This moral anarchy is socially unsustainable,  so there are all sorts of ad hoc efforts to establish a shared framework for how to understand and respond to sin. The sudden prominence of ideological projects such as critical race theory and intersectional analysis is in large part due to them offering such a framework to a culture that has forgotten older ideas of sin. They provide explanations for what is wrong with the world and possible solutions.

Canceling Dr. Seuss is what a moral panic looks like. Unlike the stereotypical moral panic, in which ill-educated yokels whip themselves up into a frenzy of denunciation, today those with power and influence — journalists, educators, and suchlike — lead the way.

At moral panics finding more and more evil to frantically purge, backwoods Baptists have nothing on The New York Times newsroom and students at elite universities. Canceling Harry Potter over witchcraft is out; canceling Harry Potter because the author believes men are not women is very in.

Yet human nature abhors a moral vacuum. Thus, people still seek justice and absolution, but for understanding and addressing what is wrong with the world, it is amateur hour. Each man is left to do what is right in his own eyes.

This moral anarchy is socially unsustainable,  so there are all sorts of ad hoc efforts to establish a shared framework for how to understand and respond to sin. The sudden prominence of ideological projects such as critical race theory and intersectional analysis is in large part due to them offering such a framework to a culture that has forgotten older ideas of sin. They provide explanations for what is wrong with the world and possible solutions.

As one would expect from a new moral code that is still establishing itself, this one is adolescent, even childish. Fanaticism tends to become a signifier of righteousness in a drive for moral purity. There is no sense of proportion in doling out punishments, and little forgiveness to be had. The problem is exacerbated by many of the new moral rules being made up and revised over the internet, often by those who have little life experience or knowledge of what came before them.

At the time, Kaplan was a teenager dealing with social angst and personal tragedy. Anonymous online endeavors in “vengeful public shaming masquerading as social criticism” seemed like a way to bring a little justice into the world. Looking back, Kaplan admits “my pettiness, my motivating rage, my hard-and-fast assumptions that people were either good or bad … the spotlight I put on other people’s mistakes as if one day I wouldn’t make plenty of my own.”

All, it turns out, have sinned, even the cancellers.

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