Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

idk what my projection of jk rowling is, all i know is she’s transphobic

Cancel "culture" (still barf at dignifying this internet phenomenon that is barely divorced from 4chan collective antagonizing with that word) is trash, that letter and all "open" ones like it are trash, and basically all of the responses and arguments stemming from/in response to it are insufferable trash too.

i think everyone should be canceled

(xp) Ah, "everyone's stupid but me," the most Internet of all positions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIavWicFeek

people really need to stop saying james bennet got fired for publishing the cotton column! he got fired because he published it *without reading it*, which was part of a pattern of him being totally negligent on the job. sulzberger explicitly said this in his statement!

— Jack Hamilton (@jack_hamilton) July 8, 2020

I've literally never thought about J.K. Rowling once in my life like even as I type this I wish you all the peace that I enjoy.

— 💜💜🇺🇸ƈօɛɖ ռǟӄɛɖ ƈɨռɛքɦɨʟɨǟ🇺🇸💜💜 (@NickPinkerton) July 5, 2020

I've been following Nick Pinkerton on Twitter for a while, because some of his opinions on movies were at least smart enough to be worth reading, but in the last few months he's revealed himself to be kind of an asshole. Not a racist or anything, just a smirking "lookit me, the only smart person in this room" dickbag.

On another note...

Pretty lame of @Harpers to remove the Letter's illustration pic.twitter.com/mt3PXrDEoE

— Eli Valley (@elivalley) July 7, 2020

yeah I come from the alt-right but you've really made me reconsidert

why is this approach is so appealing to these types (who are still terrible when they call themselves leftists)? I assume for the same reasons it’s offputting to those who’ve been accused of cancelling said youtuber (you can’t win with these cancel culture takes when any dissenting response is more evidence of cancellation)

If you support trans rights, support trans art and the positive accomplishments of trans people, don't engage your projection of JK Rowling in some sort of zero-sum war

This is a very good take on the whole mess btw

Hamilton Nolan’s satisfying takedown of “today’s letter, published in Harper’s and signed by more than 100 of the worst people in the world of public intellectualism”: The Coddling of the Elites - In These Times: https://t.co/EMV25OH9hu

— Lisa Duggan (@TheFunFury) July 8, 2020

I think what bothers me about the Harper's letter is that it reminds me so much of that "gotcha!" troll approach to public discourse, like that horrible "political compass" that's been floating around the Internet as long as I've been there that somehow magically finds some way to tell everybody who takes the quiz that surprise! they're libertarians. Call up the President and say that you're Canadian prime minister "Jean Poutine" and call him an idiot when he doesn't immediately hang up on you. Send Salman Rushdie a vaguely worded letter defending "freedom of expression" in no concrete terms and then get the most prominent TERF on the planet to sign it.

They make Rowling look good to the same extent that they make Rushdie look bad, this awful fucking zero-sum logic of "both sides" liberalism. I don't know, maybe every prominent public intellectual who signed this went in with both eyes open knowing full well what they were signing onto. If they didn't, maybe that is their responsibility, that they should've expected to be betrayed in this manner. It's none of my business and I shouldn't take it so personally, probably. It's just another in an endless stream of daily disappointments slowly chipping away at my ability to function.

Pinkerton is self-deprecating as well as funny, unp, so i'm not sure what youre seeing.

If you support trans rights, support trans art and the positive accomplishments of trans people, don't engage your projection of JK Rowling in some sort of zero-sum war

― imago

imago, all due respect, but please don't fucking tell me what ways it is _acceptable_ for me to support trans rights

i was speaking to the cisgendered normie-left massive there tbh. the sorts who tweet stuff like 'i burnt all my harry potter books, jk rowling you are cancelled forever!!!'

like, rowling is a bad person and is heading down a dark, glinnery path, sure, but the best way of dealing with this is surely to completely ignore and thus delegitimate her as a public presence, no? otherwise you take jk rowling, human with bad opinions, and reify her as JK ROWLING, TERF MONSTER. and it is this monster that the revanchists can really get behind

Ok but she’s a very high profile person espousing transphobic views in a country where the government just went against the results of a consultation (70% in favour!)on liberalising the self id process to dog whistle to the sake revanchists? Like, trans children are at high risk already and this kind of stuff legitimises dangerous and harmful views that prevent them getting the care they need. What does it achieve? Maybe ‘just’ solidarity, but isn’t that intrinsically worthwhile in this context?

To return to my earlier question, how are you gatekeeping who's allowed to take the piss or tell terfs to fuck off and who is just being naughty?

Cos an unruly mob of bad faith *insert straw man here* and a group of individuals expressing their individual pain, anger and disdain in a public space looks ever so similar

i am not gatekeeping! this is all just advice. you can post 200 tweets a day about how awful jk rowling is for all i really care, i just don't think it'll achieve much. the normalisation and visibility of trans people is the only way to beat the terfs

Trans people and their allies should aim to act more respectably?

I repeat: isn’t showing trans people that you don’t agree with this worthwhile in and of itself? That they’re not alone?

well that is a point. but solidarity can take many forms, and not all of them in the form of us vs them conflict

it's also worth keeping in mind that there was no great public demand to hear the thoughts of JK Rowling on trans people. at worst she's an awful bigot but at the very absolute best she's just a dumb asshole who won't shut the fuck up and seemingly insists on doubling down in perpetuity.

solidarity can take many forms, and not all of them in the form of us vs them conflict

Doesn't the very word "solidarity" imply that there is an "us," though? And if there is an us, there must therefore be a "not-us," or if you like a "them"...

ideally it is an ever-expanding us that aims to encompass all humanity

and rules from the centre of the ultraworld

If I was that rich I’d never be on fucking twitter

rowling is sick in the head and probably needs actual help at this point. that said, nigh-incurable narcissism is pretty common amongst bestselling authors

imo the idea of getting deplatformed as made several powerful bigots soooooo scared, and overall i think that slaps

has made*

Bingo, and that's essentially all this is

scared feels wrong. it's energising them to cultivate their own armies of bigot truthers on alternative-truth platforms like Times Radio

maybe they're a bit scared too. really what they should be is ignored though

it's energising them to cultivate their own armies of bigot truthers on alternative-truth platforms like Times Radio

― imago, Wednesday, July 8, 2020 7:52 AM (fifty-two seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

they would be doing this anyway imo

i don't think jesse singal wrote any of his multiple incredibly transphobic atlantic pieces bc of his resentment of the mob

Bigots need safe spaces too.

Maybe some kind of island with no Internet connection in the middle of the ocean

able was i ere i saw elba

Trans people and their allies should aim to act more respectably?

I'm assuming imago didn't read the New Republic article that was posted upthread.

imo the idea of getting deplatformed as made several powerful bigots soooooo scared, and overall i think that slaps

I wasn't saying that trans people and their allies should aim to act more respectably (and they should be as out-there and queer as they damn well please) but that they shouldn't waste their energy in the Fight

fighting is tiring and debilitating

also Milo didn't fail because he was more evil than the others, he failed because he showed weakness and because the revanchist right would only tolerate a gay spokesman so far

meanwhile professor beef is borne aloft on comatose bed by the wellwishes of a million radicalised sadsacks

fucking Greil Marcus and David Blight signed the letter

well at this point i want to make it clear that this Harpers thing seems completely gratuitous and you shouldn't need a letter signed by a bunch of 'public intellectuals' (i.e. mostly reactionary windbags) to affirm the free-speech rights of people who very much will always have free speech. my point is more about cancellation and online struggle as a useful tactic for the progressive left

I wasn't saying that trans people and their allies should aim to act more respectably (and they should be as out-there and queer as they damn well please) but that they shouldn't waste their energy in the Fight

the other thing is if i ignore these people they get published by the fucking atlantic or whatever

they don't care what happened to Milo, the right is always more than happy to blame one of their own and have them banished, and they never seem to think they'll be the next one

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Never in the history of ILX have more keystrokes been wasted on such a non-issue. Concern over cancel culture is so much conservative concern-trolling. They have no love of free speech and would welcome the fascist boot if it meant putting undesirables (non-white, LGBTQ, etc.) in their place.