While there’s no doubt cultural-Left ideology, language control and group think now dominate across Western societies there is every hope sanity and reason might yet prevail.

Not only are criticisms mounting against political correctness and cancel culture but many of those championing freedom of expression and rationality are far from conservative or centre-Right.

FRACTURING

The French President Emmanuel Macron, previously a member of the Socialist Party, recently argued French society is in danger of fracturing because of critical race theory associated with the Black Lives Matter movement. A theory arguing Western societies are inherently racist and characterised by white supremacism.

In a recent interview with Elle magazine Macron argues it is wrong to characterise “people according to their race”.

In opposition to intersectionality, a radical theory suggesting individuals can experience multiple forms of victimhood, Macron also argues he stands for “universalism”.

One of the defining characteristics of cancel culture is the tendency to assume anyone accused of a crime against political correctness must be guilty.

In the case of Cardinal George Pell, for example, woke commentators and the media concluded he must be guilty of sexually abuse even before the appeal process reached its conclusion.

In his interview President Macron restates the importance of “the presumption of innocence” and argues “if the voice of the victim covers all others, you are no longer in a society of justice but of vengeance”.

Another example proving sanity and reason have not been forsaken involve two legal decisions defending the right to publicly express politically incorrect beliefs.

Last month a British woman won an appeal after losing her job for posting a tweet suggesting “sex is immutable and not to be conflated with gender identity”.

The tribunal’s decision reinforces the right individuals have to express sincere and strongly held beliefs and not be discriminated against and punished.

The decision also follows an earlier case where the judges ruled “Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having”.

TRANSWOMAN

When considering the case involving a woman arrested and convicted for misgendering and offending a transwoman the judges defended the woman’s right to express an opinion by stating “free speech encompasses the right to offend, and indeed to abuse another”.

Last year’s public letter signed by some 150 academics, authors and public figures, including JK Rowling, Salman Rushdie, Bari Weiss and Margaret Atwood, provides further evidence cancel culture is not all pervasive.

The authors argue such is the threat of “ideological conformity” that the “free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal democracy, is daily becoming more restricted”.

Those who signed the letter, while acknowledging President Trump’s illiberalism, also argue any resistance must not be allowed to “harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion”.

When justifying the need for free and open debate the signatories conclude “The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away”.

Bari Weiss’ resignation from The New York Times newspaper highlights how dangerous and doctrinaire cultural-Left orthodoxy now is.

McCARTHYISM

Instead of “intellectual curiosity” and “risk-taking” Weiss argues the NYT enforces “a new McCarthyism”.

A situation where unless you conform to the prevailing Left-of-centre woke world view you are ostracised, bullied and abused for what Weiss describes as “Wrongthink”.

Much like the Ministry of Truth detailed in Orwell’s 1984 language control and group think prevail.

President Obama’s call for tolerance and freedom of thought and expression provides yet another example of the reaction against cancel culture’s censorship.