Well, J.K. Rowling is back on Twitchy again. Hey, if she stops dropping truth bombs, we might cover her less. And frankly, as Twitter/X threads go, this goes beyond simply her excellent analysis but gets into how leftists use language for evil:
We're all used to the obfuscatory language gender activist medics and their cheerleader, insist upon. 'Gender affirming care/treatment' is so much nicer sounding than 'sterilisation, surgical mutilation and provision of toxic drugs to troubled minors'. 2/5
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 28, 2024
'Yes, some young people given irreversible surgeries and hormone regimes regret it. Yes, some have complex problems that transition doesn't fix and may worsen. But hey, they wanted it and were given it. That should be the new metric of success!' 4/5
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 28, 2024
I'm not sure I've ever read a better example of what Arendt described when analysing those determined not to break ranks, yet who felt the need to justify their participation in atrocities: 'self-deception, concealing a ruthless desire for conformity at any price.' 5/5
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 28, 2024
And if all you wanted was to see what Rowling said, then feel free to stop here. But if you want to see this author talk a little more about the issues she is raising, read on.
Hannah Arendt coined the phrase ‘the banality of evil’ while reporting on the trial of Adolf Eichman, a Nazi war criminal ultimately executed for his crimes by Israel. Yes, Israel strictly bans the death penalty—we can understand why a country founded significantly by holocaust survivors might have difficulty granting the state the power to kill a human being—but when they got their hands on an actual Nazi war criminal, they made an exception.
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In any case, Arendt coined the phrase when talking about how the Nazis would discuss the extermination of millions of Jews with all the excitement of a city counsel deciding where to fill in the potholes. Due to movies and other mediums, we have a picture of evil people as these cackling, maniacal figures.
But the truth is that evil is very often done by people who make the entire thing sound as exciting as doing your taxes. The danger this presents, then, is that because the evil seems so … ordinary, you might miss just how evil their conduct are.
So the lesson is to remember that evil can also be … well … boring. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a good movie villain, but always keep in the back of your mind that this is fantasy and not reality.
And, of course, we are all aware of how often people use terminology to obscure the truth. I can’t remember the last time anyone was fired and the company actually said they were ‘fired’—outside of Donald Trump’s catch phrase on The Apprentice. No, they were laid off, discharged, let go and so on. Our favorite is ‘separated from employment.’ Sometimes it is done to soften the blow on the person getting the bad end of it, but Rowling makes the point that this softening of language is also designed to keep the people doing evil acts from recognizing the evil they are doing. The language takes things out of ordinary morality because if you state it bluntly such as ‘sterilisation, surgical mutilation and provision of toxic drugs to troubled minors' well, you as a doctor might realize you’re doing something wrong.
They are mutilating children too young to consent, sterilizing them and then pretending that the fact that many of these children later regret this decision is not really proof that the procedure was a bad idea in the first place. They use language like this to try to talk themselves into doing these horrible things.
This isn’t the only way we think the left uses language. For instance, they are constantly changing the words used for common items and even people. To give a particularly stark example, one of the most insulting thing you could call a black person in the 1870’s was… African American. Yes, back then calling a black person 'African American' was seen as an attempt to make black people seem foreign, while today it is considered a respectful term. And then there is the weirdness of calling non-whites ‘people of color.’ That is considered a good term, but on the other hand, Benedict Cumberbatch got in trouble for talking about the need for diversity and referring to non-whites as ‘colored people.’
https://t.co/92cMfQLd8D
— Bex - they/them ☮️🏳️🌈 (@farnsoons) August 25, 2020
Granted he apologised for this but still, that kind of language hasn't been used for years and he should have known better, especially given what he was talking about.
Right so, ‘colored people’ bad, ‘people of color’ good, because reasons.
But in truth, we think the reason is revealed in this passage from that Time Magazine article:
An anti-racism charity, Show Racism The Red Card, told The Independent that while they applauded Cumberbatch for shining a spotlight on a a very important issue, he ‘also inadvertently highlighted the issue of appropriate terminology and the evolution of language.’ The charity said the term ‘colored’ is now ‘outdated and has the potential to cause offense.’
The writer Bonnie Greer said: ‘If he was 80, no one would have noticed. Under 60 — who says ‘coloured’ anymore? It indicates a mindset; a certain circle.’
See, we think these constant changes in language are often demanded as a way of in-group signaling. If you say, for instance, that a person is ‘unhoused’ instead of homeless or that a person is a ‘justice involved individual’ rather than an ex-con, you are telling everyone that you are paying close attention to the left’s latest nomenclature, thus signaling that you are a good leftist up on the latest leftist lingo. As Greer said ‘It indicates a mindset; a certain circle.’ (emphasis added).
But Rowling highlights another use of language: To get around the fact that transgender ideology is a massive deviation from previous societal norms. To paint a particularly stark example, California is on the vanguard of transitioning children, often taking custody away from a parent who objects to seeing their children mutilated. Meanwhile it is illegal for anyone to give a minor a tattoo in California, even with parental consent. Why? Because in every other context even California's politicians recognize that children cannot consent and therefore we don’t want any person to make a permanent and not strictly necessary change to their bodies that they might regret later.
Imagine that.
Or let’s take another example. This author remembers reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X and feeling bad for Mr. X when he discussed how, when he was younger, he was desperate to look more ‘white.’ In particular, X (then Malcolm Little) talked about ‘conking’ his hair, trying to make it straight and thus ‘whiter’ by putting some concoction of chemicals on his head that burned his scalp as he let the treatment set in. One memorable story is how once while he was going this, the water went out and he couldn’t wash it out. In desperation as the chemical burned his head, he used toilet water to wash the chemicals out, an ugly example of how he debased himself to seem ‘whiter’ when any rational person is thinking there was nothing wrong with his natural black hair in the first place—which was obviously the point Mr. X was making. Normally society sends the message that one should accept yourself as is, and not debase yourself trying to be something you aren’t.
Or consider this. In 2022, there were two different versions of Pinocchio released on streaming. The first was Disney’s awful live action remake of the cartoon from the 1940’s, using a combination of live action and CGI. The other is Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022), released on Netflix, which used stop-motion and it was wonderful. But both of them have a moment toward the end where Geppetto tells Pinocchio that he was wrong to suggest that he had to become a real boy to be valued. In other words, two movies released within the same year said that Pinocchio didn’t need to transition to being something he wasn’t—that he should accept himself the way he is. We don’t think they meant to send an anti-transgender message. We think they didn’t even connect those dots. We think they were simply reflecting the reality that in almost every other contexts, we teach people self-acceptance. Malcom X shouldn’t have scorched his head to look 'whiter.' Pinocchio was just fine as a magical doll.
And in the end, we think it is these kinds of inequalities that will eventually kill this movement. Transactivists (what this author jokingly calls transgender activists). Consider one last example: This author’s own post recently, repeating a hypothetical we might have shared with you before when responding to another Rowling post that we highlighted:
I always say this and transgender advocates have no good answer.
— (((Aaron Walker))) (@AaronWorthing) December 29, 2024
Imagine three white, able bodied men enter the same room at the same time.
The first is wearing bläckface, and claims he is transracial.
The second rolls in using a wheelchair. Remember I said they are all… https://t.co/MQBDthh6Ok
The cut off text reads:
The first is wearing bläckface, and claims he is transracial.
The second rolls in using a wheelchair. Remember I said they are all able-bodied. He claims he is transabled.
The last comes in wearing a dress, wig, so forth and so on to attempt to resemble a woman. He says he is transgender.
We all know that society would have a radically different reaction to the first two people compared to the third. But what is the logical difference that makes the first two socially unacceptable, but the third one acceptable?
They never have a good answer to that question
And yes, transracialism and transabledism is an actual thing. Look it up.
What we are getting at is how we treat transgenderism differently than these other philosophies, and it is that kind of inequality is why we think the tide is turning against this madness.
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