Harper's Letter on Justice and Open Debate

[GeneralMacArthur]

It's really a media-fueled phenomenon.  Twitter made the media lazy and now journalists just look to the latest hashtags to find what to cover and the top tweets for "what people are saying."

If you get #CancelHamilton #CancelGeorgeWashington #CancelJkRowling #CancelJesus #CancelAbrahamLincoln #CancelMLK or whatever trending, and people are bickering about it on Twitter, then the media reports on it as "starting a conversation" or "so-and-so faces backlash" etc.  Politicians and other public figures will be asked about it and reply with some generic bromide about "all voices should be heard" or "it's a conversation worth having" (see: Tammy Duckworth).

Well, no, it's not a conversation worth having.  All this stuff is ridiculous and angry Twitter mobs shouldn't be able to "start a conversation" nationwide just because 20 or so people decided to get together and be really really angry about something. 

[GeneralMacArthur]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/08/is-free-speech-under-threat-cancel-culture-writers-respond

Some fairly interesting commentary on this in the Guardian. Though I disagree with much of her argument, Nesrine Malik has laid the groundwork for a clever argument to get lefties on board against the worst kinds of cancellation:

In my view, the failure to make these distinctions clear is probably less an oversight and more of a convenient fudge. Because outrage about cancel culture can’t be credibly sustained when you start breaking down what it actually consists of. Companies hastily sacking people who have been mobbed online is about the bottom line and fear of bad PR. It raises interesting questions, but these are more about employment rights and the encroachment by bosses into areas of private opinion and conduct. Being piled on online is nasty, but it is broadly a function of how social media in particular and the internet in general has enabled bullying for the hell of it. Sometimes human beings are unpleasant, and certain platforms are designed to bring out the worst in them. That is separate to the demands for change emerging from many marginalised groups.

There would be no bad PR for companies to worry about if the Twitter Mob wasn't given power and voice so disproportionate to both its size and its credibility.

If I sit here on Atlas Forum and say "Bruno Mars must be cancelled for unapologetically appropriating black culture when he is actually a Puerto Rican, Hawaiian, Filipino Jew" nobody will pay any attention.  But I could voice that same opinion on Twitter, whip up a Twitter mob and get it trending, all of which requires minimal effort from a dozen or so people if you are already moderately popular.  Then suddenly it's a trending hashtag and within a week there will be articles and thinkpieces about "Bruno Mars faces backlash online for appropriation of black culture" and "this is a valuable conversation happening on social media."

The mob is so powerful that things like this can have a real impact on someone's life and career.  And the more disconnected the person is from the thing that made them noteworthy, the worse it is.  People will have a hard time hating Bruno Mars because his main selling point is his personality and charisma.  To like what he puts out, which everyone does, you pretty much have to like him.  But take someone like JK Rowling.  You can like Harry Potter and hate JK Rowling.  So people have learned to hate her.  The less power you have the more power the mob has to destroy your life.

Twitter mobs shouldn't have this power.  The solution isn't to beg them to use it responsibly.  We're already seeing how poorly that's going.  The solution is to take away that power.

[GeneralMacArthur]

So because white men have been doing it for millennia the solution is to mimic their wrongdoings?

Way to miss the "this is consequences" part. Removing support from someone for being a jerk is acceptable, as opposed to how minorites have been cancelled for all of history, simply for being minorities. It's only news now because those who thought they could always get away with whatever behavior they wanted are realizing that's not the case.

The problem is portions of the activist left define jerk as "anyone who disagrees with me." In the process they end up cancelling to the bone leftists like Chomsky and Yglesias and continue the age old trend of eating their own over minor differences on fringe issues, completely losing sight of the bigger struggle.

And frankly, just being a jerk alone is not a good reason to cancel anyone.

No, they're defining it as anyone who is a bigot and unwilling to change. And that is a good enough reason to "cancel" people. And, honestly, being a jerk is also a good enough reason. But as someone who was bullied my entire childhood, I have a zero-tolerance policy for a*****es. There is no excuse for that behavior. If you can learn from it and apologize, excellent! But if you're going to defend it (or the a*****ery of others), mmnope you're not with the time or effort to have in my life.

Most of the people doing the cancelling are far bigger jerks than the people being cancelled.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Another thing that is aggravating about cancel culture is the absurd hyperbole people use when (mis-)characterizing what one person said.  It's like a contest to see who can find the most intense way to condemn the accused, or who can slap the most extreme label on them.

Rowling is a perfect example.  Here, according to Wikipedia, is the exact Rowling quote everyone is so up in arms about.

If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.  The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women - ie, to male violence - ‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences - is a nonsense.  I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so.

She has also said that she is against underage transition therapy.

To my knowledge, these are views that are quite commonplace among liberals (conservatives are an entirely different story) and would have been near-universal 5-10 years ago.  Yet to hear some people tell it, Rowling is an "extreme bigot", a "trans-exclusionary radical feminist", a "propagandist of hate", and so on and so forth.  It seems like the most common reaction on Twitter to the Harper Letter has been to condemn the entire thing as a joke because the hated enemy JK Rowling signed onto it.

These are views that Rowling should be allowed to have and express without having her entire career destroyed.  If you disagree, tell her.  But let's not act like all that's happening here is people simply disagreeing with her.  There is an aggressive campaign going on to try to destroy Rowling's entire reputation by characterizing what she said as some Hitler-style extremist hate.  And people who aren't familiar with the actual quote believe it.  People are also attacking everything and everyone associated with Rowling, which damages her career and life in general.  Look no further than the Harper Letter itself for evidence of this.

People act like the debate over trans identity, trans politics, trans sports and issues, underage transition therapy, like that's all been resolved and anyone who deviates is some sort of massive bigot.  Without taking a side on this issue I can tell you very bluntly that it is not resolved.  Even in the most liberal, secular nations of the western world, more than half of the populations would probably agree with Rowling's statements.  Go outside of the United States or Western Europe, and my goodness.  Gay marriage won acceptance because the debate was had in an open sphere and people were shown, clearly, why it was non-threatening and deserving of acceptance.  With trans issues, the effort to suppress any dissenting viewpoint and destroy anyone who disagrees with you will just lead to a massive, angry, resentful set of people who believe they're right, but aren't allowed to talk about it.  It feels good to lash out but it is counter-productive to your movement, even taking the personal damage to Rowling out of the picture.

[GeneralMacArthur]

People with loud voices are given power.  They can use that power to destroy others.  In many cases, those "others" are afraid of that, and stay silent, thus making the loud voices even louder, and giving them even more power.

Just look at the reaction to this letter.  From what I've seen, the vast majority of Twitter is mocking it and attacking everyone associated with it.  Matt Yglesias may be suffering permanent career damage for signing on.  So, too, will plenty of other signatories.

This Atlas poll currently stands at nearly 90% support for the letter.  But even in this thread, the loudest voices are the ones arguing against the letter and lashing out at the people who wrote it and the people who try to defend it.  If you just read the thread, you'd think the letter was extremely controversial.  In reality, this is a sentiment the vast majority of Atlasians, and the even vaster majority of Americans, agree with.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The fact that JK Rowling is in there decrying the fact that she received criticism for dehumanizing an entire demographic makes this letter laughable. She's the one who is really oppressed by society apparently. She lost her entire massive net worth and was thrown in jail over it!? Oh wait, none of that happened, she was just criticized over it. So this is just yet another product of hysterical, exaggerated hand-wringing over suffering the lightest of consequences for one's actions on the internet. I guess that's why they threw Salman Rushdie in there, as if him being included somehow makes his story the same for everybody in it.

 It's worth taking seriously even less when you consider how some of those who penned it were tricked into not knowing what exactly they were signing like trans activist Jenny Finn Boylan:

https://twitter.com/JennyBoylan/status/1280646004136697863

I guess she was included to as a shield to excuse those like Rowling and grant it some sort of legitimacy.

That Jenny Boylan statement is exactly the sort of thing we're talking about with guilt by association.  She read the letter and agreed with it and signed it.  Now that she found out JK Rowling also signed it, she has to issue an apology and "face the consequences."  Consequences of what?  The fact that Rowling signed the letter doesn't change its contents at all.  The issue is that the online mob has made Rowling so toxic that people can't afford to be associated with her anymore.  That's not "the lightest of consequences."  That's real damage to her career.  That's real damage to her personal life.  Since you apparently agree with it, congratulations.  "Dehumanizing an entire demographic" is yet another hyperbolic mischaracterization of what Rowling actually wrote.

The fact that she is rich and will still be rich after all this doesn't matter.  It's just a distraction.  It's not OK to attack and bully someone and try to destroy their life just because they have more wealth and power and privilege and whatever else you want to use.

[GeneralMacArthur]

And the backlash has started.  When I wrote my response to this thread yesterday, it stood at 34 Yes and 4 No.  Since then, 2/3rds of the new votes have been No.  Meanwhile, people who signed onto the letter are having to find lame excuses to disavow their signatures and apologize.

The text of the letter hasn't changed.  What's changed is the public reaction to it.

When it first came out, it was reported on neutrally in the media.  Just the facts, just what the letter said.  People were overwhelmingly in favor of it and the signatories were proud to be on it.

Now, the Twitter mob has spent 48 hours screaming at the top of its lungs, and the media is reporting on that.  We're getting the "backlash" or "what people are saying" stories.  And by "people", the media means "the loudest voices on Twitter", who are of course issuing the most hyperbolic condemnations possible.  And of course they are!  The letter directly attacks the source of their power -- their ability to whip up hate mobs and destroy people's lives.  So now that the "backlash" is the story, suddenly everyone is changing their opinion.

Now we're all supposed to be against the letter, because that's the "right" opinion.  And all those celebrities and writers and intellectuals who signed it are having to deal with that backlash, which scares them, and the easiest path is to simply disavow your signature and say "I didn't actually read the letter" or something like that.

[GeneralMacArthur]

So what you're saying is that they had agency to sign the letter but don't have agency to disavow it?  It has to be a 'mob'.

There's no actual reason for them to disavow it.

It's not like anything has happened in the last two days to change their opinion of the contents of the letter.

It's not like the contents of the letter changed since they read it and signed it.

They're not disavowing it because their beliefs changed, or because they actually disagree with what they earlier agreed with.

They are disavowing it because the aggressive Twitter mob is bullying them into it.  Plain and simple.

Right now the Twitter mob is trying to label everyone who signed onto it as an ally of that monstrously hateful nazi bigot, JK Rowling, and therefore also permanently an enemy of marginalized communities (especially LGBT).  That's the strategy.

A lot of the people who signed it have fragile careers, or careers based on seeming "woke" or like they're a voice for some marginalized community.  They can't afford to have that label slapped on them and suffer the consequences on social media for the rest of their careers.  They don't want to have every article they write or tweet they send about LGBT issues get swarmed with hateful comments saying "I can't believe people still listen to this bigoted bitch who defends transphobia."  So they are backing out.

That is what's happening.  And it's deeply ironic because it's proving the letter correct 100 times over.

[GeneralMacArthur]

So what you're saying is that they had agency to sign the letter but don't have agency to disavow it?  It has to be a 'mob'.

There's no actual reason for them to disavow it.

It's not like anything has happened in the last two days to change their opinion of the contents of the letter.

It's not like the contents of the letter changed since they read it and signed it.

They're not disavowing it because their beliefs changed, or because they actually disagree with what they earlier agreed with.

They are disavowing it because the aggressive Twitter mob is bullying them into it.  Plain and simple.

Right now the Twitter mob is trying to label everyone who signed onto it as an ally of that monstrously hateful nazi bigot, JK Rowling, and therefore also permanently an enemy of marginalized communities (especially LGBT).  That's the strategy.

A lot of the people who signed it have fragile careers, or careers based on seeming "woke" or like they're a voice for some marginalized community.  They can't afford to have that label slapped on them and suffer the consequences on social media for the rest of their careers.  They don't want to have every article they write or tweet they send about LGBT issues get swarmed with hateful comments saying "I can't believe people still listen to this bigoted bitch who defends transphobia."  So they are backing out.

That is what's happening.  And it's deeply ironic because it's proving the letter correct 100 times over.

Do you think those who haven't signed because it's nothing more than a puff piece are against free speech? Do you think those who pointed to those who signed it having a recent history of trying to get people silenced or fired and thought; no, I'd rather not keep company with hypocrites for the sake of a vague letter perhaps not more concerned with free speech? Especially when defenders of the letter are brigading those who critiqued it?

Why are you talking about people who haven't signed it?  My post, and your post that I was replying to, were both about the people who did sign it but are now backpedaling and disowning it.

There are plenty of people who didn't sign it, probably because they weren't asked.  The list of signatories is an impressively extensive and diverse list of prominent intellectuals, artists, writers, thinkers, celebrities, and other high-profile individuals.  I don't think the letter is lacking for more signatures.

Other than that you're just making things up.  Who's "brigading those who critiqued it"?

[GeneralMacArthur]

The last three tweets on this thread are:

Some rando with 75 followers

David Klion of "I hope you cry when you're forced to vote for Sanders" fame

Current Affairs, which is just Nathan Robinson's personal soapbox, Robinson being famous for "yeah I coached Tara Reade and her brother in how to construct a false rape allegation against the Vice President, but if I delete all the tweets bragging about it then it's ok, right?"

Really shows how much this conversation has devolved.