...and sometimes you actually do learn that your ideas on a topic didn't consider other factors.
Absolutely, Cancel Culture might very well eat its most ardent activists one day when they find themselves unexpectedly in its crosshairs (giving them belated perspective on what they did to others).
And those of us who grew up in the age of Don Rickles find it particularly difficult to mince words, speaking in newfangled speech designed to accommodate a very thin percentage of the population.
Totally agree.
However, life rounds sharp edges.
I'm known as a quite the prankster and irreverent soul, but contact with people who aren't like me have changed my perspectives on jokes, from race and gender to physical abilities.
"Colostomy bag" used to be a funny throwaway reference joke for me for YEARS until I made a friend who will live with one on a daily basis for the rest of his life... and suddenly, it stopped being funny.
Jokes I thought were funny 20 years ago are super bigoted to me now, and probably to you too.
Nobody wants to be demonized out of a job, out of public life.
So yeah, that part of cancel culture is dangerous.
But for me, I'm trying to actively reinvent myself in response to the changes society is experiencing.
It sounds like Jennings was doing the right thing of trying not to cover up his screw ups – that would have been my instinct (hiding it would seem disingenuous) but those old tweets have now been pulled, yes, most likely at the advice of the production company's legal team.
Bottomline: my perception is that dismissing cancel culture indicates that we aren't sensitive to the issues it addresses. It's more practical to first separate the issues from the "citizen's arrest" nature of getting cancelled.
I screwed up plenty of times in my life and learned something every time. Cancel Culture doesn't include rehabilitation in its mission, and it should.
We also need Redemption Culture.
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