith, as you can see, embodies the misguided idealism evident in the cancel culture we are now living in. Try discussing or critiquing the politics of critical race theory or gender; you are liable to become a social pariah who has no place in society.
- A Boeing executive named Niel Golightly abruptly resigned after an employee filed an ethics complaint based on an article where he argued women should not serve in combat. Even though he wrote the piece 33 years ago and has since expressed remorse, these mitigating factors fell by the wayside.
Mr. Smith would advise you: Anything you say in blogging can and will be used against you—even if it is 33 years later.
- At Cornell University, Professor William Jacobson’s criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement resulted in him being threatened with losing his job. Jacobson said, “Of course, I did not criticize ‘those protesting for justice for Black Americans,’ I criticized the Black Lives Matters movement and the rioting and looting and cultural purge. But that’s how it goes. … And of course, you don’t see these sort of statements issued for far-left professors.”
Student groups plan to demand the law school “critically examine the views” of the people they employ as professors of the law.
Children often say insensitive and cruel things. Teenagers especially will say things that might shock their parents in their desire to win approval from a peer group. Making attention-seeking rant/conversation may result in you being denied entry into your favorite college,.
- Earlier this year, in San Francisco, cancel culture’s campaign to purify our national history and remake it in its own image proposed erasing the name of the 16th president of the United States from a school because Abraham Lincoln lived a life “stained by racism.”[3]
Abraham Lincoln was not a perfect human being; despite his extraordinary accomplishments, he had imperfections—much like every human being ever born in this world.
There is something very Orwellian about all this. In his dystopian novel 1984, George Orwell wrote about the Thought Police (Thinkpol), the secret police of the superstate Oceania, who discover and punish thoughtcrime, personal and political thoughts unapproved by the government.
And what about humor? In our politically correct age of cancel-culture and woke-gatekeeping, comedians are terrified of doing new shows. One of the most popular shows of the 90s, Seinfeld, has been known to say more than just a few jokes about ethnic groups. [4] .
- Comedian and actor Chris Rock has claimed that “cancel culture” has led to “unfunny” and “boring” material from comedians. Shaming people has become routine whenever individuals say or may have something that the woke police consider as “offensive.” Rock said that the fear of being criticized for inappropriate remarks has resulted in a lack of risk-taking among comedians and “unfunny comedians” and “unfunny” content across film and TV. “Some people need to be looked out for,” he added, “I definitely understand that. But not letting comedians work is, you know — what happens is everybody gets safe, and when everybody gets safe, and nobody tries anything, things get boring.” [5]
I give Rock credit for saying that the public is not required to like his style of comedy. Personally, I have never found Chris Rock funny, but humor is a very subjective art. Some like it, some don’t.
In medieval times, every king had a jester whose job was to critique the status quo and the foibles of the king. They had the power to mock and revile even the most prominent without penalty.
Totalitarian societies have always found humor threatening.
In Gaza, there are no comedians.[6] Challenging the status quo can be very dangerous to your health. For comedians in the Soviet Union, every attempt at humor had to be read from a government-approved list of comedic material. Comics had to submit every joke they’d written to the Ministry of Culture called “The Department of Jokes,” and they couldn’t crack a single one until it had been approved.
Jokes against the leadership were forbidden, as was everything even remotely edgy. Even jokes against the United States had to be tame. Acceptable jokes generally included: jokes about their mothers-in-law. The Department of Jokes also regarded improv as strictly forbidden. The only way comedians could keep an act fresh was to steal gags from their competitors.[7]
Perhaps Bill Maher was right when he said “cancel culture has become McCarthyism in reverse.”
In summary, Mr. Smith has found a new lease on life, and he and his well-meaning followers are threatening to destroy our freedoms and our sensibilities in this crazy woke-obsessive world.
NOTES
[1] Republic, Book 7: 515-517
[2] https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/06/24/2-million-member-us-education-union-to-vote-on-backing-palestinian-struggle-for-justice/
[3] https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-01-05/cancel-abraham-lincoln-san-francisco
[4] https://filmdaily.co/obsessions/dark-seinfeld-jokes/
[5]https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/chris-rock-cancel-culture-spiral-b1851250.html
[6] But in the Westbank, Israelis and Palestinian comics have been very well-received.
[7] https://listverse.com/2016/11/13/10-bizarre-ways-the-soviet-union-controlled-its-people/
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Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista. He may be contacted via michael.samuel@sdjewishworld.com