Demagogues have been around forever. Also, this idea of a "soft world" is contradictory. Your claim seems to be that back in the day, because things were less

Demagogues have been around forever. Also, this idea of a "soft world" is contradictory. Your claim seems to be that back in the day, because things were less "soft", Ali was allowed to be more self expressive. Yet, it's precisely this "soft world" which promotes the kind of diversity which, for example, would make Ali's conversion to Islam far less of a controversial issue today.