Quote:
Originally Posted by MarchHare
Jason Kenney went on a lengthy tirade against "cancel culture" at a press conference today after hearing that the Calgary Board of Education changed the name of a high school that was named after Hector-Louis Langevin, one of the architects of the residential school program.
"If we want to get into cancelling every figure in our history who took positions on issues at the time, that we now judge harshly and rightly in historical retrospective, but if that’s the new standard, then I think almost the entire founding leadership of our country gets cancelled."
Jason comes soooo close to hitting the mark with that comment.
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What does canceling even mean in this context? The person was once deemed worthy of commemoration via a statue or bridge or school. Now, whether in hindsight or due to shifting norms they are no longer worthy of that honour. They are not erased from the history books, they are not exhumed and reburied in an unmarked massed grave, they are just removed from an exalted position that most of us never reached in the first place.
Do their sins overshadow their accomplishments? Maybe, maybe not. (I’m talking generally without knowing the degree of culpability or complicity of any specific person in the residential school program). But does honouring them have a stronger positive or negative impact of current members of society? I’d argue it has no real positive impact - my heart didn’t swell in pride every time I crossed the Langevin bridge - but I can imagine a residential school survivor might not want to be reminded of an architect of the program every day (again I don’t know his specific connection).
I say by all means honour someone in their lifetime if deserving but it doesn’t have to last forever if things change.