Philip Pullman

[Apileofballyhoo]

Don't know if people had seen this.

mobile.twitter.com/PhilipPullman/status/1271051409077743616

In context, his tweets to and about LGB Alliance are really pathetic. He genuinely seems like the kind of bloke who would be sweetness and light to your face and then call you names to others the minute you left the room, and do the same to everyone else, too.

The great Phillip Pullman, ladies and gentlemen! The guy everyone avoids at work because he's a backstabbing gossip!

He can't seem to make his mind up on anything. He changes his view constantly

From what he's written in that tweet and then this comment above, sounds like someone who's learning as they go along and there's nothing wrong with that

That tweet being the one on the first page, just seen there's some others linked since

https://excelpope.wordpress.com/2020/06/09/northerner-illuminates/amp/?twitterr_impression=true

This person's written him a nice little letter to explain it to him in nice clear words.

I'm particularly enjoying this analogy

This is a like a great white shark swimming up and asking for a bite of your ice-cream, and your concerns that you might lose a chunk of your arm in the process being reframed as you being too selfish to share your ’99.

I mean, I ca see someone finding certain aspects of this issue confusing or unclear. Unpicking the medical question is not necessarily simple, especially for someone from a non-medical, non-scientific background. And there is a lot of history to get through on it too.

But there are some elements I'd think he's be all over like white on rice. He's very much along the same lines as people like Stephen Fry, all that rationalist/positivist/New Atheist business, so I'd think he'd be awake to the question of the scientific meaning, reality, and significance of sex, and pick up on questions like why some things might be sex segregated rather than gender segregated, like sports. He should be sensitive to the essentialism question though to be fair a lot of people who should aren't.

But he seems all over.

He is afraid of the woke twitter mob so is keeping quiet. Fucking coward

I've enjoyed his books, despite the fact that I find him a very manipulative writer. I profoundly disagree with him on many things, mainly because he is good at setting up a straw man and then knocking it down. So this doesn't surprise me one bit.
Strangely, I find myself still able to read his books, and have never said or written anything abusive about or to him...

But goosefoot have you ever met a 'rationalist/positivist/New Atheist' who wasn't also completely brain washed about TG ideas? I don't think I ever have. Strange, really, when scepticism is their shtick.

@nauticant

It's instructive to read through the contrary responses to Pullman and compare them with the contrary responses to JKR:

"We think you've got this wrong" vs "Die you fucking hag CUNT".

I feel we have been here before. Does he do this often or was it someone else?

I find him disingenuous. I imagine he's one of the men who stacks the dishwasher badly so he doesn't get asked to do it again.

Philip Pullman wrote some really good books and then hit the big time with his dark materials and became a darling of the liberal lefty oxford lot who had an opinion on everything.

He wrote the Sally Lockhart books, he knows that this is all utter bollocks bit cannot bear to come out and say it and have to give back the woke cookies.

@MingeofDeath

He is afraid of the woke twitter mob so is keeping quiet. Fucking coward

Plausible.

Strange for someone lauded for his clear thinking over religion.

But there are some elements I'd think he's be all over like white on rice. He's very much along the same lines as people like Stephen Fry, all that rationalist/positivist/New Atheist business,

That reminds me. Fry hasn't said anything. Fry is very much of the view that TWAW but he's also a friend of JKR's (he read the Harry Potter audiobooks). So perhaps he's decided for once in his life that the wisest course is to keep schtum. Makes a change.

I think he's like Richard Dawkins. Prides himself on his rational mind and superior intellect, but refuses tp join the dots on this issue. See also the 'Bad Science' guy.

It blows my mind that rationalist atheists cannot see how trans ideology is a neo-religion.

How can they denigrate "I believe in the transsubstantiation" and "I am that I am", yet support and promote "I believe a male is a woman if s/he says s/he is" and "I am a woman because I say that I am"?

It also blows any respect I have for their (apparently!) rational, clear, 'thinking'.

But goosefoot have you ever met a 'rationalist/positivist/New Atheist' who wasn't also completely brain washed about TG ideas? I don't think I ever have. Strange, really, when scepticism is their shtick.

Yes, I know, it does seem to the the way of it.

My theory, which may be crackerjacks, is that it comes out of the inherent logical contradiction of that particular type of empiricism. Their idea, roughly, is that only things that can be shown to be materially true, usually through science or direct observation, should be believed. But of course you can't prove that fundamental premise through science or direct observation - you can only believe it based on intuition, or faith, or a best guess sort of approach. So the very basis of their system is a logical and practical contradiction. The cognitive act of hiding the faith based nature of their system from themselves creates a kind of replicating and invisible error in their reasoning, almost like a programming error or system virus.

I'm totally with you about the manipulative writing, btw, that's exactly what's wrong with it. The stories are usually enjoyable but the underlying structures are dishonest.

RoyalCorgi, Fry has changed from a sarcastically witty, intelligent comedian, into a misogynistic clever-dick who does not even hesitate before publicly displaying his dislike for women.

Rationalism is different than empiricism though. Especially that kind of strong empiricism.

I want to know what Ian McEwan thinks. If he's sitting this out or coming down on the side of TWAW I will be more disappointed than I can ever articulate.

I've never read Pullman. I find him very off putting. Smug and self satisifed. I like McEwan because his face alone tells you he's full of doubt. And that's how a writer should be. Full of doubt so they go find out stuff.

Pullman is a coward. This issue finds you out. Stay schtum by all means. I get that. I respect that. But go all, oh dear, oh dear, oh deary me, it's all too hard for me a mere man to possibly understand is just pathetic.

I'd love to know what John Gray thinks of all this. He's a philosopher (wrote Straw Dogs and Heresies) and has long been of the opinion that humanism is just a shoe-in for religion, that people just place faith in this idea of humans making progress. I suspect he would see through this ideology, but he wisely doesn't have a twitter account.

McEwan was roundly reprimanded over saying something about gender that outed him as old.

Gray seems to have kept pretty quiet about it. As a philosopher I'd say that has to be deliberate.

@Shedbuilder

Philip, the LGB Alliance is a group of ordinary lesbian, gay and bisexual people who feel they have been abandoned by Stonewall in its rush to adopt transgender ideology without consulting its core constituents.

Transgender ideology is homophobic. It says that a man with a penis can self-identify as a woman and then legitimately expect to have sex with lesbians — and that lesbians who say no are transphobic.

LGB people are united by their experience of homophobia. They have very little in common with Transgender people. Transgender people have exactly the same rights as you and me. That wasn't true for LGB people who for years couldn't marry and didn't have the right to be served in shops or accommodated in hotels. I urge you to read the relatively limited statements the LGB Alliance have issued and find a single thing that could be described as hate.

By agreeing with someone who's called them a hate group you've just slid over to the wrong side of history. I for one will never hear your name again without thinking, 'Ah, yes, Philip Pullman who said a group of lesbian, gay and bi people fighting homophobia was a hate group.'

How i wish Philip Pullman could read this. Here's a link to his website. He has a 'Contact me' invitation!

www.philip-pullman.com/contacts

Pullman makes me laugh. Fearlessly critical of organized religion but unable to apply any critical thinking whatsoever to an issue which really isn't that complicated at all (if you can overcome the social stigma of looking too closely at it).

Every male atheist I've ever known has had this same strange blind spot about patriarchy though. You often feel their hatred of gods is less about the oppression such institutions inculcate and more about their own arrogance. It's all a big game of "I'm cleverer than you" to a lot of them. I'm not surprised so many of these so-called rational men are silent on the issue.

Pullman's most famous work, the His Dark Materials series, is also being adapted for television as we speak. If I wanted to be kind to him, I might say he's afraid backlash against the author would damage the production. But in that case, stay silent. Don't prevaricate on the fence while you wait for the winning side to become clear, and don't smear an organization like the LGB Alliance which you clearly know fuck all about, and which is trying to do some good in the world.

I don’t think it’s remotely difficult for any moderately intelligent person to understand why TW are not W. I would also think that anyone who detests religion as much as Pullman claims to do would see through the dopey dogma immediately.
As an aside, though I really liked Northern Lights I found the following books tedious and pointlessly tendentious. And much as I admire Rowling as a person, I consider the HP books derivative, classist and dreadfully overwritten.

You don't really need to be fearless to criticise organised religion the way people like Pullman and Fry do. There isn't even much requirement to understand what it says, a lot of these guys don't seem interested in doing that work.