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Notes -
Harry Potter and the Vibe Shift
I actually was thinking about giving this topic a rest - it makes me feel like I'm being radicalized in slow motion - but...just when I thought I was out...some room for optimism: NY Times: In Defense of J.K. Rowling
To give a brief rundown of the situation:
NYTimes employees in conjunction with GLAAD released a letter putting pressure on the NYTimes for reporting in a "biased" fashion on trans issues recently and how it's being used by states to pass bills against gender medicine.
The NYT...actually shows some spine and refuses to bend, saying: “...But at the same time, we recognize that GLAAD’s advocacy mission and The Times’s journalistic mission are different.". Who would have thought that we'd get to the point where a basic recognition of the different role of activists and journalists would be noteworthy?
Apparently the NYT also posted an internal memo warning NYT staffers against public working with an activist organization against their own company stating that they: "will not tolerate, participation by Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums."
Then, we see what the bruhaha was likely about and what the open letter was trying to preempt: we get the above op-ed yesterday, basically defending JKR against the criticism she faced - ahead of the release of The Witch Trials of JKR by Megan Phelps-Roper, an escapee from the Westboro Baptist Church.
In essence: the same strategy we've seen from wreckers and ideologues time after time played out, but the Times did the bare minimum and acted like adults. At a certain point - just as with wreckers like Felicia Somnez at WaPo - I suppose it simply became too much for too little gain. The constant fitna was fine when it was in service of popular causes with little cost, but now seems to be in service of a cause that is dragging many people down. So why not put out the op-ed, while also keeping the workers in line?
Said article's content?
...
Nothing here is new to anyone who spent any time checking on the actual words of JKR and her defenders. But it is interesting to see the NYT posting about it and fighting the pushback, especially as it follows the incredible failure of the Hogwarts: Legacy boycott and Sturgeon's fall from power*
The backlash can no longer be written off as the cultural peculiarity of "TERF Island" - a desperate rhetorical ploy used by activists to distract the blind. It's not just a European thing. It's everywhere.
My personal take was that transactivism was just the next, inevitable step in the march to atomization in liberalism. And it probably still is. But there may be bridges too far, even for liberals. I hope.
A good note to leave the trans issue on for at least a while and reset my brain before I become some sort of schizo, hyper-reactionary monarchist or something. Maybe go play a few new games...
* It's been a great month for her, after years of shit, I have to say.
I understand the allure of seeing a watershed moment in this decision. We may well be at the point where the trans acceptance movement, at least its more rabid factions, begins to crumble. It won't even be very surprising: I've always felt that it's a tangent in the general scheme of the culture war, and there's too much autism and honest-to-God male aggression in those conquests perpetrated by trans warriors to truly align with the all-dissolving feminine logos of Cybele. But: whatever happens next, the NYT is probably not acting because of those object level disagreements.
This is not so much evidence in favor of wokeism having peaked as it's evidence against the theory of Cathedral.
The latter predicts that the media is essentially directed by its middle management, not its owners; an intelligentsia network that emergently develops and changes consensus. The standard theory of power (our banned friend would say, Powerology) predicts that the NYT is a family business of Sulzbergers and a vessel for their long-term agenda; and, like any serious dynasty or a crime family, they will not suffer to have their turf usurped by their own minions. It is well known that they do not appreciate grassroots initiatives on their ship:
(I'm becoming like Sailer with those repetitive references, aren't I? But they are worth reiterating).
Rowling is barely a factor of consideration. What those journalists demanded, in essence, was for the NYT leadership to acquiesce to a character assassination of a high-profile figure they personally dislike but who is not on the kill list. Letting them run with it would be fomenting the impression of them being in control, which has a way of eventually becoming reality. If the impression that a bunch of radicals can get the NYT to publish whatever they want spreads in the relatively narrow world of journalism, they may overwhelm it, to the point the newspaper would have trouble finding high-skilled employees who'll tolerate following orders. Better nip it in the bud. I believe this has happened a few times already, when the NYT upper brass noticed some journalist getting ahead of him/herself.
A good theory, but then, wasn't that whole "Send In The Troops" drama more of a bottom-up revolt against an editor? Sure, not the same thing as being against the head staff or owners, but why let that one bout of revolutionary energy through?
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Eh, I would disagree with that "three logoi" formulation; Cybele is not about logos at all. She's either ethos (the appeal to the authority, as Great Nature, the Mother) or pathos (the suffering of such as Attis). More pathos, I would say, as it is mystical and ecstatic ritual in the vein of Dionysius.
Can you summarize that whole link? It's a lot to digest and I already don't think I have the needed context for it. I'm vaguely aware of the "Apollo/Dionysus" dichotomy (or, at least, I saw a Ratsphere Tumblr post once saying that, actually, Edge is Dionysian and Whimsy is Apollonian--or was it the other way around?), but that's about it.
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It's evidence that for-profit media occasionally acts in its financial interests, which should not be that surprising.
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