JK Rowling, Malcolm Gladwell slam transgender author who apologised for signing 'cancel culture' letter

JK Rowling, Malcolm Gladwell slam transgender author who apologised for signing 'cancel culture' letter

FPJ Web DeskUpdated: Thursday, July 09, 2020, 08:28 AM IST
article-image
(L-R) JK Rowling, Malcolm Gladwell and Jennifer Finney Boylan |

Harry Potter author JK Rowling and Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell have criticized an author for apologizing for signing the open letter that called to end ‘cancel culture’.

Author Jennifer Finney Boylan, a transgender woman, took to Twitter to say, “I did not know who else had signed that letter. I thought I was endorsing a well-meaning, if vague, message against internet shaming. I did know Chomsky, Steinem, and Atwood were in, and I thought, good company. The consequences are mine to bear. I am so sorry.

To which Rowling responded, “You’re still following me, Jennifer. Be sure to publicly repent of your association with Goody Rowling before unfollowing and volunteer to operate the ducking stool next time, as penance.”

Gladwell, who has written books like The Tipping Point, also made it vocal that he wasn’t a fan of Boylan’s tweet. “I signed the Harpers letter because there were lots of people who also signed the Harpers letter whose views I disagreed with. I thought that was the point of the Harpers letter,” Gladwell tweeted.

Rowling has been criticised by a number of people, many of whom have grown up reading the Harry Potter series. For them, Rowling is a ‘TERF” or a trans-exclusionary radical feminist for comments that have been deemed transphobic. For these fans, Rowling’s comments have been heartbreaking, as many of them looked at Harry Potter as a beacon of hope for being different.

Besides Rowling and Gladwell, other people who signed the letter included New York Times Op-ed staff editor Bari Weiss, political activist Noam Chomsky and feminist icon Gloria Steinem.

The letter, titled ‘A letter on justice and open debate’ was published in Harper’s Magazine.

This is what it says:

Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favour of ideological conformity. As we applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second. The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy. But resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion—which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting. The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes. Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal. We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.

This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other. As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us.

RECENT STORIES

Canada: Rude Customer Abuses Indian-Origin Pizza Delivery Man In Toronto; Video Sparks Outrage

Canada: Rude Customer Abuses Indian-Origin Pizza Delivery Man In Toronto; Video Sparks Outrage

Paris Viral Video: High Voltage Drama At Charles de Gaulle Airport As Migrants Protest Against...

Paris Viral Video: High Voltage Drama At Charles de Gaulle Airport As Migrants Protest Against...

Pakistan Horror: Man Strangulates Sister To Death In Family's Presence; Shocking Crime...

Pakistan Horror: Man Strangulates Sister To Death In Family's Presence; Shocking Crime...

Baltimore Bridge Collapse: Racist Posts Target Indian Crew On Social Media Following Collision

Baltimore Bridge Collapse: Racist Posts Target Indian Crew On Social Media Following Collision

'Undoubtedly Saved Lives': US Prez Joe Biden Lauds Quick Action By Indian Crew Members In Baltimore...

'Undoubtedly Saved Lives': US Prez Joe Biden Lauds Quick Action By Indian Crew Members In Baltimore...