Misogynist. Patriarchy. Cis-Gendered. Woke. Labels en masse.

We are a society that has succumbed to the sectionality, ostracisation, and disintegration of a cohesive peoples. So divided. So polarised. So unable to hear contrary positions.

We descend into the depths of cultural degradation as we dissect each facet of each individual to the point of identity erasure; merging us into a globular cluster of sameness and non-identity.

Whilst it must be said that few of us are immune to this cultural paradigm on both the Right and Left, it is predominantly the Left that must answer for it.

In a pursuit to destigmatise the differences inherent to each of us as a means to celebrate exposure to various ideas, beliefs, and feelings, the Left has brought to fruition the opposite outcome.

By limiting an individual’s uniqueness to a few specific parts, they dehumanise the individual into a sub-collective that must operate by the parameters that define it. This not only reduces a human to a single facet, but forces the individual to conform to the patterns of thinking and behaviour synonymous with that idea, or face excommunication, returning to the void to search for another collective to cling to.

This pervasive and destructive notion of ‘labelism’ poisons the innate human desire for belonging by promising their community acceptance and recognition through the unvirtuous practices of intimidation, suppression of truth, oppression, and ostracisation.

This can be distilled down to the term ‘cancel culture’.

Unfortunately, even when this disharmonisation fails to succeed in its primary goal, the damage it does to social cohesion allows it to reattempt the completion of its objective by highlighting the growing animosity from those opposite. Those who purport to be on the Right, when faced with this threat, opt to respond in kind. ‘If they should see it fit to cancel us, it seems only prudent that they should get a taste of their own medicine when they slip up.’ This is a seemingly valid response.

Unfortunately, what it does is shift the battle for ideas into the territory of the enemy, giving them the home advantage. It validates the behaviours of the Left and in turn affirms the claims they have been making about their enemy who seeks to eradicate them.

That is why the thing that makes you the greatest threat, is when you become impossible to classify. When you refuse to play the game, and simply choose to speak truth, and common sense, calmly, confidently, in the hopes that you might encourage others to do the same, or to convince those on the fence, that what you are saying is most logical and reasonable.

When you examine, for example, the persecution of Christianity in the Roman Empire in the 1st Century, I believe it can be said, that much of that persecution was the result of the systems of power in place feeling threatened at an idea that could not be clearly quantified, nor contained to specific portions of its citizenry. This was a group who refused to pledge allegiance to the Roman gods or the emperor, yet did not advocate for the dismantling of the system, nor did they rebel with violence. This was a people who took care of the marginalised, were honest workers, and paid their taxes, and yet their refusal to adhere to caste systems and hierarchical structures suggested a threat to those in places of authority despite being unable to clearly locate where the threat originated.

This is truly an example for our times. The only way to overcome the onslaught of ‘labelism’ is to become ‘un-label-able’.

It is to refuse to distil individuals down to singular terminologies, rather acknowledging the inherent humanity in each person, rich with experience and nuance. Doing so would illuminate – by contrast – the violent and regressive unpalatability of leftist ideologies and temper the conservative one, so as to re-delineate between those dangerous, hard-right ideologies that have intermingled themselves with mainstream conservatism as a result of leftist ‘labelism’ that has clumped all patterns of thinking in-line with generally more conservative schools of thought as far-right, or as conspiracy theories. By doing so, they are able to dismiss among their base any counterpoints individuals come up against that challenges their belief system to something to be expected of the unhinged and uneducated masses on the right.

But as I say, great pains must be taken by conservatives not to respond in kind and thus perpetuate and accommodate such a practice that allows the troubling trend of putrefaction of our society with increasing intensity and malignancy.