I dont disagree with the sentiment of this post, nor do I have anything but goodwill for OP, but I do think this, ironically, misses the nuance of the reaction against the letter.
Ppl arent JUST responding to JK. It can SEEM that way from a fandom perch(for reasons that will become obvsl since 80% of this discussion is abt stuff not actl in the letter), but that isn’t what this is about; why would a bunch of professional left journalists, who are the primary ppl talking about this on twitter, care about something Rowling said(other than as an example of TERF rhetoric, obvsl)? Just a warning: this is going to get Lore-Heavy and very, Very Stupid.
This letter’s being read as part of an ongoing debate over the legitimacy of activism, particularly the “turn” towards deplatforming and protest(which isn’t really a turn; these tactics have been used by activists of all stripes Forever), within US politics; a turn primarily blamed on the Left because centrist and conservative commentators dominate official social commentary(which, again, reveals the nature of this “turn”. If it’s a “turn” of any kind, it’s a “turn” in coverage and opinion-making). This subject is obviously relevant and topical in light of the George Floyd protests(which the letter is ALSO being read as a reaction against, probably because it directly implicates them as an EXPRESSION of this trend[1]). Specifically, it’s being read in relation to two recent articles: This Article From June 12 by Matt Taibbi where he posits:
…the American left has lost its mind. It’s become a cowardly mob of upper-class social media addicts, Twitter Robespierres who move from discipline to discipline torching reputations and jobs with breathtaking casualness.
The leaders of this new movement are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry, and even racial harmony with ideas so toxic and unattractive that they eschew debate, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation. They are counting on the guilt-ridden, self-flagellating nature of traditional American progressives, who will not stand up for themselves, and will walk to the Razor voluntarily.
- There’s a whole backstory behind this related to his reporting on the 2016 election, which he has long felt hasn’t been properly acknowledged(and Yes; his article rehashes this with all the Impartiality and Meticulous Honesty you’d expect from the aggrieved, one-sided account of a past golden-boy), his hostility to negative coverage of Russian foreign policy(the stuff re: Putin’s backing of Republicans primarily, but he was a big part of the [EDIT: originally wrote “Russia Times” but then remembered it was “Russia Today”. Oops X|]Russia Today crowd in the Shrub years, so he just generally treats any discussion of Russia’s geopolitical and ideological hostility to the US as illegitimate and suspect), and a recentish resurfacing of his misogynist behavior during the Bush II regime.
- As any Always Onlines xp’d in dealing with the Peterson, Shapiro, and Harris wings of conservatism can tell you “the left is abandoning traditional liberal beliefs”, sometimes written as “Englightenment Beliefs/Values”, is a major dogwhistle for right-wing “The Left are Cultural Marxists” discourse, which is itself a stalking-horse for unabashed Elders of Zion antisemitism.
So, to the journo-left twitterati and Always Online, this article had some major red flags: it’s rhetoric, it’s denouncing of the ~criminality~ of the protests, and that Taibbi, with all his problems and beefs and his perceived right-sympathies, is the one who wrote it.
The second article it’s being read in context with is This One From Ross Douthat about basically the same topic; pushing Wesley Yang’s “successor ideology” idea -which is basically just a Bari Weiss article about how college leftism is a threat to liberty flattered into a hyperventilating, conservative nightmare of a world-historical political theory- which is BASICALLY exactly what Taibbi was talking about so there’s really no reason to go over it as well[2].
Now why is it being read and reacted to in THIS context, as opposed to the context of long-time free speech advocates and censorship victims like Rushdie, Atwood, and Chomsky signing it? Because of a very particular batch of signatories, and because of particular passages within the letter. The Signatories are the Usual Suspects on the Right and Center who’ve been banging the drum about how evil leftist, anti-racist, anti-imperial activism is for decades(again; the Bari Weisses of the world). The passages are CLEARLY MENDACIOUS ones, clearly referencing bete noires of the right like the rebellion at the NYT against James Bennet’s editorship. So people are reading this letter NOT as a sincere expression of support for free speech -as it was clearly read by ppl like Rushdie, Atwood, and Chomsky- but rather as the usual right-wing weaponizing of free speech all of us on the internet know So Well cuz we’ve spent YEARS OF OUR LIVES getting in utterly fruitless arguments with the supporters of the right-wing trolls who SIGNED the damn thing, about it.
So like: this response isn’t about Rushdie, or fandom harassment campaigns, or internet mobs, or even what the Left thinks of free speech. This response is about the Right’s decades-long campaign to twist “freedom of speech” into a JUSTIFICATION for officially censoring Leftists and Liberals with the power of The State, and, mildly related to that, the growing tendency of well-off, comfortable ppl to deligitimize pushback their decisions receive by labeling it “cancel culture”.
“Canceling” is absolutely a real thing; we’re all on tumblr, we’ve all seen artists, writers, and just plain bloggers harassed to ATTEMPTED SUICIDE by the censorious, self-deceiving, self-justifying assholes in our midst. Hundreds if not thousands of our most prolific and beloved members were kicked off this platform just two years ago over a cataclysmic combination of Apple’s desire to meticulously meet US legal ~decency~ requirements, tumblr’s desperation NOT to be kicked from Apple’s marketplace, and the unchecked, mendacious cancel campaigns raging against its fan communities. But while this phrase has become a bloody-shirt of the Right, the actual reality of it isn’t what they mean when they commission and write letters like this. Those reacting with hostility to it Know this, and they are reacting to the larger campaign to discredit left activism which this letter was clearly meant to be a part of.
