A Critique of ContraPoints’ “J.K. Rowling” Video
I spent Christmas weekend alone (boo) and got super into BreadTube during this time, which is, if you’re not online enough to already know, the “Left”-wing, theory side of YouTube where a bunch of unreasonably hot people explain contemporary political discourse and historical leftist theory in really cool ways. This is a very skeletal summary of what it is, but you get the gist. And also, by “super into”, I mean I watched about 4 videos, which is quite a lot given that their average length is about an hour long.
Of the videos I watched, one of them was the YouTuber ContraPoints’ video on the famed novelist and overall awful person and transphobe J.K. Rowling. ContraPoints (or Natalie) extends Rowling with extraordinary amounts of sympathy and understanding, which is a feat I could not have personally managed (and will not attempt to), and one I applaud considerably. I don’t want to put words in Natalie’s mouth and describe her decision to do this as “taking on a burden”, but I will say that I think it does take on a responsibility that she didn’t have to take on, and allows people insight into really incisive, careful, thoughtful, detailed critique, which is extremely lacking when dealing with bigotry — the agents of bigotry are not seen as worthy of interpretation, analysis, or thoughtful engagement, which, while I agree is not a burden that those from a marginalised group should have to take on, it also is worth being said that this sort of engagement is absolutely useful.
Because of Natalie’s use of this strategy and her decision to extend inordinate amounts of sympathy to someone who has made public statements and pushed her political capital towards disenfranchising and oppressing people like herself, I expected a lot of criticism in the comments — not least because the restrained, thoughtful, and not quite humble but certainly not arrogant tone, I expected, would create conversation, and spark the same sort of engagement in discussion that Natalie was creating with the video itself. This is an attempt to build on this discussion by offering some thoughts on the video, while maintaining that it was a beautifully done piece of media and had me laughing in splits while teaching me a great deal. I am grateful for it.
1. The false equivalence
In one section of the video, Natalie relays her own experience of being “cancelled” on Twitter and compares it to J.K. Rowling’s experience. The first thing here, I think, is that there isn’t quite a comparison between the two. Natalie herself admits that Rowling has far more power and influence than she herself does, which is what, in my opinion, what separates the two things. It appears that Natalie’s mission to offer extraordinary amounts of sympathy to a dangerous person have extended to a point where this sympathy is being confused with empathy, or a similarity of experiences. Rowling’s power and influence (and her financial capital) are exponentially greater than Natalie’s. Rowling is already rich and famous outside of the internet and Natalie, while famous, is actively still relying on the internet for her income.
“Cancelling” the two is not equivalent, in my opinion, and creating such an equivalence appears to be a disingenuous tactic of extending understanding to someone who would never do the same, and to whom extending this understanding might even be harmful — at the very least it would be difficult to witness for some of her viewers, which I think is a fair assumption. At worst, it would contribute to a culture of implying that bigots are inherently worthy of our understanding, and that the experiences of people far more powerful than us are in some way relatable, and that we should do our bit to make those experiences more comfortable, which, I think, is at its best a case of misplacing responsibility.
2. The use of the term “abuse”
Natalie, when giving examples of the types of tweets that Rowling was “attacked” with, describes those tweets as “abusive”. She asserts that abuse does not always come from a position of power, and indicts the “mob” (her word” of trans people online for having perpetuated it. I have a couple of issues with this. Firstly, the statement that abuse does not always come from a position of power was a welcome insight for me, and got me to challenge my own understanding of abuse, which I had previously taken point-blank as a relationship of exploited power. While this was welcome, I think, when creating a moral value judgement regarding who is perpetuating abuse, I think she has the responsibility to draw it out a bit further and engage in it in greater detail, because asserting that someone is abusive while challenging the common perception of what abuse is constitutes making a judgement of character on someone, and while the whole theme of the video is the extension of sympathy and understanding, this sort of accusation (and it is an accusation) going underdeveloped didn’t sit right with me.
Secondly, she describes the “attack” as having come from a “mob”. It in fact came from a group of disenfranchised, frustrated, (rightfully) angry people who were facing an actual, tangible attack on their dignity, freedoms, and personhood. To describe this group of people as a “mob”, I think, is a loaded choice that once again went under-analysed. I’m thinking of PhilosophyTube’s video on Violence & Protest, in which Abigail Thorne describes the difference of consequence that comes when you describe a group of people as a “mob” — you assign them violent intentions, and they are essentially stripped of the right to defend themselves.
Finally, Natalie chooses to address only the trans people in the so-called “mob”, when in fact cis people were also front and centre in the “cancellation” of Rowling. This might be a conscious choice on her part, or might be an oversight, but it’s quite an egregious one when she is simultaneously villainizing this group of people and then implying that every single one of them was a trans person. At the very least, it’s inaccurate.
3. The “hugely sympathetic” friends of Rowling
Natalie spends a great portion of the video talking about Rowling’s recent extremely transphobic essay, breaking it down insightfully and carefully. She points out how Rowling asserts that she has spoken privately to many gender critical women who are “hugely sympathetic” to the experiences of trans people, while only naming two such women. Natalie then breaks down how these particular women are demonstrably not “hugely sympathetic” to trans people as Rowling has described.
This, I think, leaves the glaring possibility open that the other mythologised swathes of gender critical might in fact be “hugely sympathetic” to trans people, and extends to them a benefit of the doubt that I firstly do not think they deserve, and secondly think is quite harmful. Even if you assume that everyone is “hugely sympathetic” until proven otherwise, a close association with Rowling and the descriptor “gender critical” is quite glaring proof in my opinion. I understand that Natalie doesn’t want to create guilt by association, but taking down two women and claiming that that reaches the core of Rowling’s argument or assertion is again, I think, a bit disingenuous, and leaves the actually dangerous part of her statement floating around, unchallenged.
I really enjoyed the video and will be watching many many more on ContraPoints’ channel, and while video-making is not my forte, I hope I can respond to more of them in this way.
