"Cancelling" Norm Mailer and Censorship

I wrote about the Norman Mailer "cancellation" here.

Now The Nation has published Norman Mailer Wasn’t Canceled by David Klion. Much of the article is taken with a review of the affair but think about these points:

But what is also striking about the Mailer affair is that it comes in the midst of many very real present-day threats to free speech, about which the loudest voices against “cancel culture” are typically silent....

and

Which brings us back to Mailer: To the extent that postwar intellectuals like him were successful, it was because they captured something urgent about their time, challenged an older generation’s conventional wisdom, and cultivated a younger readership hungry for something vital and relevant. They were willing to criticize and openly flout the stagnant norms of their elders and did so in an era in which the real threats to speech came from right-wing censorship and McCarthyism, with the passive or active collaboration of many liberals. The best way to honor that legacy today would be to turn our attention to the meaningful threats facing those who actually challenge the political status quo.

Now check out Variety's 18 Banned and Challenged Books Everyone Should Read.

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 2/4/22