Column: ‘Cancel culture’ is not the problem. The Harper’s letter is

J.K. Rowling is among dozens of writers, artists and academics to argue against ideological conformity in an open letter in Harper’s magazine. Here’s how you know that satire is an elemental force of the universe: Even as many were celebrating the firing of the “I feel threatened” guy — a Florida man made infamous by a widely circulated video of him screaming threats at a woman who had asked him to wear a mask in Costco — Harper’s magazine published an open letter, signed by many famous and well-respected people, criticizing progressives for, among other things, creating “a vogue for public shaming and ostracism” that has led to folks being fired. Given current events, the letter’s carefully nonspecific terms — “blinding moral certainty,” “disproportionate punishments” and “restriction of debate” — could certainly apply to the “I feel threatened” guy and others who have been sanctioned in one way or another for protesting the use of face masks or for removing Black Lives Matter signs. For worse and better, those “calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought” that the Harper’s letter decries have been made since this democracy was established. And on the occasions when that might happen — well, if, as the letter says, “institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms,” that’s not on those calling for change or even retribution.