Dog days

DOGMA: a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true. Stuart Kirk, the former global head of responsible investing at HSBC Asset Management, recently was found guilty of heresy in the court of woke opinion for suggesting that the banking industry was exaggerating the financial risks of climate change.

He was suspended on the spot. Last month, with no word from his employer on the length or status of the suspension, he resigned.

Climate change is not just woke reality: It’s true enough. Mankind’s stewardship of the planet leaves much to be desired, and continued neglect of that responsibility indeed portends bad things.

But so does the veiled McCarthyism prevalent in today’s culture wars.

Siccing “cancel culture” on those who dare defy the standing orthodoxy—be it climate change, PC or pronouns—is not just bad strategy. It’s lazy strategy, designed to blitzkrieg opposition into submission rather than lead the lost to the light.

Americans on both sides of the culture wars are guilty of this approach.

And ESG—the practice of investing with environmental, social and governance factors as the primary considerations—represents another iteration of virtue signaling. S&P’s ESG 500 index rates what it considers to be the world’s most ESG-conscious firms. In an apparent jab at Elon Musk, its latest version bumped Tesla from the index but still lists ExxonMobile in the top 10 of environmentally friendly firms.

Even Mr. Bean himself, the incomparable Rowan Atkinson, recently compared cancel culture to a medieval mob looking for someone to burn. Mr. Atkinson is not known to be an active Tory. The current disciples of dogma would be smart to familiarize themselves with another concept: backlash.