Clawing and scratching at people for a controversial thought has been human behavior for so long as we've been thinking. Normally, nobody knew our clawbacks and scratches - because controversial opinions were silenced, censored, punitively punished, or buried under banality.

"Cancel culture" makes martyrs of people who lost sales to which they thought they were entitled. The 1960s luminaries you enjoy would laugh at "cancellation as persecution" - because they didn't give a fuck.