To mostly white, cisgender people
A letter in response to the letter.
On Tuesday, 153 of the most prominent journalists, authors, and writers, including J. K. Rowling, Malcolm Gladwell, and David Brooks, published an open call for civility in Harper’s Magazine.
First sentence; doesn’t bode well. Badly written. “the most” out of what?
Plus the 153 didn’t publish the letter, of course, they signed it. Big difference.
So from the very first sentence we know we’re dealing with sloppy writing and weak grasp of the facts.
The signatories, many of them white, wealthy, and endowed with massive platforms, argue that they are afraid of being silenced, that so-called cancel culture is out of control, and that they fear for their jobs and free exchange of ideas, even as they speak from one of the most prestigious magazines in the country.
The people in question are not endowed with platforms. The platforms are not an inheritance or a gift. They have them because of popularity or skill or both – usually both, because popularity in writing requires some kind of skill, even if not a particularly admirable one. David Brooks, for instance – he’s a signer, and I have never been able to figure out why he is such a hot ticket when he is so complacently dull, but he is. He must have a skill at appealing to media gatekeepers who like complacent dullness of his type.
In reality, their argument alludes to but does not clearly lay out specific examples, and undermines the very cause they have appointed themselves to uphold.
Say the people writing a letter in response, who have appointed themselves to do so. This snide accusation of self-appointing is just silly. We all appoint ourselves whenever we say anything, deal with it.
In truth, Black, brown, and LGBTQ+ people — particularly Black and trans people — can now critique elites publicly and hold them accountable socially; this seems to be the letter’s greatest concern.
Oh look who’s being left out; what a surprise.
The writers of the letter use seductive but nebulous concepts and coded language to obscure the actual meaning behind their words, in what seems like an attempt to control and derail the ongoing debate about who gets to have a platform. They are afforded the type of cultural capital from social media that institutions like Harper’s have traditionally conferred to mostly white, cisgender people.
Oops, you did it again!
While the Harper’s letter is couched in the events of the last few weeks, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
Ok this is one reason some people get platforms and others don’t. You have to know how to use the word “couch” correctly. I know it seems arbitrary, but I don’t make the rules.
Rowling, one of the signers, has spouted transphobic and transmisogynist rhetoric, mocking the idea that trans men could exist, and likening transition-related medical care such as hormone replacement therapy to conversion therapy. She directly interacts with fans on Twitter, publishes letters littered with transphobic rhetoric, and gets away with platforming violent anti-trans speakers to her 14 million followers.
Rowling “gets away with”…with what now? Platforming speakers to her followers? How can you “platform” someone on Twitter? Do they mean quote, cite, link to, talk to? Are they saying she shouldn’t be allowed to do that – shouldn’t “get away with” it? Yes, no doubt they are. She “spouts,” you see, she “litters,” she mustn’t “get away with it.”
Jesse Singal, another signer, is a cis man infamous for advancing his career by writing derogatorily about trans issues. In 2018, Singal had a cover story in The Atlantic expressing skepticism about the benefits of gender-affirming care for trans youth.
But what if he’s right? What if it really is not a great idea for teenagers to make radical changes to their bodies before their brains have fully developed? What if that is not “anti-trans” but pro-safety? What if skepticism about the benefits of drugs and surgeries is not hostile or malevolent but genuine concern and alarm? What if, even, it’s not wrong or anti-trans to argue that drastic changes to the body shouldn’t be necessary for people to have whatever personality and self-presentation they like?
The signatories call for a refusal of “any false choice between justice and freedom.” It seems at best obtuse and inappropriate, and at worst actively racist, to mention the ongoing protests calling for policing reform and abolition and then proceed to argue that it is the signatories who are “paying the price in greater risk aversion.” It’s particularly insulting that they’ve chosen now, a time marked by, as they describe, “powerful protests for racial and social justice,” to detract from the public conversation about who gets to have a platform.
Now there I agree with them. I flatly disagree with that part of the letter.
Its conclusion however…
The intellectual freedom of cis white intellectuals has never been under threat en masse, especially when compared to how writers from marginalized groups have been treated for generations. In fact, they have never faced serious consequences — only momentary discomfort.
Uh…Stalin’s USSR? Mussolini’s Italy? Hitler’s Deutschland? Occupied France? Quisling’s Norway? The postwar US? Greece under the colonels? Pinochet’s Chile?
That last paragraph is breathtakingly historically ignorant. I suppose they have heard of McCarthy.
Isn’t it though?
Shakespeare, who coded any political commentary into plays set in other countries and times? How about during the Inquisition? Women in most places for a long time?
Then there is the Hayes Code (put in place for self-censoring purposes), the index of forbidden works (which often makes the work more popular, I admit). On and on…What about Anne Hutchinson, kicked out of Massachusetts because she didn’t conform to the dominant orthodoxy?
God, we could do this forever, couldn’t we? these sloppy thinkers evidently believe the world has always been as it is in their lifetime. (And I would question that there is so much freedom even now. Public shaming is more than ‘momentary discomfort’, and internet dogpiles sometimes become life threatening.
Notice that Singal, the male, does not “spout”. He was merely “writing”.
#3
History began sometime during their early childhood. Every prior was just some kind of… practice run I guess.
I had to look up the word “transmisogyny,” because I couldn’t parse whether it was supposed prejudice against women imagining themselves to be men, or against men imagining themselves to be women. Surprise! It’s the latter, i.e. The Most Oppressed Group Ever.
Apparently the proponents of this concept believe that people hate TIMs particularly badly because they’re female.
That’s right ladies, you can’t have sports to yourselves, you can’t have bathrooms to yourselves, and you can’t even have misogyny to yourselves.
Poor deluded women who think they don’t want dudes in skirts in their bathrooms because they’re male. Secretly, unbeknownst to them, women are hating on the trans-women because the latter are female. Ladies, stop being so (trans)misogynist!
What a load of circular gobbledygook.
That’s exactly why I particularly hate the word “transmisogyny.”
It’s not that the people who agree with the writers of this letter don’t think that cancel culture exists, as is often claimed, it’s that they think that it’s a good thing. But it’s not cancel culture, it’s holding people accountable.
A common criticism of the original letter was that it gave no specific examples. There’s a reason for that. As soon as examples are presented, people will disagree about whether or not there’s a problem with those particular “cancelations”, so you won’t be able to get as many people to sign the letter. E.g.
Maya Forstater. Transphobe. Anyway, she wasn’t fired, she just didn’t have her contract renewed. I bet they couldn’t wait to get rid of her. I’ve heard she was terrible at her job.
Gita Sahgal. Islamophobe. No further explanation required.
Ophelia Benson. Another transphobe. They’re everywhere. And an Islamophobe as well, but we were kinda letting that one slide. And she wasn’t fired, she left. And it wasn’t a job anyway. And it’s a private organisation. They can do what they like. And free thought doesn’t literally mean free thought. And free speech isn’t free of consequences. And she’s still has a platform she uses to litter the internet, spouting her disgusting transphobia.
Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying. Well, they’re racists. And anyway, they haven’t been cancelled. They’ve been on Dave Rubin for fuck sake. They even have their own podcast. And Patreon accounts. Right-wing grifters. Evergreen’s lucky to be rid of them.
James Damore. Misogynist. We can’t have people writing that sort of thing when asked for feedback on an organisation’s mandated training sessions. If we hadn’t released his name, photo and misogynist screed onto the internet so people know what a horrible person he is and he gets fired, it will be the end of women in STEM.
And all of them rich-cis-het-white-men using their huge platforms to silence the oppressed. That’s us. We’re the real victims here. It’s not cancel culture, it’s accountability. They think wrong things. And they say them!
Even Kant, perhaps the most famous German philosopher, had to work around censorship of the second edition of Critique of Pure Reason.
And theater (including Shakespeare) was banned from 1642-1660.
Convenient how they chose the mentioned signatories – Rushdie or Kasparov may know a thing or two about being threatened for speaking up….
This line of thinking reminds me of Republicans who decry attempts to “politicize” mass shootings. Essentially, it is a way to exclude speech when it is most important or most effective. “There’s a really important public conversation going on right now, so shut up,” is the same strain. It says that sure, go ahead and talk about civil discourse when nothing important is happening, but don’t you dare make a peep when the adults are talking about adult things.
That’s exactly ass backwards. The importance of open discourse is proportional to the importance of the discussions we’re having. Protecting the norm of open discourse is of little consequence when the trending topic is whether jeggings should count as jeans or leggings. Conversely, it is absolutely critical when the topic is the fundamental structure of society, whether homosexual people should be permitted to marry, or if we should be surgically removing the genitalia and secondary sexual organs of children.
Think about 12 Angry Men. The reason Henry Fonda’s capacity to dissent from the consensus is so important is that the jury is deliberating on a murder case. We see how that dissent is a matter of life and death. Now, suppose instead that the jury is deliberating on a case of parking in a “No Parking” zone. Would your emotional reaction to the story change?
I’m dead certain mine would.
I read an idea somewhere else that the letter was trolling to see who would out themselves as believing the letter referred to them.
It’s like they’re jumping up in class, “Ooh! Ooh! I’m intolerant!”
This response, and that of several people I know, seems to be based on the idea that the signers of the Harper letter are seeking primarily more freedom for themselves. I don’t see it that way. Those signers are people who are comfortable enough putting their names out there in defense of ideas. The letter talks about those who are hounded off platforms, who lose jobs and positions and reputations, people who can’t get papers published or research funded, and the incredibly chilling effect this has on others, the many who are afraid to ask certain questions or investigate certain areas for fear of retribution and destroyed lives. The letter is on their behalf, and on behalf of seeking the truth.
One friend wrote, in support of the letter, that silencing is poor intellectual and political strategy; instead we should engage and address bad ideas with better ideas. I don’t think that’s quite it, either. Sometimes other people are the ones with better ideas, and we’ll never find out if we don’t engage and discuss and examine.
And of course, shortly after I wrote the above, I see Janice Turner has covered this point and lots more in the Times, far better than I could.
LGB Alliance UK post on Facebook that contains text of article and is publicly readable:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=283782726377682&id=114018070020816
Times article:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/the-woke-left-is-the-new-ministry-of-truth-vmrgt823b