Is Aristotle in danger of being ‘cancelled,’ as this New York Times approved editorial suggests? No, because that’s a stupid straw man premise.

But were he alive today, we would absolutely criticize him and call out magazines that published books and articles by this hypothetical contemporary Aristotle that either defend slavery or sexism or whose foundations are built on them. Does the author really not get the difference? I suspect she does and is being willfully obtuse, especially since protecting Aristotle from being cancelled goes in the same circular file as protecting ‘Merry Christmas’ from ‘Happy Holidays.’ (And, in case you need a refresher six months before Christmas, you say Merry Christmas to people you know to celebrate Christmas, and Happy Holidays to people who don’t or if you don’t know; try it, and I bet you’ll be surprised to find the saying Happy Holidays has not destroyed your faith in God, belief in the Trinity, or caused your local Wal-Mart to erupt into a pagan bacchanal featuring unspeakable and non-consensual acts with discount patio furniture.