Pankaj Mishra basically sort of rolls his eyes at the purported civilizational threat of “cancel culture”.
Could it be that increasingly diverse voices and rich conversations are a threat to their free speech — more accurately, the prerogative of famous and powerful people to speak at length on all sorts of things without interruption or disagreement? For instance, Rowling seems intent on tweeting her disapproval of transgender people. Certainly, a closer examination of the critics of cancel culture confirms the suspicion that many of these self-appointed defenders of free speech prefer monologue over dialogue.
It’s certainly an astonishing coincidence that the privileged seem so fretful just exactly at a historical moment when “conversations about almost everything, from political economy and international relations to literature and gender relations, have never been more vibrant”.
Mishra also offers a helpful cheat sheet on several of the signers of The Letter in case you’re wondering just what sorts of views they have for which they fear any accountability.