Harper’s Magazine published a “Letter on Justice and Open Debate” recently with over 150 signatories. A great deal of gnashing of teeth later, I am struck by something:
This is the same argument made regarding the police and oversight of their interactions with the public.
It starts with the platitudes:
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.
Gotta set up the bona fides. “Hey, I’m on your side! I’m woke! I understand the systemic bigotry in the system!” But then it immediately follows it up with the same refrain from everybody who is caught making a fool of themselves:
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 favor of ideological conformity.
The article goes on to berate Trump (“I’m on your side!”) and then tries to tone-police with claims that subjecting them to criticism will only provide ammunition to the “right-wing demagogues.” And with that pre-amble, they segue into the complaint that they won’t be able to do their jobs if they have to be worried about how they’ll be received:
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 is the exact same argument the cops use when protesting oversight of their jobs. That if they have to wear body cams, if they are required to turn it on whenever they engage with the public, if that footage is going to be made public, then that will make them hesitate in dangerous situations. A killer will be rampaging and they won’t be able to take him down effectively because they’ll be too worried about how it’s going to look and more people will die.
We all know it’s bull. The idea that an important job should be free from oversight and comment and response because the people involved might not feel confident in doing it due to potential consequences from said oversight is nothing but an attempt to get away with things you know you aren’t supposed to do. As many have pointed out in the wake of George Floyd’s death, these killings of black people by cops are not new. They’ve been happening forever.
We just happen to have technology that allows them to be recorded every time they happen. We just happen to not be hiding them in the darkness of half-assed “internal investigations.” We just happen to be showing them to the world and the world is responding with a unified horror that these things happen.
And as many have pointed out: Even though all the cops know that everybody has a camera in their pocket, George Floyd’s murderers still killed him in broad daylight in front of those cameras because they thought they could get away with it. They didn’t care that their actions were going to be made public. They thought they had the public’s support for anything and everything they did.
So when I hear these exceedingly rich authors talk about a “stifling atmosphere [that] will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time,” I have to wonder just how many dead bodies do we need to have before it’s OK to question these arbiters of discourse? The problem is not a “restriction of debate,” as they put it. It’s that we’ve already had the debate. We’ve seen the damage it causes. We are no longer complacent about the damage. And they are being called to account for their involvement in that damage.
I want the cops to be worried about what it’s going to mean when they pull their guns. I want them to be second-guessing that decision to draw a weapon upon someone. I want them to be thinking if they truly have done everything they could do to deescalate the situation. They should be worried about the consequences because those consequences are deadly to the person on the other side of that gun.
And authors need to be worried about what it’s going to mean when they write. I want them to be second-guessing their wording when they publish an opinion piece. I want them to be thinking if they have truly done everything they could to clearly indicate what it is they want to say. They should be worried about the consequences because those consequences can be deadly to the person on the other side of that opinion.
Take Rowling’s “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?!” hysteria regarding guidance and support for trans children. She writes:
Many, myself included, believe we are watching a new kind of conversion therapy for young gay people, who are being set on a lifelong path of medicalisation that may result in the loss of their fertility and/or full sexual function.
So you see, she can’t be bigoted against trans people. She’s merely worried about the harm to those who are being told they’re trans when they really aren’t.
But what about those who are trans and are being denied the guidance and support they need? According to the 2015 Pace study, 48% of trans people under 26 have attempted suicide. 59% report having thought about it within the last year. That's compared to 26% of cis people.
And notice the attempt to pit gay people against trans people. She seems to think that being gay is connected to being trans, as if gay children don’t understand that they aren’t trans. As if the counselors who work with trans people don’t understand that being gay has nothing to do with whether or not you’re trans. She has already said that “If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction,” as if by allowing for trans people to have their own dignity and respect, that means all the progress that has been made for gay rights will be undone.
And thus, one has to ask: Who is going to take responsibility for the trans kids who kill themselves because they couldn’t get the help they needed due to Rowling’s insistence that to give them that help is “a new kind of conversion therapy”?
So yeah, she should be a bit stifled. Not in the sense of any government crackdown. Nobody is suggesting anybody be arrested, sued, jailed, etc. Instead, these wordsmiths are being asked to do their jobs and do the research required to become informed about a subject before opening their yaps and pontificating on it. Because to demonize trans people as a threat to the rights of women and gays is going to lead to people dying. We’ve already seen it happen.
The right to have an opinion does not give it any legitimacy. The right to speak your opinion does not absolve you of any consequences for having spoken it. Just as you have a right to speak your mind, everybody who hears you has the right to speak about what they heard you say. They have the right of association including the right to disassociate themselves from you for what you said. And they have the right to then speak to others in an attempt to convince them that they, too, should disassociate themselves from you for what you said.
Yes, you should feel stifled. You’re an adult. Your actions have consequences. Make sure you know what you’re doing before you do it.
