Guest post: If you require the affirmation of others to exist
Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on Grab that pen and sign.
Saw on a comment about Stephen King coming out in support of Rowling:
Eva Webb: Adorable Antifascist Pumpkin Queen
because agreeing to disagree means agreeing to not exist, and agreeing to let the other person write papers that effect policy that affects the lives and rights of the people she’s attacking. there is no agree to disagree when you’re lobbying to have someone’s legal rights taken away or restricted
You don’t have the right to force other people to see you the same way you see yourself, otherwise we’d all want most of the world to see us as ultra-rich billionaires, and the tax authorities to see us as ultra-poor non-profits. That people see you differently to how you see yourself isn’t some sort of phobia on their part, nor is it an unbearable trauma, it’s life.
If you require the affirmation of others to exist, you don’t actually exist. Reality is real whether we agree with it or not, if your existence is contingent on the words of JK Rowling, then you don’t actually exist, any more than Hagrid actually exists.
Rowling is a rich author in the UK. She is not directing UK policy, never mind global policy. Freedom of speech is a right, not all of the “rights” asserted by trans lobbyists actually qualify as such.
For example, there is no right to compete in sporting events under your preferred category. Otherwise the featherweight champion of the world in boxing, would be a mediocre heavyweight. A heavy person identifying as a light person would not be considered as having their existence or rights denied by boxing boards for this rule.
Now I’ve disagreed with some feminists on the issue of abuse shelters before. I think that there is a need for abused persons to have services geared towards them regardless of sex, that abused men do have a need for services directed towards them.
However, it doesn’t help abused men to close shelters that cater solely to women. The needs of the abused should take precedence over anybody’s feelings over the matter, and women who do not wish to face men after being abused, have the right to such safe places free of men even if you disagree with their personal feelings. “I’m a man and I would never…” doesn’t mean that she is in a state to face you, and her state of mind is the important thing in that situation.
People recovering from trauma should not be expected to be at their most emotionally stable, you don’t expect someone to run when their leg is broken, why do you expect the equivalent to people escaping abusive situations? There is a time and a place for discussing such issues, an abuse shelter is not one of them.
And what goes for men, goes for trans too. The answer to abuse suffered by trans individuals isn’t to shut down Women’s Place, it is to create shelters and services that cater to the needs of trans abuse sufferers. If you demand that shelters perform in a way that suits your politics rather than the needs of their residents, then you’re putting your politics ahead of the needs of abuse sufferers. Your rights do not trump the rights of those in need of such services.
It isn’t a denial of trans rights to state as such, anymore than it would be a denial of men’s rights to state as such.
Finally, if Rowling’s position on trans issues was simply ignored, then it would be largely unknown to the general public. Her advocacy only has the meaning it does now, because of the over-the-top reactions of ideologues who are chasing clicks and the latest sensation. It is as important as it is, mainly because of the rush to the virtue signal that has highlighted how lacking in virtue the signalers really are.
In the UK you have the Conservative Party in charge. In the US you have the Republican Party.
There are a lot of issues which should be taking precedence in both countries, and your press is arguing over the views of a children’s book author. There is this plague of highlighting the trivial to distract from the substantive, which only serves to undermine any real progress on any real issues.
I’ve never been interested in his books – wrong genre for me – but holy hell, that is a delicious bit of writing.
Whose books? Stephen King’s? It’s Bruce who said the thing though; it’s part of the post, not the comment by someone on a blog about King. Too many levels to keep track of perhaps. Anyway all the credit goes to Bruce – who is a journalist by the way.
And I agree about the quoted bit. That’s where the hair rose on the back of my neck a little & I thought “guest post.”
Is this the same Stephen King who tweeted “trans women are women” not long ago?
Oopsies, got that mixed up a bit. While looking over there, I saw a sidepanel story reminding me that Radcliffe is a nasty ingrate: Daniel Radcliffe Reportedly Open To Harry Potter Return, But Only If J.K. Rowling Isn’t Involved.
I saw that. The NERVE of that punk.
Yeah, I saw that too. As a writer, I am outraged that someone who merely acts the character that the writer took time to write and design thinks he can just say bye and the writer is gone.
I suspect he thinks of himself as Harry Potter now, and forgets that he didn’t create the character, he only acted the character someone else created. She did that work, long before he stepped before the camera. And whether I like Harry Potter or not (I have never been interested), I think this is just outrageous.
… you just MIGHT be a GOD (with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy.)
I’ve been thinking recently about the parallels between the very touchy nature of the transgender and their supporters, and the very touchy nature of the Muslims and their supporters. Both groups seem to consider themselves vulnerable to harm, both view themselves as on the side of the Just and the Good, both seem preoccupied with defending Honor, and both have entwined their sense of self and identity with an explanatory narrative which doesn’t take kindly to scrutiny or criticism. The outrage seems all out of proportion to the offense. That may have something to do with the shaky nature of that explanatory narrative.
If Trans Women are gender-nonconforming men, that’s a perfectly fine reason for them to continue to live as they’re living now. If Allah does not exist, the stars still shine and lovers still kiss beneath them. A background explanation for a thing is not the thing itself. Somehow, like the touchy Muslims, TRAs seem to have run it all together.
If I recall correctly, Stephen King supported Rowling, she tweeted thanks, he tweeted TWAW, and she deleted her thanks tweet.
I think there should be room for people who insist TWAW to nonetheless support civil dialog on the issue, and thus support Rowling. I have not encountered many like that, though, and I have seen people attacked for suggesting such things. Dogma or else.
Ratcliffe is open to a Potter return as long as J.K. isn t involved? Now that is virtue signalling writ large. I really cannot see Rowling letting go of the Potter franchise any time soon and Ratcliffe knows that. There can be no Potter return without Rowling’s involvement, so why would he say something so utterly ridiculous. It sounds to me that he wants the Potter fans and trans (plus those all-important allies) to see him as martyring his future Potter career to the cause.
Also, and please correct me if I’m wrong here, I don’t think that Rowling has said whether or not she’s planning on writing any more Potter books, so Ratcliffe is effectively announcing that he will only take a part in a movie that isn’t being made, that’s based on a book that isn’t being written yet and may not be written at all, if the only person who can make it happen is not involved! Well, Hell! Some sacrifice, that.
Besides which, does he really think that there are no other actors who could play the part of an adult Harry? Fans of James Bond got used to seeing different actors playing their hero, I doubt that the majority of Potter fans, at least those not caught up in the current tut-fest, would really care who was behind the spectacles.
AoS, and not just Bond. How many Dr. Who’s were there?
True, but in Doctor Who the change of Doctors was explained within the story that each time the Doctor regenerated he (and at long last, she) got a new body and personality, whereas Bond was always supposed to be the same character even if the actors played him differently. The similarity between the Doctor and Bond was that the length of time any given actor got to play the role was largely dependant on their popularity with the audience.
It might be time to cast an adult as an adult Harry. It has surely been noted elsewhere that child actors frequently grow up to be small men, literally and metaphorically.
Radcliffe tries very hard to be a serious actor. Every time I see him in a movie I think, there’s little Harry Potter, trying very hard to be a serious actor. Too hard, perhaps; I don’t really enjoy watching him work so hard at it. I find Rupert Grint more enjoyable to watch as an actor. Perhaps he, at least, has accepted that the Harry Potter movies were the peak of his movie career, and it’s all downhill from there so he might as well have some fun.
I don’t imagine JK is much interested in making another Potter movie, but if she did it would be a fine idea to try a franchise reboot with new, full-size actors.
As for Doctor Who, I think the Doctors may have changed only when their popularity waned in the original series, but in the reboot Doctors seem to have left before the audience got tired of them (e.g. Eccleston), or in some cases overstayed their welcome (Capaldi).
@9 I was trying to figure out how to reconcile only women are women, with trans women are women, and found them to be in conflict. I wonder if Sephen King could tell us how he does that. I find cognitive dissonance to be an uncomfortable thing, but that may just be my neuroticism talking.
There is a pending Harry Potter film, the third and final film in the Fantastic Beasts trilogy, and I hope it gets made. The trilogy is set decades before the events of the main storyline, so there is no Harry Potter character in them. I think I read there was interest in making the play “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” into a movie; there is an older Harry Potter in the play.
I very much doubt Rowling would yield the rights to the characters to satisfy a whiny little pissant (oops, did I write that out loud?), so there are unlikely to be any films without her involvement.
Maybe one of the actors that played James Potter could fill the role. It’s really bizarre that Radcliffe would take the position he’s taking. He could be completely oblivious to what the trans cult stands for? Baffling.
Re: Dr. Who. Thanks for the information. I never watched the series, but was extremely aware of it, since it seems everyone else did (except my husband; he never watched it, either). I rarely watch TV, so didn’t know there was a difference there.
Perhaps a better example would be Batman, who changed actors several times with varying levels of success.
As it happens, beyond a couple of the Jon Pertwee episodes I haven’t watched Doctor Who either. It’s only because I happened to see the Pertwee-to-Tom Baker episode that I knew about the regeneration. I didn’t know until much later that Pertwee had been the third Doctor. I do know that Sylvester McCoy and Peter Davidson are touted as the worst of the Doctors, and the only reason I can name all of the Doctor actors post-Pertwee is that each change has been covered by the media as though it was actually important news.
The same goes for the Potter movies. I’ve only ever seen the trailers advertising them. The only thing I’ve seen starring Radcliffe is a gothic horror-type movie, The Woman in Black, and in my opinion his distinct lack of acting ability (Keanu Reeves is positively Olivier-esque by comparison) made a potentially decent story feel like the cinematic equivalent of watching very slow-drying paint dry.
Shorter version: I don’t think that Rowling will lose any sleep at the thought of a Radcliffe-free Potter-as-an-adult movie*.
*clumsy phrasing but ‘adult Potter movie’ is too open to misinterpretation.
Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson are average actors who struck lucky with Potter. They’re not bad in the non Harry Potter things I’ve seen them in, but neither of them are stellar. They are both big names, so can get the parts.
“You don’t have the right to force other people to see you the same way you see yourself, otherwise we’d all want most of the world to see us as ultra-rich billionaires, and the tax authorities to see us as ultra-poor non-profits. That people see you differently to how you see yourself isn’t some sort of phobia on their part, nor is it an unbearable trauma, it’s life.”
It’s about half of novels and satire and gossip, the fact of self-delusion among humankind, usually inflated about talent, humour, charm, prospects, or sometimes deflated, like the unconfident young woman who doubts her own perfectly adequate appearance. According to some psychologists, it’s a necessary trait, that we should have a slightly rosy halo around our motives and abilities, or else life would be more intolerable and depressing than it is.
I posted that story on Radcliffe on social media a few days ago. (Link in Holms’s comment, #5). A friend whose judgement I trust informed me that that site is unreliable, and I haven’t seen that particular story reported anywhere else.
Radcliffe is an ingrate and a virtue-signaller, but he probably didn’t say he wouldn’t participate in an HP film unless JKR wasn’t involved.
All props to Bruce Gorton.
And also to Sastra, #8.
1) “You don’t have the right to force other people to see you the same way you see yourself,”
I see myself as fully human. Some people say I’m not fully human because I’m disabled. Some people say I’m not fully human because I’m Jewish. I may not have the right to force others to see me as fully human, but I do have the right to criticize those who don’t.
2) “That people see you differently to how you see yourself isn’t some sort of phobia on their part, nor is it an unbearable trauma, it’s life.”
It is traumatic when people keep thinking of me as a useless eater and a parasite. That way led to T4 Aktion.
3) “If you require the affirmation of others to exist, you don’t actually exist.”
We Jews have needed the affirmation of others to keep existing. Does that mean we don’t actually exist?
4) “In the US you have the Republican Party. There are a lot of issues which should be taking precedence in both countries, and your press is arguing over the views of a children’s book author.”
Republican Senator Jeff Langkord prevented a vote on the Equality act. He quoted JK Rowling to argue against gay rights. If Republicans are using the views of the world’s most famous children’s book author to deny people rights, then arguing over those views is not trivial.
Sam240
Point 1 – Yes but the issue isn’t forcing people to see you as you see yourself, it’s forbidding them to mistreat you as a consequence of how they see you.
Persuading people not to persecute others on grounds of sex or race or disability and the like does involve persuading them that none of those attributes is a reason to persecute you, but that’s a different thing from trying to force people to agree that you’re something you’re not.
Point 2 – Of course it is, but the remedy is persuasion, not force. You can’t force people to think what you want them to think.
Point 3 – No, that’s not actually what Jews have needed. Murder is wrong, genocide is wrong; that doesn’t rest on affirmation of anyone’s identity.
Point 4 – If Republican Senator Jeff Lankford really did quote Rowling to argue against gay rights (Pink News is not a reliable source) then he’s confused. Rowling is not opposed to gay rights or trans rights.
What Lankford (not Langkord) said, according to this NBC News article:
It is not automatically wrong just because a Republican said it, nor is it wrong because Rowling said it. It is extremely deceitful to declare the statement wrong without actually revealing what was said.
The material quoted from Rowling is spot on. The statement from Lankford is perfectly reasonable, and I agree with it. The concerns of women are important and must be heard. The Equality Act bill as currently written does not do this. It is important to work together to achieve equality.
So, unless you think that the concerns of women are irrelevant and we should not work together to achieve equality, I cannot see what the problem is with this statement.
The more I think about it, the less sense Point 3 makes.
Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, all religious people deserve respect as humans and are entitled to same set of human rights as anyone else. They are entitled to believe as they wish and practice as they wish, so long as they don’t infringe on the rights of others.
Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, all religious people: none are entitled to demand that we all agree their religious beliefs are factually true. Indeed, they all disagree with each other on those points. They require no affirmation; they can go on believing what they want, and other people can criticize those beliefs, and they all just keep on existing. It is entirely possible that some of them will examine the criticism and jettison those beliefs, but that doesn’t make those apostates stop existing, they just think differently.
I know that, for some, the only allowed way to react to someone else’s “different” religion is acceptance rather than criticism, but that’s an infringement of freedom of thought. We can disagree with and criticize the views of other people; the other people still exist.
Affirmation, saying that other people are correct in their views, without necessarily thinking that’s true, is either acceptance or lying, neither of which should be required, It most certainly is not a requisite for existence.