Historically, burning of media has always been associated with people with conservative, limited views. Nazis have burned books, religious followers have burned rock and roll records, flags, effigies, but this is the first I've heard of people with liberal views symbolically destroying something they disagree with. I thought the whole point of freedom of speech was that we would agree to disagree on things and leave it at that.
> this is the first I've heard of people with liberal views symbolically destroying something they disagree with
What makes them liberal? They're trying to conserve a state of the world where transpeople are respected and shunning Rowling for transgressing their norms. A very conservative thing to do.
>They're trying to conserve a state of the world where transpeople are respected and shunning Rowling for transgressing their norms.
That state of the world doesn't really exist to the degree that it can be preserved, and the premise of normalizing trans identity is very much rooted in "liberal" ideology - to such a progressive degree that not even all liberals accept it. JK Rowlings' views in this regard are very much on the conservative side.
The crucial difference here is that they're burning their own books, not confiscating anyone else's. To that end, I don't see this as any limitation of Rowling's right to express herself (although the general level of outrage at her right now might cause publishers to think twice before signing a contract with her).
And liberals symbolically destroy stuff they don't like all the time. It isn't conservatives who are burning American flags at anti-war/cop protests.
I'm generally of the mind that as long as it's your property, you should be able to do what you want with it, but I've never seen the point to this kind of radical symbolism. A movement for social justice might start with a radical fringe, but its overall sustainability and success rely on convincing people who don't already agree with the cause.
And most attempts at social change, especially those regarding civil rights, already have to fight an uphill battle against accusations of dangerous radicality. Going Fahrenheit 451 on books you don't like is not going to help with that perception.
I mean, I just did a search for "burn Mein Kampf" and found videos of people doing just that - do you categorize them as all having conservative, limited views?
A check of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_book-burning_incidents says "On September 20, 2010 the Pentagon bought[271] and burned[272] 9,500 copies of Operation Dark Heart, nearly all the first run copies for supposedly containing classified information." - I don't think you can easily categorize that as conservative or liberal.
The same list says "During the Libyan Civil War, copies of Muammar Gaddafi's Green Book were burned by anti-Gaddafi demonstrators" - again, does that mark them as having conservative, limited views?
On the topic of "freedom of speech" - it's well established in the US that free speech includes the right to buy a US flag and burn it as form of protest (bearing in mind burn bans and other general restrictions on burning). Surely it's also free speech to buy your own copy of a book and set it on fire, yes?
If you want to buy and burn 10,000 copies of a book which is currently in print, where there's no cultural or historical destruction, and where you aren't taking the books from other people, then ... what exactly is the infringement of free speech? You might even get a wholesale discount from the publisher.
> On Wednesday night, students at Georgia Southern University (GSU) ripped and burned copies of a Latina author’s book about a woman of color navigating life at a predominately white university. The burning happened after Jennine Capó Crucet, author of Make Your Home Among Strangers and a professor at the University of Nebraska, spoke at the university about the book and her personal experiences. ... The university decided to relocate Crucet to a different hotel outside of town after a crowd began to form outside her original lodging.
Now ask why one story made it to HN and the other one didn't.
I don't agree with what Rowling believes and I have no problem with people deciding they don't want to give money to her. But the book burning—however symbolic it might be—is a really bad look; makes otherwise justifiable criticism of her look extreme and authoritarian.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 32.5 ms ] threadI don't know why we give attention to people that think burning books on social media is a good idea. Ignore these lunatics.+
What makes them liberal? They're trying to conserve a state of the world where transpeople are respected and shunning Rowling for transgressing their norms. A very conservative thing to do.
That state of the world doesn't really exist to the degree that it can be preserved, and the premise of normalizing trans identity is very much rooted in "liberal" ideology - to such a progressive degree that not even all liberals accept it. JK Rowlings' views in this regard are very much on the conservative side.
And liberals symbolically destroy stuff they don't like all the time. It isn't conservatives who are burning American flags at anti-war/cop protests.
I'm generally of the mind that as long as it's your property, you should be able to do what you want with it, but I've never seen the point to this kind of radical symbolism. A movement for social justice might start with a radical fringe, but its overall sustainability and success rely on convincing people who don't already agree with the cause.
And most attempts at social change, especially those regarding civil rights, already have to fight an uphill battle against accusations of dangerous radicality. Going Fahrenheit 451 on books you don't like is not going to help with that perception.
I mean, I just did a search for "burn Mein Kampf" and found videos of people doing just that - do you categorize them as all having conservative, limited views?
A check of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_book-burning_incidents says "On September 20, 2010 the Pentagon bought[271] and burned[272] 9,500 copies of Operation Dark Heart, nearly all the first run copies for supposedly containing classified information." - I don't think you can easily categorize that as conservative or liberal.
The same list says "During the Libyan Civil War, copies of Muammar Gaddafi's Green Book were burned by anti-Gaddafi demonstrators" - again, does that mark them as having conservative, limited views?
On the topic of "freedom of speech" - it's well established in the US that free speech includes the right to buy a US flag and burn it as form of protest (bearing in mind burn bans and other general restrictions on burning). Surely it's also free speech to buy your own copy of a book and set it on fire, yes?
If you want to buy and burn 10,000 copies of a book which is currently in print, where there's no cultural or historical destruction, and where you aren't taking the books from other people, then ... what exactly is the infringement of free speech? You might even get a wholesale discount from the publisher.
Personally, I see this as a man-bits-dog story. Book burning stories are not rare. I easily found https://time.com/5698850/jennine-crucet-book-burning-georgia... from last year:
> On Wednesday night, students at Georgia Southern University (GSU) ripped and burned copies of a Latina author’s book about a woman of color navigating life at a predominately white university. The burning happened after Jennine Capó Crucet, author of Make Your Home Among Strangers and a professor at the University of Nebraska, spoke at the university about the book and her personal experiences. ... The university decided to relocate Crucet to a different hotel outside of town after a crowd began to form outside her original lodging.
Now ask why one story made it to HN and the other one didn't.
I don't agree with what Rowling believes and I have no problem with people deciding they don't want to give money to her. But the book burning—however symbolic it might be—is a really bad look; makes otherwise justifiable criticism of her look extreme and authoritarian.