The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that society is becoming more and more unforgiving, with people being crucified if they make a mistake.
According to The Times:
In his latest critique of cancel culture, the Most Rev Justin Welby was asked by Laura Kuenssberg on BBC One if he thought there was a lack of togetherness.
He replied: “I think there is. I think we just haven’t adjusted to the way in which we communicate, is one problem. I think also we’ve become very unforgiving.
When people make a mistake, they’re absolutely, to use a phrase from my own world, crucified for it — sorry, I couldn’t think of another word.”
He went on: “I think people suffer hugely when they go wrong, not just with public exposure, but the awful trolling that goes on, and the inability to accept apologies, to seek forgiveness. Those are really difficult things.”
Welby said this year that secularised western societies had lost the ability to “disagree well”.
“We have not found a way of disagreeing without exclusion, without cancelling people,” he said during a trip to Australia.
“We invariably end up setting one group’s rights against another group’s rights.” However, he has been a staunch defender of the younger generation’s interest in minority rights.
He told the House of Lords last December: “We hear much nonsense of the snowflake generation who seek safety.
Younger generations are much more concerned than their older counterparts about the safety and protection of minorities, and more willing to call for restrictions on speech to achieve this.”
He added: “No-platforming is not a new phenomenon and there is evidence to suggest it is very limited. The way I can remember minorities being addressed 40 to 50 years ago shows that more concern about safety then would have been a good thing…”
The archbishop said the church was seeing the impact of the rising cost of living, with a 400 per cent increase in people coming to its food banks in the past 18 months.
