"The episode... signaled the repudiation of an honored and admired intellectual archetype – the curmudgeon."

"I'm not a close friend, but, as a book writer and former critic myself, I've encountered [Carlin] Romano over the years, and I'd describe him as something of a throwback to an earlier era, when a crusty, Socratic, erudite style carried with it a certain charm. But that's one of the ways Romano seems no longer to fit in. One critics circle board member, Columbia University professor John McWhorter, an African American, agreed with him on the substance of the anti-racism pledge, but told the website Vulture that Romano's way of expressing his dissent was a bit tone-deaf. He 'was not being a modern person in the way he responded' to the anti-racism pledge, McWhorter said, perhaps referring to Romano’s charge that some of the arguments of the anti-racism pledge were 'absolute nonsense.'"

From "Inside an Elite Cancel Culture Session, Where Leftists Met the Enemy and It Was ... One of Them" by Richard Bernstein (RealClearInvestigations).

I'm most fascinated by the question what it means to be "a modern person" these days. The meaning of "modern" is changing!

I googled the phrase and quickly got to Carl Jung's "Modern Man in Search of a Soul":