Rowling, Rushdie and Atwood warn against ‘intolerance’ in open letter | Hacker News Reader

Rowling, Rushdie and Atwood warn against ‘intolerance’ in open letter

theguardian.com

19 pointsmartinskou15 comments

The letter itself was discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23759283

The letter https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/

Thanks for sharing the original letter!

Many good points therein, can we still able to have a conversation about conversations, are we too far gone, can we course correct?

> We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences.

All fine and good, but the authors need to specifically say what topics good faith disagreement can be had on or this is just special pleading on behalf of their particular point on the ideological spectrum.

Don't you have that backward? If they had to specify the topics, then that would be special pleading. As it is, they're making a case for the default position; "general pleading" so to speak.

My feeling is that the origin of attack on allies (people largely on your side who also partly disagree or speak in a tone-deaf way) stems from the broader hostility between left and right. That has made progress impossible, and faced with frustration at the lack of communication or any hint of compromise, people lash out at those who should be on their own side. At least they're listening.

I don't like it either, and I don't think it's helpful, but I understand the frustration. Fragmentation has long been a problem for progressivism. There are so many injustices, and since each happens to a group that is marginalized, the only way forward is unity. We have to back each other. Especially since the system is designed to be conservative: it requires multiple branches to pass legislation, any of whom can halt it, sometimes by a minority vote. About the only significant progress ever comes only from the Supreme Court, which is dominated by conservative judges who will often prescribe a legislative solution. Which they know won't happen.

People should be able to disagree publicly and loudly with their allies. But when faced with an opposition who will oppose anything you say solely because you say it (even reversing their own past positions to do so), you face an impossible dilemma. You need unity, but can't reach it without disagreeing publicly. And when you despair from the fact that the system is stacked against you and you perceive that nothing you do will help, lashing out at any pretext at least feels like some kind of accomplishment.

We need to fight against that impulse, but we won't do that without identifying the cause. And I believe that the cause stems from the right wing intransigence that has long since past any sincere ideological disagreement into active hostility and denial of reality. If we can't win fights against people who deny well-recognized science on many fronts, and promote conspiracy theories not just at the fringes but at all top levels of leadership, how can we actually win anything?

This is very true. It isn't possible for two political parties to have fruitful process and debate without both acting in good faith.

I would also point out that for many white people in the US, political affiliation is merely a way to claim tribal membership in a group as our fundamental rights are already secure. Of course this is also true more generally, but look at polling information by demographic and it's clear for example that black voters aren't confused about who is working against their interests, and largely vote accordingly. The tribalistic people have little inherant interest in policy, and care much more about protecting their identities as group members. There can be value in exerting internal pressure on those people to statistically help move the herd. An analogy might be a dog snapping at sheep to move them to safety. A sheep dog that gets too agressive and actually bites to cause injury is counterproductive, so this has to be done diplomatically.

> Of course this is also true more generally, but look at polling information by demographic and it's clear for example that black voters aren't confused about who is working against their interests, and largely vote accordingly. ...

You do realize that this is a tautological argument, right? One could just as easily argue that black people are voting for policymakers who, by and large, seek to patronize and infantilize them, thereby "protecting their identities as group members" even as they're in fact working against their long-term interests.

You should try talking to black people sometime and you will see this is not the case

Talking to voters is always a good idea, of course. I'm fairly sure that quite a few white voters would want to similarly disabuse us both of this notion that they only vote based on pure tribal loyalty, and don't actually care about their broader interests, however construed.

“Rowling, whose beliefs on transgender rights have recently seen scores of Harry Potter fans distance themselves from her [...]”

That’s an understatement. She’s effectively canceled for rest of her writing career for even thinking what she ended up writing.

Looking forward to the next chapter though - the best is yet to come.

>She’s effectively canceled for rest of her writing career for even thinking what she ended up writing.

No, she isn't. Her views on transgender rights, offensive as I and many others find them, are still comfortably mainstream. She lost a lot of Harry Potter fans, but a lot of fans have also chosen to divorce their love of her work from her politics, and many others simply couldn't care less. I seriously doubt publishers are going to refuse to publish her, bookstores to stock her, or studios to turn down piles of money from franchising her work. I seriously doubt that she's going to be wanting for fame, readership or money in the forseeable future.

Unfortunately, her concerns are still far from "mainstream". Most people have no idea that "detransitioning" is actually a thing for quite a few trans folks, or that "rapid onset" gender-dysphoric identity is a serious concern as relating to a minority of young people whose self-perception and orientation seems to be strongly influenced by their "progressive" social milieus.

> She’s effectively canceled for rest of her writing career for even thinking what she ended up writing.

> Looking forward to the next chapter though - the best is yet to come.

You think she's cancelled her career, but want to see what she does next? It doesn't seem like you actually think she's been cancelled.

> She’s effectively canceled for rest of her writing career

Amazon Charts would seem to indicate otherwise.

https://www.amazon.com/charts/2020-07-05/mostread/fiction/in...

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