We do live in interesting times. Apart from the lethal virus stalking the planet, the recession that has thrown many people out of work, and the peculiarity of necessarily changed lifestyles, we have an ongoing culture war. The latter is a fierce debate about which symbols and images from the past do not measure up to a particular level of cultural purity.

I've spoken about this in the past, ergo, the folly of viewing old texts, paintings, cultural artifacts etc through the squeaky-clean lens of the present. Firstly, it just plain unfair to judge the past by present standards. Secondly, who are the people who have developed the criteria for these standards? Thirdly, of course, who says that they are right? Finally, why should artifacts that were once deemed worthy not be allowed to remain in a dialogue with the present?

In a recent open letter to Harper's Magazine, 150 high profile authors, commentators and scholars signed a letter which bemoaned a growing "intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty."

I couldn't have put it better myself. The morally perfect should beware lest the same fate awaits them in the future.