If you and I follow the same path derived from our culture, our forefathers, without knowing whether it is right or wrong, then we both have a herd mentality. Cancel Culture is calling out, unfollowing, or not abiding by the cultural values that, according to an individual’s viewpoint, are not right or good to follow or continue anymore.
Herd Mentality: Brief Explanation
If you see animals, they follow a herd or group behavior. There are fish schools, bird flocks, and likewise. The behavior of the whole herd influences the individual’s behavior and patterns.
If you see examples in humans, there are many behaviors that we practice as our cultural and social norms. If a person from another culture comes into our culture or society, he starts adopting and following what others are doing. All of us do it to look “normal”.
There are many game questions designed as “herd mentality game questions” or “herd mentality game extra questions” where responses of people are taken, and scoring is done. This “herd mentality game online” is very interesting for many people to test themselves as part of a herd or collective thinking, or a lone wolf. If you want to test yourself, you can get a list of herd mentality questions from the internet. Besides, there are herd mentality quotes and herd mentality books that make you either support this mentality or think uniquely and oppositely.
A huge pressure of herd mentality is also a big factor in corrupting a child psychology who can do unique things in life. It stops him to think different from others.
Cancel culture: Brief Explanation
When you break this “normal”, you enter the domain of cancel culture. Or, when you go against the herd mentality and their blind following, you cancel the cultural values and become a “rebel”. I will give you an example from the American part of the world, as the term “cancel culture” itself came from America.
The famous author of the Harry Potter series, JK Rowling, is facing criticism in America due to its critical comments against LGBTQ rights. She commented that don’t mix the phrase “woman” with “people who menstruate.” It simply means that sex or gender is real. A person who is not a woman by birth can’t be a “woman” after transforming himself even 100+ times. Her own story characters, i.e., Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, condemned her statement.
Now, come to the other part of the world, where Islamic states and Muslims are in the majority. For us, cancel culture is no less than a “war against falsehood”.
You will see a lot of cancel culture memes and cancel culture hoodies in the Western part of the world. There is also an important term in this case, i.e., the crucible compared to cancel culture, which means that the cancel culture is much similar to the Salem witch trials in American history.
The biggest pro of cancel culture is that it can hold the running system accountable and bring about social change. Whereas the biggest con of cancel culture is that it can change into intolerance, violence, and aggression among people, which leads to another form of warfare in psychological realms.
a. Cancel Culture: In the case of the Arab World
Islamic values remained the culture of Arabian countries after the Prophet-hood of the last prophet, Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him). However, in this era, it’s difficult to see pure Islamic culture in these countries. A lot of cross-cultural values have been added up now, in the ancient Arab traditions. For example, music, celebrity culture, accommodation of unnecessary wealth, love for worldly matters, copying Western values, and so on and so forth. So, Arabs are cancelling the culture of ancient and pure Islam, day by day.
b. Cancel Culture: In the case of the Indo-Pak Belt
In Indo-Pak and Asian Belt countries, there is another version of Islam, totally different from the “original” Islam. Starting from the multi-colored Sufi-ism practices to the religious beliefs given to a 5-year-old child, there is a mixture of Islamic and anti-Islamic values. Marriages, mosques, educational institutions, family networks, political realms, and social structures are badly lacking the real essence of Islam.
For the last 3 to 4 decades, interest rates have been legal in Pakistan, whereas it is clearly forbidden in Islam. Besides, the recent law in support of the legalization of LGBTQ is another example that shows that Islam is only a “showpiece” in Pakistan.
Both of these cases show how the pure Islamic values and Islamic culture are being cancelled, day by day.
Often, participants in cancel culture are driven by the psychology of virtue signaling, where condemning others becomes a way to publicly broadcast their own moral standing to the group.
Final Words
Herd mentality presses down your voice of inner reality and lets you follow the “perceived reality” of society. However, it doesn’t continue for a long time for a person who has a conscious brain to think right and wrong. Once a person rises against this herd mentality, he starts cancelling all those fake cultural practices that are followed by the herd. From here, his journey starts to either go with the flow like a dead fish, all life, or be a “change agent” in society, to bring revolution.
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