Phillip Pullman

That harm can be done as much by too much attention to feelings and insufficient to systems, as by the reverse.

Exactly. Without an understanding of systems, you don't realise what a stultifying conformity your feelings can create...and how oppressive they become.

He is purposefully and very cynically covering his own back.

The man who came up with the Order of St Alexander knows exactly what totalitarian, dangerous, and extremist ideology is when he sees it.

Pullman is a complete romantic. To TRAs, we are square and they are hip.

Interesting. Yes, maybe a bit of a blind spot to pathological romanticism? That harm can be done as much by too much attention to feelings and insufficient to systems, as by the reverse.

All His Dark Materials baddies were very much classical in those terms, weren't they? He needs to stop to think what a romantic baddie would look like.

justspeculation that book sounds fascinating.

His Dark Materials is literally about how evil it is to freeze kids pre-puberty. What an absolute tool.

Me too Countess. It very much smacked of fear & cowardice. He knows what a woman is when he wants to be ridiculously over aggressive on twitter

I was quite shocked by the way he snapped so aggressively at Blablafishcakes when she had been perfectly polite to him.
Clearly he has an unpleasant side as well as being a coward.

I've found myself thinking more and more about Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" recently. He looks at the world in terms of a romantic understanding vs a classical one, by which he means seeing quality in impressions and appearance on the one side, and on the other seeing it in the underlying systems and principles behind the world. It has always struck me that GC types are much more classical, and the TRA types more romantic. Pullman is a complete romantic. To TRAs, we are square and they are hip.

I must re-read the book.

A lot of male public figures do this. They are too cowardly to step into the ring and pick a side. Too cowardly to properly engage with the issue, even though they must see the logical weakness of TRA arguments and the horrible abuse they level at women. Stephen King is the same. Seems to be a thing with male authors. They don't want to p*ss off their fellow men.

Ages before the JKR thing he compared puberty blockers to the oblation board in an interview with the guardian. He knows and agrees with her and doesn’t want to support her because he is a big cowardy custard.

It’s a shame because he has faced down religious fundamentalism before but as JKR observed : it takes courage to stand up to your enemies but even greater courage to stand up to your friends.

I still love his books though.

sorry OP but he's wekk known for being an utter bellend about this issue. Pretending he doesnt understand & lots of faux naievete about what happened to JKR. I must admit the explosion of anger against the tweeter who asked him to support JKR shows that he completely knows he's being seen.

He's such an arse. If he genuinely doesnt want to get involved then say nothing but he cant help but pontificate. He knows damn well what a woman is but he just cant bear to be seen as the bad guy