By Michael Curtis
The cancel culture war has got out of control on many levels and must be checked. At an academic level, Nigel Biggar, Anglican priest and professor of theology at Oxford University, was victimized for wanting to tell the whole story of British history. He had argued that there were bad, racist, bits of that history, but these did mean endemic or systemic racism. Since the slave trade was abolished in 1807 the British Empire may have been colonialist but was engaged in suppressing slavery.
Increasingly, literary figures have been targeted by bigoted wokery. Only a few examples are needed to illustrate this.
Sir Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials resigned from his position as President of the Society of Authors because he had been the subject of a considerable row for defending Kate Clanchy, whose work was accused of racial and albeit stereotyping. Pullman realized he would not be free to express his personal opinions as long as he remained president.
