Readers of The Giving Review will be familiar with what’s come to be known simply as “the Harper’s letter.” Taking on the threat typically described as “cancel culture,” it appeared on the magazine’s website on July 7. In fellow editor Mike Hartmann’s words, it was “signed by more than 150 prominent, mostly left-of-center writers, academics, artists, and activists—basically calling for the free and vigorous expression of ideas, asking for courteous and respectful debate about them, and lamenting quite-excessive reactions against dissenters from reigning orthodoxies.”
It comes as no surprise that the letter was immediately assailed by the ultra-progressive activists who were its thinly veiled target. The counter-charge was that the pillars of liberal culture who signed the letter have long had things entirely their own way within social discourse, and that their reaction against so-called cancel culture was simply inspired by fear of other voices suddenly demanding to be heard. As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put it to the signatories, “Odds are you’re not actually cancelled, you’re just being challenged, held accountable, or unliked.”
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