Maybe it is happening in America, which is very puritanical, but my feeling is that when people highlight elements that would not be accepted today in historical people, the goal is not to paint them as the devil, but to understand that nothing is all white and all black, and help learning to have a smarter approach to history than those lazy "heroes vs bad guys" depiction.

> But his reputation has been harmed like almost anyone who's been in the public spotlight for long enough.

These kinds of affirmation are really easily the result of the bias. You see a lot of public figure in the spotlight having their reputation harmed, but you don't notice the ton of people who are just "normal" or "not unlucky" that are not and will never be harmed.

For example, it is true that when Trudeau dressed in black-face, it was not such a big deal. But then, the probability of dressing in black-face was still very small. How many innocent people just dressed in black-face just for an innocent joke at the time? So, people who are "unlucky" are statistically a minority.

As another example, behavior like Stallman or Roiland are not "normal". "normal" people are just not that abusive or inconsiderate. So, people who are "not normal" are also a minority and to some extend even deserve it a little bit (they should have known better than being jerks, having their reputation harmed for being a jerk is not a bad thing, it is a normal consequence).

> Cancelled is probably the wrong word. I think what the other commenter meant was that the moral reputation of individuals tends to decline with time since what is considered moral is relative to a given society and a given period of time.

My personal view is ... did this person move society ahead? I will give someone who fought against slavery 200 years ago, a pass for being what would be considered misogynistic now or a racist who fought for suffrage at the turn of last century. If the person was just all around "a product of their times" or specifically evil, cancel away!

> Even people who are obviously anti-racist like Justin Trudeau used to believe black face was acceptable until very recently, for example.

This is an interesting case. When I first saw the picture, I was immediately struck by the fact that Trudeau was dressed up as a Djinn which were historically often (mostly?) displayed as black skinned in Islamic art. I totally understand why he didn't try to explain that and just took the hit (when I dressed as a Djinn, I went with green rather than black for the obvious reason that Trudeau also should have gone with red, green or blue).

> Even people who are obviously anti-racist like Justin Trudeau used to believe black face was acceptable until very recently, for example.

To the extent to which "black face" just means for a white person to play a black character, they were entirely right in thinking so. All actors play things they are not.