Canceled

Does the work of an artist who is shown to have been a criminal cease to be valuable? Can the same person be both admirable and despicable? Are cruelty and excellence incompatible? The mystery of man faces the culture of cancellation, that social phenomenon that seeks to do retroactive justice by trying to repair the often irreparable at the cost of ruining the objectively commendable work of a person and condemning him or her to ostracism, economic boycott and reputational stoning.

Universally famous artists such as Picasso or Michael Jackson, or some more local ones such as the recent case of Juan Carlos Aragón, myth of the Carnival of Cádiz, have gone from being idolized to being hated; from being applauded to being stoned. 

I think it is right and just to denounce evil, that the truth be investigated, that the criminal be condemned, that the victims be compensated, that the hidden cases covered by the shine of the star come to light; but I do not see any sense in denying the value of a work because of the sins of its author, no matter how serious they may be. It is the 3.0 version of the classic argument ad hominem, logically considered a fallacy through and through. 

A beautiful work does not cease to be beautiful because it has an atrocious father, just as an atrocious work does not cease to be beautiful because its father is a beautiful person. 

The same that applies to individual sins could be applied to collective sins. 

Would you stop drinking Fanta if you found out that it was invented in Nazi Germany? Will you stop using the cell phone you are reading this article on because it works thanks to a satellite launched into space with a rocket based on the V2 with which Hitler bombed Europe? Will we stop using the nuclear medicine that cures cancers invented by the Americans thanks to the research to develop the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs? 

Behind the culture of cancellation hides a scandal typical of postmodern society: the man who had reasoned that God does not exist and who had put himself in his place, has discovered that he is not God either. He is naked!

Human idols have feet of clay, and as soon as you scratch them you discover their fragility, the inescapable corruption that invades us. The current political panorama also offers us a unique perspective to contemplate the mystery of human weakness. «We couldn't believe it, I'm in shock!», reply the friends of those who have just been caught red-handed after having been elevated to the secular Olympus for years as defenders of the highest human values. I am sure that even some of those involved will be in shock, unable to understand why he did what he did if he considered himself an irreproachable person. Why do we sin? Why do we catch ourselves doing what we do not want to do? Why do those who are capable of leading us to touch heaven with their dance, their music, their painting, their intelligence, their science, their inventiveness, their political ideas... behave like demons? 

The culture of cancellation tries in vain to punish in this life those who are already dead. I prefer not to idolize any human being, no matter how brilliant he may seem to me, and continue to believe in divine justice, where the whole truth will be revealed, and which will give to each one his due, in his just measure. Let us admire the beauty that is above man and let him who is without sin cast the first stone.