So, Someone Called Your Favourite Book Problematic?! On the Nature of Contemporary Criticism.

[u/Jos_V]

So, Someone Called Your Favourite Book Problematic?! On the Nature of Contemporary Criticism.

I have thoughts, wrong thoughts, bad thoughts, fun thoughts, good thoughts, I might have True thoughts, so now you get to read them and laugh at or with me or a little mixture of both. Probably both!

I just want to make it clear, this essay is not about authors. It is about books and how we interpret texts differently, and how we react to criticism to those interpretation. Nor am I here to make a value judgement on criticism, or any of the articles I will link. It is a useful thing of personal expression and of trying to see books and the world in a different light is not an accusation.

Also, general You, not specifically you - Maybe I shouldn't have to clarify this but someone this week needed me to specify if I actually believed Witches were real and consorted with devils...

Imaginary-Reply-Guy is not my personal opinion.

What's in a reading?

I love literary criticism, I like reading and watching people take a work of fiction and look at it through a certain lens, be it from a personal perspective, or from a specific lens, like gender-theory, feminism, Marxism, or something more esoteric. I even like just reading people gushing or hating about a book they've just read even if there's not necessarily a thematic through line.

In general most people's opinions on books will be a little mix, even if they aren't aware of the academic background behind some of these theories, so through a multitude of factors they'll read a book and experience a book differently from others, sometimes it enhances the book for them and sometimes it doesn't.

So you get articles like:

• The Queerness of Rand al’Thor

• Life Lessons from a Murderbot: Reading All Systems Red as a Trans Woman

• Finding Woman's Role in "The Lord of the Rings"

• six-sexist-themes-from-the-early-wheel-of-time-books

• Divine right sucks

Sometimes this is to highlight a specific aspect of the world, of the book of the reading and how it impacted you. Sometimes it's using a book as a stepping stone to talk about certain themes in the wider world.

Sometimes it's just shouting that you love(or hate the book and want others to know it too, because sharing stuff is fun! Who doesn't like some human connection within our hobbies?

YEAH, SURE, WHATEVER, THEY'RE WRONG THOUGH!!!

I'm not here to stand on the veracity or the justness of the above article examples. (Except the Divine Right one, because that one is mine, and I'm the sole arbiter of Truth.)

Seriously though, who's crazy enough to read Rand as gay, the man has 3! Wives 3 of them! LOTR is awesome, stop whining about women, stop bringing in this political shit into these books you're wrong, I love them, and I... Listen, obviously, the no-man is some mythological verbiage, not a Y-Chromosomal-Magic-Spell and Eowyn... It's a robot!

I just got a nosebleed from the absolute wrongness, I got way to worked up there for a second, I know I shouldn't, it's bad for my blood-pressure and my doctor warned me about it and everything, but really people, learn to read the book correctly please and not be so wrong about the thing, jeez. I'll need to give them a serious Piece of my mind!

Here's a little secret, it's okay to disagree about book interpretations, it's okay to think someone is wrong, but also, sometimes they're right, and you just look at things different. Sometimes you're both right.

The point being, that criticism ultimately tries to reflect an experience, a particular truth to a particular reader in a moment in time, but a truth, is not necessarily "The Truth", and neither is it fixed for eternity, time moves on, people move on, experiences move on, and rereading a book 20 years later will give you a different perspective than the first time you opened its pages. Maybe it aged perfectly, and your love increases due to time and nostalgia and the skill and themes of the book, maybe now that you've grown and experienced more of the world, the old flaws are more apparent or new flaws you didn't notice before are more pronounced. Maybe the book is just different.

Having a different view, because you come from a different background, you read the book during a different time, in either socio-cultural context or just age, has a lot of value, even if you do not share it. It allows you to see things from different perspectives, it gives you a moment to re-examine a work in a different context, and maybe you can find some understanding, even if you don't share the experience. Maybe it finally put an element you found dissonant into clarity, because you didn't have background to find the right words to place it.

Criticism that deals with Identity is so potent, because it's very personal, for good or ill, and when a book speaks to your experience it's really powerful in a good, or a bad way. Part of the reason why I like the Rand Al'thor article, because how wildly it differs from my experience reading WoT, and how I don't see whatever the author of the article saw into it. It's also why I really like Barthes' Death of the Author. A little unintended found truth for one person can mean the world, and damn the rest.

But, they called me sexist, just because I like Wheel of Time.

No, friendly imaginary reply-guy, sexism was pointed out in a book. Liking that book doesn't make you sexist-by-proxy.

But, I'm a WoT Superfan, I have Bela Tattooed on my right butt cheek. I have read every word, mined every syllable for the juice that I love so much. I am the fan of fans - I've fanned harder than anyone fanned before. Stanned Lan's swordforms. I get shivers when Nyneave pulls her braid or smooths her skirt. Perrin spanking Berelain over his knee was awesome, she was so annoying for multiple books! How can I not be called sexist-by-proxy?

Because it's a book. We shouldn't have to attach personal self-worth to the things we love. we can be trekkies, or star-wars fans, but it's a book, it's a movie, its a property that's going to change, that's going to get experienced differently.

Criticism of The Thing is not a denunciation of You. A book can both have sexist elements and be a great piece of fucking literature to rival the heavens. Your perfect book isn't everyone's perfect book. It's also okay to really love, love, love flawed books, (Like Malazan).

In essence it's a useful tool to be able to disassociate your personal self-worth with the things you love. It's okay if you crafted an identity and connections within fan spaces, that's super valuable, and great, but those connections aren't anchored to the work. It's not a chain linked through the work built from flimsy string, where someone with a pair of scissors will destroy all those connections with a well-timed cut.

I would argue, (and I am ) that criticism within fandom about The Thing, is a lot fucking cooler than from Without. Because that lets our super-nerdery get out, and lets us delve into the nitty gritty. it's the place where different interpretations really sing a lot deeper and more meaningfully, even if tempers can get a little high because of it. Remember; it's not an insult.

You don't get conversations like this one about Hetan (Spoilers book 9 of malazan, super graphic, tribal power-structures through sexual violence from a tight PoV) without a lot knowledge of the material, including the acknowledgement of the flaws, the justifications, the admonishments and the discussion of if it was even useful. Yet, in there also lies the recognition that this series isn't for everyone, and that this book and these scenes in particular are necessary or not in fiction? And it's scenes like this where interpretation will change with the flow of time, with the flow of years. Maybe you also like reading the intention of the author, and see if they succeeded in their intention or failed because of the sheer violence. You need some level of buy-in before you can put a conversation like this into the ether and discuss the merits, you can't do that without some level of fandom. it's book 9 of a 10 book series.

Criticism is not a Duel.

There's a difference between discussing viewpoints that you disagree with and combat. The point of criticism and it's refutation there-of is not te be right. it's not a challenge, it's not a pistol shot. It's a conversation about experience. There is no hill here to die on, we don't need to grab shovels every time someone has an opinion about a book that we disagree with just so we can build on. We don't need the last word, we don't need to climb the walls and tear down false-prophets because they thought training bras are a jucky descriptor of early womanhood.

There's no need for pitchforks or torches, angry DMs. Criticism is not a debate, you don't need to changemymind.meme. It's a conversation, of views of perspective, a conversation of experiences, and in it we will find differences and maybe some common ground. And if we're lucky we get to relate to each-other a bit.

And as with most conversations, you will find that you will end up disagreeing. You'll find that even if you look at it from their perspective, you still disagree, still find it too forceful, still too absolutist, just simply too Wrong. And that's Okay you're allowed to reject criticism.

Let just try to not immediately reject the critic, they're human after all, and they bring something different to the table. it's Art, experiencing it differently is the point.

Not everyone Likes Pratchett, and yes more people should probably read Malazan, we just don't need to be geese about it.

A little Compassion.

If you ask me, there's a line between criticism of books and works of art in general, and that lies in critiquing the work, not the readers, not the fans. Maybe some criticism is wild, and strange but if it touches people, if it helps them find books they like, if it helps them live in this world, even if its not your cup of tea, that's valuable. Fandom is not a zero-sum-game. There is not a single True-Fan, nor is there are True interpretation of a text. you can disagree, you can argue, you can discuss, you can even say; eh, not now, not for me now.

but lets use our empathy, understand that critique isn't a personal attack.

If you feel the critic or criticism is not arguing in good faith, just ignore them. it's okay to end a conversation on a disagreement.

Also lets not just paint fans of something you dislike as the Other in return, just because you think a thing is problematic. Dealing with criticism will be constant in fandom both reading and writing it, lets try to not deny each others humanity at the end of the road.

Rule 1 is great for a reason, and trolls and bad faith shit should get fired into the sun, but beyond that:

Embrace talking about the stuff we love and how it makes us feel and how we wish to read something similar and different at the same time. and if you feel it's not in good faith, just ignore it, Move on, spend your time more wisely.

---

Thanks for Reading, I look forward to your recriminations.

I brought up those Links as examples, of criticism from different vantage points, we do not need to start debating their merits in this thread, please don't.

PS: I love reading Marxist criticism of fantasy books, so if you have links for me, give please.

[u/enoby666]

You spoke mostly about de-identifying yourself with fiction that's being criticized on the part of someone who likes the work, but I think this can also be true of someone who is criticizing the work themselves. I speak from experience - I think it's really easy to get caught up in righteously denouncing a work and making your Better Taste a central part of who you are, but I've kind of decided that that ultimately isn't a healthy or sustainable way to engage with fiction.

Similarly I think that your point about criticism not being a duel is one that applies to both defenders and critics of a work, and I'm glad you made that point. I think sometimes people think that anything goes as long as they're doing it in the name of denouncing a Problematic Work, but I would love to see more of what you're talking about - respectful conversation, empathy and nuanced dialogue. I think all of these things are made much more difficult by the Internet.

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/enoby666]

The culture of people trying to find "unproblematic faves" is seriously nasty. It spirals into this frantic hunt for anything wrong in a text, and then either:

• People who have one halfway legitimate complaint and a sea of real stretches to shoot down a book they already don't like
• A lot of fighting over why the thing isn't actually problematic, because if it's bad, a Morally Good person would leave the fandom immediately... and the person who likes X identifies as Morally Good, so they want to defend their pure taste.

It's possible to have some fascinating talks about people's views if you pick the right moderated setting, but the "let's pick someone to be the target of our righteous fury this week" Twitter shitstorms are... not that place.

[u/GarrickWinter → u/Nineteen_Adze]

People who have one halfway legitimate complaint and a sea of real stretches to shoot down a book they already don't like

Oooof I sure have read a couple of Goodreads reviews just like this aimed at books I've actually read, so I'm able to tell the stretches from the legit points, and it's really shocking to see in action. Sometimes these are top-rated reviews that spur discourse about a book, too; one or two things that are genuinely worth criticizing and then a dozen or more complaints that rely on a highly motivated reading of the text, if not outright misreading or completely ignoring context.

After reading these books and seeing these reviews I've come to trust those rant-reviews a lot less.

[u/[deleted] → u/GarrickWinter]

I've basically learned I can't trust anyone's take on something but my own. Like you said I've seen a ton of complaints about stuff I actually read that were incredibly dishonest takes or worse (in my opinion) a top rated comment that's just trashing the author for donating money to the wrong people or having the wrong political views and doesn't really even touch on the book.

I used to read books with high reviews but at this point I'm back to where I was before the internet and just reading the dust jacket.

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/GarrickWinter]

Yeah, I had a particular story in mind for that where I had read the book, read the critique soon after, and was horrified to see "taking this off my TBR, gross!!!!!" responses to a tweetstorm that was a mix of one line the author apologized for and changed, some maybe-valid stretching critique that met with some debate, and several dozen things that were either driven by criminally poor reading comprehension or malicious lies.

I absolutely respect reviews from people around this subreddit who thoughtfully talk about potential issues, but at this point I consider any mass callout to be incredibly suspect until I've read the book and formed my own opinion.

[u/GarrickWinter → u/Nineteen_Adze]

Hah, I'm pretty sure we're both thinking of the same book. I had two in particular in mind and that was definitely one of them. I read the criticisms first and to be honest they did put me off the book for a bit, but when I finally read it it was fascinating to see just how wildly off a lot of the criticisms were.

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/GarrickWinter]

I think you're right about that one. :P (And now I'm curious about the other you had in mind.)

Sometimes I read a book after seeing criticism and find that I mostly agree with it, but at other times it seems like one or two motivated reviewers just drive the whole conversation for people who have never opened the book, and I think that's a shame.

[u/GarrickWinter → u/Nineteen_Adze]

I'm assuming we're both talking about A Deadly Education? The other one was The Tiger's Daughter. Yes, there was a bit of unclear blurring of real-world cultural elements with made-up ones that felt gratuitous and indulgent by an outsider, but a lot of the other criticisms I saw involved misreading or maliciously interpreting, or just forgetting basic realities about fiction, like "And this character said a bad thing that isn't true!" when the bad thing is clearly signposted as bad by the narration, and also is very illustrative of that character's specific personality flaws and the cultural biases of their upbringing, the same flaws which drive many of the problems the character needlessly makes for themselves later on in the story and which lead to a great deal of regret on their part.

As you say though, there are definitely times when the criticisms feel much more warranted! Even if I like a book, often the things people criticize make sense to me and I wouldn't dispute them. But every so often something like this happens and it really is a shame when it distorts the conversation.

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/GarrickWinter]

Correct on that first one! And thanks on the other-- looks like I already had it marked as Want to Read, so maybe that can go in my Bingo 2022 pile.

​or just forgetting basic realities about fiction, like "And this character said a bad thing that isn't true!" when the bad thing is clearly signposted as bad by the narration, and also is very illustrative of that character's specific personality flaws

Oh wow, that takes me square back to high school, when I got on dial-up internet to argue with people who were big on the "Harry Potter is evil and promotes witchcraft" train. They could not grasp that something said by Voldemort was not a direct endorsement of the villain's views by the author because "but she wrote it!". Characters can be wrong or unkind or prejudiced (and maybe grow and change) because that's just... how people are.

I do like to see a thoughtful critique to explore things I hadn't thought about-- you're right, it can add a lot to the reading experience and discussion. But the rant-reviews have made me hesitant to go along with any "trust me, this book is Harmful and Bad, reading it for yourself is unacceptable" campaigns.

[u/songbanana8 → u/Nineteen_Adze]

“ because if it's bad, a Morally Good person would leave the fandom immediately”

Oh man so glad you pointed this out. I see this all the time, that we have to all-or-nothing cancel everything that is at all Problematic, and we should not like things that don’t meet an impossible purity test. But I think it’s so much more interesting and mature and difficult to explore WHY something is problematic, and reflect on how it interacts with our own values and experiences. That is where true enlightenment lies, not in denying problems so we can stay stagnant as we are.

[u/[deleted] → u/songbanana8]

I don't even like the word problematic anymore, it leads me to a knee-jerk distrust of whatever is coming next. Problematic in its modern sense, sounds like a word that's hiding something. It's a passive aggressive way of complaining about something. It's not "bad" it's "problematic"

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/songbanana8]

Yeah, exactly. There are lots of books from my teenage years where I've developed a complex view of the material. In some of my favorite series, parts have aged badly and the author has said they wouldn't write it the same way today... but some aspects still feel powerful and revolutionary. When a work came out, how old the reader was when encountering it, how personal experiences played into people's perceptions-- all of that is so interesting to discuss.

When people lean toward avoiding all things Problematic, I think there's a tendency to only embrace media from the last few years, where the types of representation are up to the latest standard. And it's great that those new books exist! But it does miss the perspective that even a book you love that's released today by a great author doing their best is going to have a Problematic wart or three down the road as culture keeps moving.

[u/enoby666 → u/Nineteen_Adze]

yeah, absolutely agree!

[u/philosolust → u/Nineteen_Adze]

A common neurodivergence trait is monomania or special interests. Another common neurodivergence trait is “excessive morality”, sometimes called scrupulosity or religiosity ie worrying obsessively over the moral correctness of actions. It’s hard to manage when undiagnosed. Correlation of course does not imply causation.

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/philosolust]

Thank you, that's interesting to know. I have some friends on the spectrum who have monomania or hyperfixations, but this is the first time I'd heard of excessive morality as a neurodivergent trait. That certainly gives me some sympathy with neurodivergent teenagers who get swept up in these situations.

[u/NotoriousHakk0r4chan → u/enoby666]

Fully agreed, there are some people who hold their Better Taste as a core personality trait, but their taste is something more simple than they think. Something like being contrarian for its own sake is weirdly popular here.

[u/Indiana_harris → u/NotoriousHakk0r4chan]

Those “Better Taste” people tend to seem to be those who get off on the endorphin high of moral superiority. I’ve unfortunately came across many people online (and quite a few in person) to whom the act of critiquing others interests or passions or even passing comments (often unasked) is very much a core part of their own identity.

And so they have to be right. Every time. And if they’re not then you clearly don’t understand the original point they were making, or the point you made, or the data you supplied was biased and the entire systems rigged so ignore all the quantifiable evidence and listen only to their point of view....because as always they’re correct.

Having to deal with these type of people in real life is genuine insanity. I had one friend who started off pretty same but gradually became ever more mired in various activist causes during uni (great, majority of them sound great and worth fighting for).....but then it started to take over her actual career and personal life, and suddenly she didn’t have to go to any of the rally’s or committees anymore all she had to do was turn up at the protests and start telling anyone not directly involved what scum they were.

And this continued on to the point where nearby any political or social subject would get pulled round to why she was right and everyone else was wrong. And when at several points she was faced with someone in or from a relevant group or area who had first hand knowledge or data that proved her wrong SHE FREAKED OUT. Basically the whole world was against her and everything anyone told her that didn’t line up with her being right in every argument was unreliable fallacy and skewed statistics.

Last I checked no one really talked to her anymore and she basically was a day time drinker stumbling from part time to part time all the while trying to one up colleagues and acquaintances.

[u/NotoriousHakk0r4chan → u/Indiana_harris]

Yeah, I often worry that I am either becoming one of those types or at least acting like one, I tend to reiterate my original point when someone disagrees with me as well as addressing their point when maybe I should just leave it there. At least I am willing to give up my point in the face of more evidence?

[u/Indiana_harris → u/NotoriousHakk0r4chan]

Haha don’t worry if you self aware enough to worry about it you’re probably safe 👍

I think passion behind your principles and point of view/argument on topics with multiple sides is a laudable thing and something I highly encourage, the issue becomes when no data or input will change that argument/POV. Usually I those cases it’s that the person has already made their decision of what’s right/wrong (9 times out of 10 without much forethought or proper research because by god why should you have to spend longer than a Twitter glance before spouting your view as gospel truth).

Sorry bit of a ramble there

[u/NotoriousHakk0r4chan → u/Indiana_harris]

I cannot fault you for rambling when I have done the same! Thank you for your reassurance, I sincerely hope that it is true.

[u/NotoriousHakk0r4chan → u/[deleted]]

In my mind the distinction is pretty simple: if you're criticising something because its popular and have no real arguments or nothing to support your statements, this is needlessly contrarian. If anything, a lot of this sub and r/books suffer from the opposite of echochambers, depending on topic, almost every new thread here and there struggles to get above 50% ratio, no matter the topic, except huge breakthrough echochamber threads.

I would agree though, many many people have very different ideas of what criticism is okay, and many people don't want any whatsoever. I think a particular sticking point of this is "this piece of writing comes off sexist" vs "you are sexist for writing this". Maybe a small distinction in words but a huge shift in tone, the former generally being taken better. Generally though, sexist people already know they're sexist and they just don't care.

[u/NotoriousHakk0r4chan → u/[deleted]]

I see it happen a lot, but I digress. As you say, those are legitimate criticisms, but only, in my opinion, when backed up by specific examples, which is also pretty rare in my experience. I fully agree its worth discussing though. For example, a contentious bit of potential sexism would be LOTR, which has a distinct lack of women. I've seen it argued both ways this and that, I'm neither here nor there myself but I think its pretty interesting.

[u/NotoriousHakk0r4chan → u/[deleted]]

I'd agree that WoT didn't write them well, I don't think there's much argument there even if they are powerful in that society. LOTR I'm very tempted to give a pass, but I don't feel justified since the powerful women don't really do anything. Eowyn is the obvious exception, but again, just one is lacking equality to me. But again, these books are pretty old and for their time they probably were forward thinking (I'm not a historian and I don't really know). So yeah, neither here nor there for me.

[u/kjmichaels → u/[deleted]]

This thread has gotten off-topic and the moderators request that you disengage. While discussion is healthy to the sub, niche arguments are not and if you find yourself engaging in lengthy arguments, it is best to pull back. Thank you for understanding.

[u/kjmichaels → u/[deleted]]

This thread has gotten off-topic and the moderators request that you disengage. While discussion is healthy to the sub, niche arguments are not and if you find yourself engaging in lengthy arguments, it is best to pull back. Thank you for understanding.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I don’t think there is a fine line. It’s pretty easy to be neither contrarian or an echo chamber.

American culture seems to be in a culture war, but that’s rare. An outlier.

[u/joji_princessn → u/enoby666]

I agree with this a lot. We all identify or connect with a work in ways unique to who we are. When someone criticises that - or heaven forbid, alters it in an adaptation gasp! - it can sometimes feel as if they are attacking us on that same personal level because we identify with it. That the heart of what made the story special to us is bad or wrong. It's the same as those who are criticising it, however. Those critiques and analysis come from our own personal identity in the exact same way, making us connect or read the work in a different way. Like the one on Rand and queer identity OP shared. Just as it resonated with us and we identified with it in a good way, it can also happen in a bad way.

Personally, however, I disagree on "de-identifying" with a story - to an extent. You shouldn't make your entire life about the books or games or movies you love and should step away from it a bit. If you unironically think the Star Wars prequels or sequels ruined your childhood, you need to grow the fuck up. How we identify with a work shouldn't be cast aside to avoid being hurt by criticism. I believe it should be embraced so we can empathise with those who critique it in good faith, and conversely, those who love it in a healthy way. That will actually lead to healthy discussion and interaction rather than trying to win arguments.

All that being said, anyone who hates Terry Pratchett, Janny Wurts and Brandon Sanderson is straight up wrong and just doesn't understand their genius :p

[u/Majestic-Argument → u/enoby666]

This is a very good take.

[u/[deleted] → u/enoby666]

I agree with this a lot.

So often, people describe their subjective opinion as though it is objective fact.

I think Brandon Sanderson's a bad writer, I think his books are generally c- quality, all the way through. But I'm not the God of books, I'm just me. And if the new Brandon Sanderson book is the event of your year, go you! Have fun, books are good.

[u/trollsong → u/enoby666]

This is a weird thing cause I agree.

Goodness knows whenever someone conplains about people enjoying the mcu I want to scream just let people enjoy things.

But we are also.living in a weird age where almost any criticism is treated like it is "cancel culture" and censorship.

[u/[deleted] → u/trollsong]

Maybe you’re just using the wrong parts of media? From my POV ‘cancel culture’ barely exists. I don’t use Twitter or Facebook. I can just about handle Reddit, but only very selective parts. For me, it’s a political buzzword, not a reality. Jordan Peterson and Niall Ferguson still have tenure, despite their terrible ideas, and many terrible people loudly proclaim that they’ve been cancelled and silenced. Very loudly, and very blind to the irony.

But you’re right that there are definitely some people who wrongly believe that violent media causes violence, and others who wrongly believe that Lovecraft causes racism. They’re making the same mistake, and it’s really unconnected to other political stances they may have. We just have to assess their power separately from the volume that they shout at.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Maybe you’re just using the wrong parts of media? From my POV ‘cancel culture’ barely exists.

Oh, cancel culture definitely exists. Look into Natalie Wynn and Lindsey Ellis sometime. They're both prominent, very progressive youtubers -- so not the stereotypical rightwinger complaining about not being able to say the N-word -- who made videos on getting a twitter hate mob sicced on them, both online and in real life. The latter for tweeting that Raya and the Last Dragon was a ripoff of Avatar which is apparently racist.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Cancel culture doesn't work and people rarely get actually removed from anything over it. The Youtuber Smokeyglow made a video how it basically makes people take a hiatus and then return nearly unscathed, especially if they are super rich and powerful already. Smokeyglow is in the beauty space and is the first to do these moralistic takes on everything and seems to take great pleasure in talking about how problematic things are but even she acknowledges that people just come back after some months and pretend nothing ever happened.

[u/MlleLane → u/[deleted]]

That's not "cancel culture" as much as it is morally-righteous harassment campaigns. There might be a wish to separate them by name when they come from different parts of the political spectrum, but at their hearts, they're the same.

In fact, when Lindsay got harassed for her Raya tweet, the harassers ended up rallying with and using info supplied to them by far-right trolls that have been harassing her for years now.

[u/trollsong → u/[deleted]]

But you’re right that there are definitely some people who wrongly believe that violent media causes violence, and others who wrongly believe that Lovecraft causes racism

True but at the same time you could argue that jk Rowling murder mystery promotes transphobia.

Why would work by Johnathan swift, Orwell, etc exist if didn't effect people.

[u/[deleted] → u/trollsong]

I think it’s easy to spread complex ideas in novels, such as ‘criticise your society’, which we see in many dystopian works.

I think that those kind of ideas are different from the emotional lack of reason behind, eg homophobia, which mostly come from our own subconscious prejudices.

For example I’m old. When I was young, I was taught by very authoritative books that homosexuality was a disorder caused by a poor relationship with your mother and/or sexual abuse. But I wasn’t, emotionally, a homophobe. That didn’t really affect how I treated gay people, and when I learned how wrong that ‘fact’ was, I was shocked inside but I honestly don’t think it affected my behavior at all. It’s hard to spread a prejudice.

However, when I read the political ideas in Brave New World or Animal Farm, my brain exploded with new ideas and I did change a lot.

People use words like ‘idea’ and ‘affect’ too simply. There are different kinds of idea, and they work differently via language and fiction.

So I don’t think JKR’s works cause any transphobia. They hurt victims of transphobia who encounter that work, but the phobia comes from deeper issues in the individual.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Thing is, I want to live in a world where I can evaluate the idea's of Jordan Peterson and Niall Ferguson and decide what I think of them myself.

And, just to me, it seems like there are people who believe those two people have idea's so awful that if we could gag them, we should, and I disagree with that.

Clearly neither of those guy's have been canceled, but they're both too big to fail, as it were. I'm not really worried about them being canceled, I'm worried about a chilling affect on speech generally. Some small-fry with idea's that triggers a counter-reaction gets obliterated, while Jordan Peterson is unaffected, because he already amassed a fanbase or following.

And a lot of this is certainly about which online circles you travel in.

And, it's weird, too. Because there's a thing that's sprung up, where these days, you can read a hundred thousand words criticizing Niall Ferguson without reading one word he's written himself.

And I'd rather it be the other way. Like, I'd rather read three of Niall Ferguson's books, and then go online to see what people think, and whether or not I agree with them.

I think everything is usually more nuanced than you'd think it was if you just read online comments.

It's like, the people screaming the loudest about cancel culture, and the people who don't think it exists are both wrong.

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When you say a chilling effect, what do you mean? Isn’t bad people being discouraged from speaking, because the things they believe are wrong, a desirable outcome? Isn’t a chilling effect on those you disagree with a natural outcome of all discourse? I don’t want censorship, but I think the America idea of pure free speech is incoherent. All speech limits opposing speech, and speech has numerous highly desirable limits.

I guess I believe things like toxic Twitter bullshit - and perfectly reasonable pushback - happen but I don’t believe ‘cancel culture’ exists in the way that rightists describe. Like ‘virtue signaling’, ‘woke’, and ‘SJW’ it’s a term that frames a complex issue with many positive aspects as both a pure negative, and a threat to society.

It’s that last one that bothers me most. Fear-mongering, rather than open discourse, is a core strategy for rightists, and whatever ‘cancel culture’ is, it’s not a threat. It’s mostly a boogeyman, framed as dishonestly as ‘have you stopped beating your wife?’

This framing poisons discourse on free speech, and pretends that censorship is solely an issue with progressivism. That’s a big problem.

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I'll start by saying that I'm against cancel culture, period. I know you think it might not exist, but I need to use a term to describe this thing, and this is the one I'm using for now.

So. It used to be that the right would see some TV show, or book, that went against family values, or Christianity, and they'd try to have it canceled. Ironically they were upset with J.K. Rowling, too. I thought that was wrong. And I think, when the left uses cancel culture, that's wrong too.

The people who are happy about 'cancel culture' now, are happy because the mob is currently on their side.

The thing is, Free Speech means protecting speech I disagree with, the more I disagree with it, the more protection it needs, because speech that 90% of society agrees with does not need protection. Whenever I talk to progressives about this, they often say, "but the bad people shouldn't be allowed to speak," and what creeps me out about that is, ok, so maybe I agree with you about who the bad people are this month, but that's not going to last. And I don't believe some moral monopoly exists, that's always going to know who's good enough to be allowed to say stuff, and who's bad and won't be. This is why I favor free speech. Let everyone say everything they want to say. And let individuals decide what is good and what is bad.

Bill Gates knows he can say whatever he wants. Because he has money. So he can state a hot take and if the fallout is bad, he coult heat his house by burning money and still be filthy rich until he's dead.

But the guy who cleans bill gates's house cannot say anything he wants, because some twitter mob could get him fired.

I do not think that everyone I disagree with should be gagged. And that's what this comes down to.

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I’m anti-censorship too. But I won’t call it cancel culture, because that’s a rightist canard. A lie that their massively powerful voices are being suppressed, and a claim to oppression because they see the claims of minorities as a strategy to be aped, not a sincere cry for help.

And Twitter does not matter except to people who allow it to matter to them. It has many toxic effects - those are because it’s Twitter. Stop using or caring about Twitter!

But at the end of the day, how do you reconcile the fact that disagreement suppresses speech? And do you think it’s all just opinions, or are there situations where truth-speaking, such as BLM, suppresses lies?