Biden’s First Month, Trump’s Second Impeachment, and Cancelling Cancel Culture

I also find the relatively recent “Cancel Culture” points and counterpoints to be extremely myopic.

Conservatism literally means keeping the status quo and returning to the “God Old Days” of either 1980’s or 1950’s in White Christian Heterosexual Middle Class USA.
Conservativism is the original cancel culture movement and goes to extremes to make it illegal or difficult to live as other than what they believe US culture should be.
The examples are overwhelming. It was actually illegal to be LGBT and serve in the Military until “don’t ask, don’t tell” came along. It was impossible to have top secret clearance as well or have executive positions in most corporations. There was a reprieve from this for many years, but the Trump administration returned to an attempt to cancel LGBT culture through executive actions.
Indeed, any alternative lifestyle is viewed negatively by American Conservatism. Single parent families are openly stated as bad for America and legislated against in tax code and Labor laws.
One just has to listen to AM talk radio during any 15 minute time period on any day between 1990 and today to hear diatribes calling to cancel alternative cultures. Starting in 2016 with the election of Trump this active cancel culture efforts of conservatism moved from legal methods to extralegal methods, violence, vigilantism and finally an attempt to violently overthrow the results of a Democratic Election. To this day the planning continues in conservative communities to violently cancel culture. Formerly Alt-Right concepts are now redefined as mainstream conservatism, and conservatives who disagree with the extremism of the past four years are now ironically labelled RINO. We can call this cancel culture as well. Conservatism of 1950 to 2015 that was compromising, peaceful, logically consistent and ethical has been cancelled by conservatism that is uncompromising, violent, logically inconsistent and unethical.
It really is difficult for me to empathize why these two cultures should not be cancelled.
First the culture that forced myself and several generations of people to wear masks throughout childhood and into adulthood, pretending to conform to societal capitalist militarism in daily life while “Alt” culture was only tolerated in the shadows. Then the violent extremism that seeks to replace it and make the United States a place where only one culture is allowed.

It’s just really hard for me to see the current cancel culture claimed by conservativism as other than holding an uncompromising position then claiming victim status when their culture is by definition and actions actively attempting even to the point of violence and revolution to cancel other culture.

Here is a less well known example of “cancel culture”. We know how the political right obsesses over xenophobia, anti-immigrant politics, and targeting minorities. It’s an old history that goes back to early America. But it has often taken forms we don’t think about because the education system and news media rarely talks about it.

Benjamin Franklin complained about the Palatine Germans, the majority of Pennsylvanians at the time, who not only were questionable in their whiteness (with darker skin and hair) but, even worse, they refused to assimilate. The Pennsylvanian government had to print all public notices in both English and German.

German-Americans, in general, were still resisting assimilation into the 20th century. And, indeed, this went hand in hand with anti-German sentiments, particularly in the world war era. They were the single largest and influential ethnic population, larger than even Anglo-Americans, which is what made them such a threat.

German populations weren’t necessarily perceived as being the same race as the English. In early criminal records into the 20th century, as with blacks, Germans and Italians and Jews were listed in their own separate categories. This was probably influenced by German-Americans, in particular, having their own separate communities.

Across the United States, there were millions of citzens who spoke German as a first or second language. There was a large industry of newspapers, magazines, and books written in the German language. In areas where they were the majority, German-Amercan ministers and public school teachers spoke in German.

Then, even before World War I, there was a growing backlash from anti-immigrant and anti-ethnic groups like the Klan. English only laws were passed in numerous states that prohibited using any other language. Then, with the world wars, mass hysteria led to German-Americans being terrorized and put into internment camps.

In fear of violence and prejudice, those of German ancestry stopped speaking German, lost their accents, eliminated all trace of their culture, anglicized their names, etc. A generation of German-Americans grew not knowing their own ancestry. Also, all the streets, buildings, and foods with German names were mostly changed as well.

All traces of German-American ethnicty, culture, language, and identity were erased from the public mind and all evidence was eliminated. It was a legally-enforced and often violently-enforced assimilation. And most of that happened in livng memory. t wasn’t merely a culture of canceling but a canceling of culture through forced assmilation into cultural homogenization and hegemony.

About “cancel culture” in general, here are some articles of possible interest:

If Americans Grappled Honestly With Their History, Would Any Monuments Be Left Standing?
Talk about cancel culture. Bill would censor slavery text in Missouri classrooms
Tom Cotton’s war on the 1619 Project is the real ‘cancel culture’
Hollywood Blacklist? Cancel Culture? Accountability!
The Real Cancel Culture: Pro-Israel Blacklists
Panic Over ‘Cancel Culture’ Is Another Example of Right-Wing Projection

I am not convinced this statement of you is correct:
“The more individualistic we become, the more we require external social control to maintain social order. There is no way of getting around that.”

Maybe it is just the word “require” that I don’t agree with.

With the development of consciousness along the stages, there is a lot of room for self control, this goes much beyond just the internalization of external controls.

It also depends what you mean by social order. Can you explain?