"At the beginning of July, the Naisiai summer festival
organized by R. Karbauskis became popular in Lithuania. Several artists who
were supposed to participate in it announced that they would not participate.
The first among them was THE ROOP. There was no need to guess the motive: it
turns out that this is the "wrong" attitude of the festival organizer
towards granting the status of head of state to Vytautas Landsbergis. Although
The Constitutional Court has already clarified that Prof. Landsbergis does not
correspond to this status, the Seimas still granted it, and Karbauskis stated
that he will appeal to the Constitutional Court again on this issue. A
large-scale attack began. Even the Minister of Culture was publicly happy that
politicized artists are trying to ruin a big festival. "Lietuvos rytas"
published false photos of the supposedly empty festival in a Komsomol'skaya gazeta style.
From East to West
In itself, the Naisiai festival is not an important topic.
But this year's events, the festival crash, have become important as a backyard
example of a global trend to terrorize people and organizations because of
their views. The Western world is already full of it, and now it has started to
raise its head in the East as well.
Of course, in the East (at least throughout Asia), political
persecution for opinions is a common phenomenon, and Western countries cannot
try to surpass Russia or China in this. Dictators even kill others. However,
the new punishment for views is not in dictatorships, but in democracies. Often
in old (mature) and exemplary ones. This is a problem of a completely different
relevance and nature than the persecutions carried out by dictators. This
persecution is ideological and "democratic". Paradoxically, this
trend is expanding to new democratic countries, and the media or the so-called
elites neither oppose nor resent it.
There was a lot of time to resist and be angry in the West,
because punishments, removal from positions and from the public space have been
pressing people more and more hard here for at least a decade. Back in 2009,
Carrie Prejean - then Miss California - lost the Miss America pageant only
because she publicly said she supported marriage between a man and a woman
only. It was still a rather delicate case - neither removal from work nor from
public space. But the reason for the defeat was clear to everyone: "wrong
views".
Since then, there has been an extremely wide and varied list
of informal punishments for views. Many teachers, presenters, celebrities,
journalists and representatives of other professions, usually related to the
public, have lost their jobs. There are many taboo topics and "wrong
opinions". Here is the commentator for the Sacramento Kings basketball
club in the USA, who was a true basketball icon of this city, fired after he
publicly wrote that "all lives matter" as the opposite of the popular
"correct" ideological slogan "black lives matter".
Particularly combative in the war against "wrong"
opinions are students in the United States. Students at a University of
Washington demanded the dismissal of Professor Y. Shapiro because he criticized
Biden's promise to appoint a black woman judge to the Supreme Court. Shapiro
himself resigned. Students at another University of Washington demanded the
dismissal of US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas from his teaching
position, because he voted in court to abolish the "right to
abortion". The judge's decision in other positions becomes a pretext for
his dismissal from the university in the eyes of the students. Universities
should be a space of special freedom of thought and speech, where the most
different ideas collide in open discussions, but now it is precisely
universities that are turning into a place where one truth is demanded, and the
leaders do not dare to oppose it.
This is a relatively new trend in Lithuania, but both
professors and people from completely different fields are already falling
victim to it. In 2018, VU TSPMI professor Vytautas Radžvilas received a complaint
from students asking to cancel his course, as the teacher is Eurosceptic. A
year later, Prof. Radžvilas' job was eliminated (Radžvilas himself was not forced
to quit directly). More teachers have lost their jobs because of "wrong
views", but without such publicity.
"Organizational Values"
It is not only the professor who is in the trap of
censorship. There is a new and absurd phenomenon in business -
"organizational values". Companies declare the values that underpin
their activities and they usually magically coincide, echoing values of
quality or transparency that make sense in business, echoing diversity,
tolerance, inclusion and similar things that have nothing to do with business.
Ironically, this is the furthest thing from the authentic values of the
companies themselves. The very existence of such declarations and their
uniformity stems from the fact that the ideological environment requires the
declaration of these values and companies humbly carry it out, understanding
that it is good for their reputation, guarantees a "checkmark" and
peace of mind in the eyes of the censors, and often also by employing
"diversity specialists". In the USA, this trend is already receding
a little, but in Lithuania it is just beginning to emerge. Such "organizational
values" become the perfect pretext for dismissing even the rank and file
of the company due to incorrect views of employees, because you can't simply
fire them because of their views.
This is how the trainers of the Klaipėda dance studio, who
danced in the video clip of the song "Kas nešokinės", said goodbye because of
Petrus Gražulis. Fired everyone. Because their behavior contradicted the
"values of the organization". The clip was stupid, and the behavior
of Mr. Gražulis was cynical, because he, unlike the dancers, really knew about
the phenomenon of elimination and the confrontation that threatened the
dancers. But as a politician, an ordinary scandal is useful for him, and
dancers who are not used to the extent of censorship can be exploited.
Cleaning singers
In the entertainment business, various music artists have
recently started to be removed from the airwaves and - if we believe the
testimonies - this whole trend boils down to the efforts of one person - Arūnas
Valinskas. Publicly and without bowing down, he hands out almost instructions
to the left and right, what can no longer be played on radio stations and
invited to perform at festivals.
Valinskas' rampage calls attention to the fact that
"cancellation" takes place for very different important reasons -
expulsion for "wrong opinions" on value issues and for justifying
banal crimes are not the same.
However, this difference in no way justifies Valinskas'
behavior. It is clear that his majesty's ambitions are much broader than the
fight against Russian propaganda. He is trying to "cancel"
Kernagis simply because the two broke up in the Seimas more than 10 years ago.
Once you get a taste of blood and the power to destroy the
lives of others, it's very hard to stop.
It is impossible not to see the similarity of this power to
1940-1941. the power given to the Soviet people to complain about their
neighbors. Valinskas, who considers himself a great anti-Soviet fighter, would
have flourished during the years of Soviet represions, judging by his behavior today. The
aforementioned Naisiai festival is being held again in August, and a whole
series of patriotic, pro-state performers have announced that they will
participate. Some of them felt obliged to explain why they agree, why they are
not boycotting the event.
The new Komsomol began to accuse them of surrender, calling
them a fifth column and the like, although it is important to remember that the
"cancellation" of the Naisiai festival has nothing to do with Russia.
Basically, those participating in Naisiai are criticized for not joining the
boycott of events or other performers. Their only sin is lack of detachment.
Removal from the system requires everyone's participation. Reality is turned
upside down. Self-evident behavior (for a musician to play at an event) began
to require explanations.
"Wrong Opinions"
All of these cases have a common feature - efforts to harm a
person for his expressed "wrong" opinion. This opinion can be about
migrants, abortions, Soviet monuments or Vytautas Landsbergis. If it does not
correspond to the one truth that is being tried to be established, expressing
such an opinion requires courage and entails risks. If people can be punished
for "wrong" opinions, this inevitably leads to a situation where only
"correct" opinions will be heard in public. Everyone else will be
either "freely determined" to be discreetly silenced, or
marginalized, because there will be very few people who speak
"incorrectly" and this in itself will turn them into a kind of
minority, "freaks". There must be no "wrong opinions" in
public life, those who express them must be punished or ridiculed.
In the West, this phenomenon is called "cancel
culture". It is a tendency to remove a person expressing "wrong
opinions" from the public space, duties, market, cultural life, airwaves
and so on. Depending on the radicalism and indoctrination, "cancel
culture" can exclude people only for their public statements, or for
private statements leaked to the public or financial support for a cause. A
person who expresses or holds a "wrong opinion" is removed, thereby
achieving both the usual purposes of punishment: the offender himself is
punished for the "wrong opinion", and everyone else is taught by his
example what awaits the "wrong thinkers".
Not a matter of reputation
Often overlooked is the fundamental difference between the
usual "answering for one's words" and the exclusionary culture. One
wonders why we should not all accept the reaction to our statements, why we
want freedom of speech for ourselves but not freedom of speech for others to
respond. This is a big misunderstanding. As long as the person expressing any
opinion receives criticism, disapproval, maybe even insults (if he is a public
figure), everything happens within the framework of freedom of speech. However,
the moment an expressed opinion raises questions about such a person's
suitability for their professional duties, demands comments from their
employers, pressures to take away their citizenship, removing them from their country of birth, pressures to take away their workplace or airtime, it is no longer
"answering for one's words".
It is the removal, the destruction of life. Criticism and
silencing are fundamentally different.
Another similar misunderstanding on this topic is related to
reputation. At all times, people did not want to work with people with a bad
reputation, there are requirements for an impeccable reputation in various
positions. It is natural to avoid people in business or elsewhere who cannot be
trusted to keep their commitments or whose activities are not having criminal
elements. Maybe the current trend to exclude people who speak out from business
relationships or public life is simply a sign of rising moral standards?
On the contrary. Moral standards have sunk to historic lows
and it's so commonplace that it's not even noticed anymore. Language that
people used to allow themselves only at home or not at all has now become
acceptable on the airwaves: in shows, songs and movies.
Cursing has been reduced to the norm of public speaking.
Conflicts with the police, public exposure or even urinating
on the air, as in the case of Oleg Shurayev, no longer cast any stain on a
person's reputation. Adultery, children with mistresses, drug use, nudity are
normalized. Banal restraint in expressing emotions, which was an inseparable
feature of the elite in the 20th century, has now lost any value. Public order
offenses have become hilarious adventures narrated by celebrities on lifestyle
shows. Many things that were perceived as signs of vulgar masculinity a few decades
ago are now perceived as understandable and normal, including and especially in public life.
This is not to complain about the decline of standards of behavior, but to
point out that the bar for people's reputation is not rising, but lowering.
The point is elsewhere. Never has "reputation"
(with the exception of communism in the post-war US) included political or
other views. Opinions were not part of reputation, even if on their basis one
or another social environment could be formed, defining itself precisely
according to opinions. As the usual demands of morality and reputation fell,
unheard-of new demands of "right views" rose in their place. And
finally (it is just starting to be felt in Lithuania) an attempt is made to give
morality to specific views, and to the opposite ones - an aura of immorality.
In the last stage, people are required not only to "not
speak wrongly", but also not to be silent, to speak as expected of
"right-thinkers", to participate in "right events", at
least to wear the "right badge".
It is at this stage that it becomes difficult for even a
skeptical observer not to see the resemblance to Soviet censorship practices or
the dystopia of Brave New World.
Authoritarian moment
In US society, which has been at the forefront of many
changes over the past century, all of these trends are already widespread.
Their scale and repulsiveness became one of the main reasons for the election
of Donald Trump for a significant part of Americans, and even now the attitude
towards "cancellation" and the demands of political correctness
remains one of the most important political differences in the US elections.
One of the most prominent conservative authors in the USA,
Ben Shapiro, described this phenomenon last year in the book "Authoritarian
Moment", the translation of which will be available in Lithuanian
bookstores this fall. It is a strange and frightening phenomenon. True, there
is hope. While Lithuania is just learning how to catch it, it is beginning to
retreat somewhere in the West. The first signs can be seen in the business,
which during the pandemic years felt significant losses due to the policy of
"one truth" and "cancellation". It is likely that such a
circle of history will turn everywhere, including Lithuania. But it is always
better not to passively wait for the ideological madness to pass. It's better
to end it ourself."
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