Do not think these arguments are trivial. Universities teach the novelists of the future on creative writing courses and the readers of serious fiction on literature courses. Their repressive culture must influence what the future will read, watch, write and perform to some extent.

Gore Vidal and Martin Amis are members of a parade of cultural pessimists who have argued that, as egalitarianism proceeds, the final distinction of talent will be all that is left. And when its turn for a confrontation comes, talent will lose. It is easy to agree and believe that a more egalitarian, wired world will insist that the defence “X is a writer, and must be free to write what she wants” won’t wash.

What does Lionel Shriver know of being a mother of a dangerously mentally disturbed child, after all? Does she have a mentally ill child herself; has she consulted or asked the permission of anyone who has? Like Shriver, Jonathan Franzen is read by millions of serious people. How is it fair that he enjoys such a privilege, when by his own admission he has few black friends? Surely, he would be a better writer if he had a committee of black friends to advise him on their experience.

The only honest answer to these questions is the elitist reply that literary talent isn’t fair. Like physical beauty, if you do not have the potential, you will never attain it, however hard you try.

Given the passion behind the assaults on cultural appropriation, can we expect the appearance of culturally sensitive novels and dramas whose frightened writers confine themselves to their tribal homelands or apply for visas if they wish to stray beyond its borders. It’s possible, but unlikely.

Shriver asked who a writer should go to for permission to publish her story of a trans woman or Nigerian man, when no one had the authority to issue permission on behalf of others. When I wrote about freedom of speech, for instance, an editor wanted “a Muslim scholar” to assure him that a passage about the life of Muhammad was not “offensive” (by which he meant “not likely to get my office bombed”). A liberal Muslim activist said it was fine. If an Islamist or Salafist had read the book, he would have said the opposite.

The great failing of identity politics and arguments against cultural appropriation is they assume identities and cultures are islands with warships patrolling their coasts. Cultures mix. None exists that is not a hybrid except possibly in the Amazon rainforest. Not everyone in an ethnicity shares the same identity, and it is a rank prejudice to treat them as if they do. Freedom of the individual is the freedom not to have your autonomy denied by collectives who claim to speak on your behalf. In other words, there is no legitimate cultural authority to stamp a writer’s passport.

The logical conclusion of cultural appropriation is solipsism. For why stop at saying a person of one culture cannot appropriate the experience of another? By what right can I write about you, or you me? If no one can imagine or inquire about life in another culture, how can they do so about the life of another person? The self will then be the only subject. Solipsism may power the social justice warriors, who weep about how grievously their feelings have been offended. But it is unlikely to produce fiction even they will want to read.