#radicalism
Radical politics enacts the tragic sense of life by overestimating the extent of human agency over and against natural necessity, chance, etc., attempting to transform the cosmos into a polis, and then concluding that it’s better to never have been born once limits are recognized.
The Utopianism —> antinatalism pipeline.
- Derek Dupleassie
What I’m saying is that JKR, like so many average people, very likely started off in a place of well-meaning ignorance. Then she started exploring new and different ideas being shared online. Some ideas resonated deeply with her experiences as an abuse survivor, so she began exploring them deeper. Then, wham, public backlash. Her trauma is triggered - but so is her curiosity. After all, if something she did or said set people off, maybe she’s onto something. So she starts exploring more. Starts asking more questions. And when she does this in public, there is always backlash. Meanwhile, however, in private, her new friends are telling her “See? This is proof we’re right. This is proof that the world wants us silenced, because they’re scared of the truth, and they really hate women that much.” And what do you know, what they’re telling her starts sounding more and more reasonable, especially since the outside world is becoming more and more hostile.
Well…
People keep searching for ways to argue that JK Rowling has always been a horrible person deep down as a way of explaining her recent behaviour.
But here’s the thing: that’s probably not true at all.
Pretending it is discounts the harsher, scarier truth: that even decent, well-meaning people can be radicalised by dangerous, hateful, predatory groups, and given enough time they can become truly hideous versions of their former selves.
It can happen to me. It can happen to you. It can happen to any of us, given the right mix of circumstances. And over the past few years, we’ve seen it happen to one of the most famous children’s authors of our age.
Nobody is immune.
So you’re saying that The Clown wasn’t always… outright evil?
No one is born evil
Good point, but prejudice is best installed at a young age. Why is why I assumed the said Clown was just evil since some early part of their life.
And round and round it goes, until you have a radical.
This is absolutely how radicalization works. I started out “I could never be a feminist, they hate kinksters” (yes, this was a massive oversimplification) and within, oh, i think two years? i was saying “well, i don’t like the overtones of ‘radical feminist’ but what’s so wrong with saying you’re a radical AND a feminist? we need to make sure there’s space for traumatized women who really do legitimately hate and fear men.”
When you become an extremist, you become UNRECOGNIZABLE even to YOURSELF.There is also this….revisionist tendency to say that JKR has always been a closet bigot and conservative and right-wing since she got famous, but that’s not even entirely true. One of her first major political stirrups was criticising Tory austerity measures and David Cameron, (she also once said “people who send their children to boarding schools seem to feel that I’m on their side. I’m not.”), donating to Labourandbeing openly supportive of the British welfare state.She has, in at least one interview (from 2000) self-proclaimed to be left-wing.As early as 2003, she claimed that one of her biggest writing influences was a Jessica Mitford, who Rowling described as a “self-taught socialist”.
This isn’t to apologise for her behaviour or rehabilitate her into some former activist who is still worthy of saving; it’s to contextualise her recent descent into TERFdom compared to her previous political stances she’s openly held. She was probably never going to be a staunch ally for equality and diversity, and yes, a lot of the HP series were very problematic in retrospect, but she could very easily have gone the other way and at the very least turned out to be less of a bigoted shitbag she is now. The fact that her politics in late 2000′s/early 2010′s were similar to so many people who are now activists and organisers for queer, BIPOC and vulnerable communities should tell us to be all the more careful about radfem ideology and transphobia in progressive spaces.
It’s comforting to say “we should have known in hindsight that she was always going to become a TERF, the early signs were all there!” but that’s also not true. We have to recognise that the toxic ideology, the active harm she chooses to participate in, was a deliberate choice; this was a path she chose to go down, not one that was pre-determined for her. It’s also an easy way to separate ourselves from being critical of radfem influence; “JKR was always a right-wing bigot and that’s why she became indoctrinated with radfem bullshit. I’m not a right-wing bigot, therefore unlike her, I will never fall for radfem bullshit.”
People who become radicalised, including those to become radfems, were not always irredeemable right-winger proto-Conservatives doomed for extremism and hatred, and that’s the point. The revisionist idea that she was always beyond salvaging erases how TERFs recruit people (especially vulnerable, impressionable people) in queer, progressive and liberal circles and how easily their dogwhistles can go undetected. The idea that JKR was already a closet right-winger from the get-go and therefore could never have been a good person is ultimately unhelpful because all it does it separate from the reality of how radfem doctrine spreads. TERFs sell their own toxic, harmful views packaged as progressive ideas as part of their strategy and that’s why their ideology is dangerous and requires constant vigilance to drive out.
this actually happened to me in seventh grade, i knew what terfs were and i didn’t want to become one, but i started seeing posts about how sex work is used in society and how it harms women, and i started getting into it by saying ‘alright, i’m going to listen to these people but i’m not gonna be a terf. i’m not gonna let that happen’ but the posts turned from sex work, to sports (“women athletes are at a disadvantage to trans women athletes, i’m not a transphobe i just think this should be noticed”) to trans women in womens spaces (“there are women who are vulnerable and traumatized because of their pasts with males especially, and trans women can’t relate to that in the same way they’re just concerned with being in a woman’s space, i’m not a transphobe i just think this should be noticed”) until it was genuinely, irrevocably transphobia and terfness (“trans women keep harassing lesbians, nobody is obligated to feel attracted to you, other women understand that, why can’t they? unless…”) and still i didn’t notice how far i had fallen.
i don’t remember what it was that made me pause, step back and say ‘no, actually this is exactly what i said wouldn’t happen. we need to stop’ but i did, i looked up trans perspectives and forced myself to unlearn the bullshit i had absorbed. and while i’m glad i did that, it’s not an exaggeration to say the internet lives forever. there’s still comments under posts from years ago that i wish i could find and delete, but i doubt i ever will.
It may be true that everything is forever on the internet, but that includes the fact that your story should be one of hope.
It IS possible for someone who’s been radicalized to go “what the fuck am I doing?”, learn better, and then openly say “I fucked up and this is wrong.” You literally did it on this post.
That should be the end goal: creating a community so open that radical groups stand no chance of growing, and indeed people can be rescued.
For Rowling in particular, it’s also worth noting the effects of suddenly coming into a huge amount of money and power, and the subsequent case of Never Being Told No Disease that so frequently develops.
Never Being Told No Disease is what happens when someone is so wholly insulated from pushback, criticism, disagreement, and consequences that, after a while, being told No in even the most trivial context becomes a huge blow to their ego. Rich people are particularly susceptible to the condition. It’s reversible, but the cure requires having someone in their life who will call them on their bullshit.
Rowling, who more-or-less opted out of being edited past book 4 (and whose publishers let her), who went from a pre-HP life composed mostly of being told No to a life largely devoid of it, seems to have let the Handle Being Told No With Grace center of her brain wither away to nothing. So when her initial bad takes were gently corrected by trans activists, she reacted to this very mild No like a vampire to sunlight, and fled the searing gaze of mild criticism for the soothing darkness of TERFS who told her she was right about everything.
thank you for this post! it’s gets extremely grating to see posts saying “JK was always horrible (and you were stupid for not noticing before)”.
she’s changed as a person, the problem is that she changed for the worse. Anyone can become worse, anyone can fall for the lies of bigotry. She should be seen as a precautionary tale
@nonasuch this is such an excellent addition. An editor would have really tightened the last few books - but beyond that, not needing one clearly ungrounded her ego indefinitely
Why do we let ideas divide us
when this rock can sustain us no longer
let there be blood and
God is just a lonely idea
that has worn away to dust
as it should have been
once long ago
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Reductionist elements, such as windows framed in metal topped with bolted strips in the spirit of the Wiener Werkstätte, convey the minimal radicalism of fashion designer Rick Owens’s penthouse apartment overlooking the Lido in Venice. Mattresses and bolsters top a large stone banquette, which is an extension of the stone flooring. A chair by Eliel Saarinen sets next to a sculpture by Thayaht; the wooden stool is by Owens.
@rickowensonline #rickowens #minimalism #reductionism #radicalism #modernism #rawdesign #organicmodern #italiandesign #elemental #thayaht #elielsaarinen
https://www.instagram.com/p/B8Kvtp1JYFX/?igshid=1c99qk163p4u9
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What I’m saying is that JKR, like so many average people, very likely started off in a place of well-meaning ignorance. Then she started exploring new and different ideas being shared online. Some ideas resonated deeply with her experiences as an abuse survivor, so she began exploring them deeper. Then, wham, public backlash. Her trauma is triggered - but so is her curiosity. After all, if something she did or said set people off, maybe she’s onto something. So she starts exploring more. Starts asking more questions. And when she does this in public, there is always backlash. Meanwhile, however, in private, her new friends are telling her “See? This is proof we’re right. This is proof that the world wants us silenced, because they’re scared of the truth, and they really hate women that much.” And what do you know, what they’re telling her starts sounding more and more reasonable, especially since the outside world is becoming more and more hostile.
Well…
People keep searching for ways to argue that JK Rowling has always been a horrible person deep down as a way of explaining her recent behaviour.
But here’s the thing: that’s probably not true at all.
Pretending it is discounts the harsher, scarier truth: that even decent, well-meaning people can be radicalised by dangerous, hateful, predatory groups, and given enough time they can become truly hideous versions of their former selves.
It can happen to me. It can happen to you. It can happen to any of us, given the right mix of circumstances. And over the past few years, we’ve seen it happen to one of the most famous children’s authors of our age.
Nobody is immune.
So you’re saying that The Clown wasn’t always… outright evil?
No one is born evil
Good point, but prejudice is best installed at a young age. Why is why I assumed the said Clown was just evil since some early part of their life.
And round and round it goes, until you have a radical.
This is absolutely how radicalization works. I started out “I could never be a feminist, they hate kinksters” (yes, this was a massive oversimplification) and within, oh, i think two years? i was saying “well, i don’t like the overtones of ‘radical feminist’ but what’s so wrong with saying you’re a radical AND a feminist? we need to make sure there’s space for traumatized women who really do legitimately hate and fear men.”
When you become an extremist, you become UNRECOGNIZABLE even to YOURSELF.There is also this….revisionist tendency to say that JKR has always been a closet bigot and conservative and right-wing since she got famous, but that’s not even entirely true. One of her first major political stirrups was criticising Tory austerity measures and David Cameron, (she also once said “people who send their children to boarding schools seem to feel that I’m on their side. I’m not.”), donating to Labourandbeing openly supportive of the British welfare state.She has, in at least one interview (from 2000) self-proclaimed to be left-wing.As early as 2003, she claimed that one of her biggest writing influences was a Jessica Mitford, who Rowling described as a “self-taught socialist”.
This isn’t to apologise for her behaviour or rehabilitate her into some former activist who is still worthy of saving; it’s to contextualise her recent descent into TERFdom compared to her previous political stances she’s openly held. She was probably never going to be a staunch ally for equality and diversity, and yes, a lot of the HP series were very problematic in retrospect, but she could very easily have gone the other way and at the very least turned out to be less of a bigoted shitbag she is now. The fact that her politics in late 2000′s/early 2010′s were similar to so many people who are now activists and organisers for queer, BIPOC and vulnerable communities should tell us to be all the more careful about radfem ideology and transphobia in progressive spaces.
It’s comforting to say “we should have known in hindsight that she was always going to become a TERF, the early signs were all there!” but that’s also not true. We have to recognise that the toxic ideology, the active harm she chooses to participate in, was a deliberate choice; this was a path she chose to go down, not one that was pre-determined for her. It’s also an easy way to separate ourselves from being critical of radfem influence; “JKR was always a right-wing bigot and that’s why she became indoctrinated with radfem bullshit. I’m not a right-wing bigot, therefore unlike her, I will never fall for radfem bullshit.”
People who become radicalised, including those to become radfems, were not always irredeemable right-winger proto-Conservatives doomed for extremism and hatred, and that’s the point. The revisionist idea that she was always beyond salvaging erases how TERFs recruit people (especially vulnerable, impressionable people) in queer, progressive and liberal circles and how easily their dogwhistles can go undetected. The idea that JKR was already a closet right-winger from the get-go and therefore could never have been a good person is ultimately unhelpful because all it does it separate from the reality of how radfem doctrine spreads. TERFs sell their own toxic, harmful views packaged as progressive ideas as part of their strategy and that’s why their ideology is dangerous and requires constant vigilance to drive out.
A key factor of radicalization is being offered a sort of moral authority—the ability to judge and condemn other people, to attack them and have it be proof of your virtue, to be the expert and to get to dismiss all dissent with “they’re wrong, misguided, stupid, and possibly evil.” This is a fucking drug. This feels GOOD. This is a heroin hit of acceptance, power, and righteousness, and it’ll hit a suffering person like a personal blessing from God, and especially if they’re lacking good, real, valuable psychological support and emotional engagement in their life, they’ll crave a continual supply of it. And for that, they’ll keep returning to the source, who will not only provide them with more of it but also promise them better things to come once they’ve purged the world of what they hate.
I Will Make Room: A Revolutionary Guide to Optimism,, a zine by me.
positive affirmations i repeat to myself to reassure myself i’m worthy of care, i’m capable of caring for others, and through this care, revolution is possible. feel free to use them urself and offer these words to others. by caring for ourselves and each other, a sort of revolution has already begun.
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