Interesting thought, true exchange imply recognising being wrong in some way. I would not calling that cancelling consequences, it is dealing with it in to minimise the negative and maximise the positive effects of the consequences of out actions, present, past or future.
"The free exchange of ideas" necessarily includes getting your shit called out when you make bigoted statements. You can't sign a letter calling to end cancel culture when doing so is literally itself an attempt to silence dissenting voices. You're trying to cancel consequences.
Comics in the 70s had a distinctly gruesome side and there was no greater exponent of the art of the weird and disturbing than Ken Reid (1919-1987). Ken's brilliant writing and art brought deranged babies, deformed children and a menagerie of monsters to life to thrilling effect
Our culture wounds people by its very nature. It then elevates some of those wounded people to ranks where they can cause further harm to massive numbers of others, as the traumatized often do. A closed circuit of pain, of which Trump is merely the most recent/blatant exemplar.
this graphical essay (?) on #culturalevolution is getting pretty large and I’m only about 1/4 of the way through. i should break it into panes and number them but here’s what i’ve got so far in one very tall image.