Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Let’s take the most lurid example: Rowling. She didn’t write anything controversial. She simply said men are men and women are women. Is that true? Well, science can debate that. It can also debate whether a trans woman is a woman in the same regard as a woman born a woman.
Instead of allowing that, the extremists on the left insist there is no dispute in these areas. Which is untrue. Psychiatrists are still untangling gender and sex.
So if one disagrees with Rowling, what should be the response? Well of course it should be to state why one thinks she’s wrong. Ah, but did that happen? No. An idiot brigade has called for her head. Boycott her books, don’t watch the films. How dare she hold such an opinion!
That’s cancel culture in a nutshell. “I’m right!!! I’m right and you’re evil and need to go away if you disagree with me! I’m a victim, or on the side of victims!”
All one can do is roll his eyes.
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I have not gotten too far into the Rowling/trans thing, but I've gotten far enough into to know that many people have stated why they think she's wrong without calling for her head, resulting in the sort of extensive debate that you think should be happening. She has views, they have views, views are exchanged, other people form views, everything is awesome. I'm not clear who has asked whom for her head, or to boycott her books, or not watch the films, but so what? She still has her head, you can buy her books and watch her films, and she is emphatically not silenced. If that's "cancel culture," it's not different from the way things have always worked, and it's not harming anyone. If you want to roll your eyes at her critics without reading what they think, go nuts, but you don't need to get on a high horse about free speech and cancel culture to do that.
But here's the irony. While you are waxing rhapsodic about the threat to free speech from the critics of Rowling, who is still one of the richest women in the UK and has absolutely no problem speaking freely,
she is using lawyers to silence others.
A news website aimed at British schoolchildren has agreed to pay an unsubstantiated amount after it implied that JK Rowling’s comments on gender caused harm to trans people.
The Day, which is recommended by the Department for Education and is designed to prompt teenagers to discuss current affairs, faced legal action from the Harry Potter author after publishing an article entitled: “Potterheads cancel Rowling after trans tweet”.
In the article, which some schools issued as homework, children were told that Rowling had objected to the use of the expression “people who menstruate” in place of “women”. It also referenced objections to Rowling’s recent comments from Harry Potter actors such as Daniel Radcliffe.
The original article in the Day asked teenagers to consider whether it is possible still to enjoy great works of art by “deeply unpleasant people” such as Pablo Picasso and Richard Wagner.
It said: “Since the 1950s, the civil rights movement has used boycotts to take money and status away from people and organisations harming minorities and shame them into change [sic] their behaviour. Online it is often called ‘cancelling’.”
The Day, which was founded and is run by the former Daily Express editor Richard Addis and is sold through subscriptions to around 1,500 schools, has now apologised after Rowling hired libel lawyers. The Day said: “We accept that our article implied that what JK Rowling had tweeted was objectionable and that she had attacked and harmed trans people. The article was critical of JK Rowling personally and suggested that our readers should boycott her work and shame her into changing her behaviour. Our intention was to provoke debate on a complex topic.
“We did not intend to suggest that JK Rowling was transphobic or that she should be boycotted. We accept that our comparisons of JK Rowling to people such as Picasso, who celebrated sexual violence, and Wagner, who was praised by the Nazis for his antisemitic and racist views, were clumsy, offensive and wrong.
“Debate about a complex issue where there is a range of legitimate views should have been handled with much more sensitivity and more obvious recognition of the difference between fact and opinion. We unreservedly apologise to JK Rowling for the offence caused, are happy to retract these false allegations and to set the record straight. We shall be making a financial contribution to a charity of JK Rowling’s choice.”
So Rowling is a great example. Your "cancel culture" is not silencing anyone, but Rowling, signatory of the Harper's letter and a leading "victim" of "cancel culture", is.
ETA: "She didn't write anything controversial"? Ah. That word means something different than you think it does.
