A Letter on Justice and Open Debate
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"the weaponization of victim status by vindictive, sophomoric busybodies who cannot bear the fact that someone else sees the world in a different way"
Nicely put
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As far as I can tell, Rowling’s big sin is feeling that guys that biological males that identify as females should not be included in the rewards that feminism has won for women. And for this, her legacy is ruined.
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She's also managed to elevate herself to being discussed alongside Salman Rushdie, which was no mean feat.
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I imagine trans folk are fierce and fearless combatants. They've already established that they're willing to self-mutilate to solve their emotional problems. Just what sort of clear headed response and self control do you suppose they'll have in the culture wars, which they now see as an extension of their life long psychological pain?
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The real problem in this debate is that everybody takes everything so personally. And that includes Rowling.
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Without Rowling the trans folks would have freaked out about Jesse Signal but not as much.
But had neither of them been there you might have heard some complaints about blacks on the list that don’t toe the woke line. In fact I’ve seen some of that but the trans women are more aggressive per Horace’s point.
Only non-witches get due process.
- Cotton Mather, Salem Massachusetts, 1692
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The apparent lack of any conception of irony when it comes to free speech is nothing new.
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Without Rowling the trans folks would have freaked out about Jesse Signal but not as much.
But had neither of them been there you might have heard some complaints about blacks on the list that don’t toe the woke line. In fact I’ve seen some of that but the trans women are more aggressive per Horace’s point.
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I'm so old, I remember when our identities weren't supposed to be based on our gender.
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I'm so old, I remember when our identities weren't supposed to be based on our gender.
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Yes it's well known that cancel culture is already a powerful force in our most important institutions. It's nice to see this data. It will be disgusting to watch the Ezra Kleins of the world continue to deny its existence.
Rogan had on recently the guy who wrote the nonsensical -studies papers that got accepted and published. He said that the last time a feminist studies (or any -studies) academic paper got seriously peer reviewed was in the 90s.
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I listened to Klein's podcast about this. He discussed it with Yascha Mounk, who was on the free speech side of the debate. It really did come down to Ezra just saying that while he understands why free speech is important, trans people's feelings have to be taken into account and if free speech can hurt them, then free speech needs to be reconsidered. If asked to reflect on that trade-off, he would just dig deeper into how important the feelings of trans people are, and how they face legitimate danger every day, because people want to murder them.
It's clear that those sorts of arguments can be used eternally by those who have an interest, based on the power dynamics as they see them, in shutting down free speech. If it's not trans folk it'll be some other group. It does not appear to matter how large the group is.
One thing Klein and Mounk agreed on was that the White Fragility book was bad. Klein thought it made some good points though. They mentioned something that I've noticed, too. That "white supremacists" share common beliefs with the ideas in that book - that white people are different and privileged. It's just that one group feels pride about it, and the other group feels shame.
