The Spectator: How cancel culture is taking over the literary world

[SunsetBeetch]

www.standard.co.uk/culture/books/cancel-culture-authors-books-jk-rowling-b900277.html?amp

Good article.

"“The employees were encouraged to follow diversity and pro-trans initiatives. There was only one way we were supposed to think about these issues, but then JK Rowling, their most successful author, said what she said, so the management had to take a stand in favour of free speech and face down the younger staff. That’s when they realised these initiatives had gone too far in the first place, which a lot of employees felt, but no one was prepared to come out and say it.” "

Oh bloody hell at the typos in the title! @mnhq could you work your magic, please?

Publishing has been captured for some time, YA and children's publishing is the worst. Look at what happened to Rachel Rooney - she is endlessly publicly slandered by other authors looking to stay on the side of the righteous

Good article. The risk of not producing works of controversy means the reasons why people were offended by the work also goes away. I find Trump and Hitler horrendous, dangerous and vile humans. Yet, I'm glad we have access to Hitler's Mein Kampf. And I certainly hope there will be an annotated book of Trump's tweets, while simultaneously being cool with Twitter banning him in the middle of violent unrest. We need to have access to the works of people we disagree with.

You know it's bonkers out there when 30-year-olds experience angst for enjoying Harry Potter. I suggest they read books from Soviet era political refugees for some perspective.

Also, if employees in publishing are offended by JKRowling not towing the line on speech, it shows how embarrassingly little they've read. There's so much more currently out in print that would raise their sensitive eyebrows. I'd fire them for simply not having experience in the breadth and diversity of literature.

Also, if employees in publishing are offended by JKRowling not towing the line on speech, it shows how embarrassingly little they've read. There's so much more currently out in print that would raise their sensitive eyebrows. I'd fire them for simply not having experience in the breadth and diversity of literature.

Couldn't agree more. I find the incessant tweets claiming that seeing JK's books on shelves causes trans people harm truly eyebrow-raising. If I never read anything by people with different political or philosophical views in their personal lives, I can't think what I'd have been reading.

Over the years, I've read a lot of books where the author's personal opinions made their way into the text. It never occurred to me, for example, to stop reading the Narnia series by CS Lewis because he makes his views on vegetarianism clear in the opening chapters of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

In fact, imagine how it would have gone down in the 80s and 90s I had been that insecure in my opinions or if any child had said she wasn't going to read any books by people who ate meat, because it outraged her vegetarian principles? Parents and teachers wouldn't have had it for a second.

You know, I think I could do a bang-up job of wording this using 21st century vocabulary, and I wouldn't even be taking the piss. I'd just be expressing my beliefs and asking that they be treated with the same obsequiousness respect as other particular people's beliefs.

I thought that quote made a good point op. The employees had been trained that there was only one acceptable opinion on this, and to think otherwise was bigotry. So it shouldn't have surprised the publisher that the employees took a public dislike to jkr's opinion - they were following the training after all. If the company's corporate culture was to encourage the values of disagreeing well, respecting people and also respecting the right of others to hold views that you find horrible, (while not shoving your opinions down ppl's throats at work) the situation might not have arisen. The diversity & inclusion value they were encouraging worked against the freedom of belief and expression value that they should have been encouraging as a publisher.

I don't think it's so bad, or even a problem, for writers of adult fiction, especially women's fiction. I read a lot and there is no whiff of woke language in recently released books I've read. Women and men are named as such; babies are born as boys and girls. Women get pregnant, have miscarriages, die in childbirth. Girls and women have to look out for male sexual predators. I've never met a transwoman in the books I've read, and no doubt that will change one day and then we will have to change our language and watch our step.

I think it's mostly journalists, YA and children's writers, and writers of non-fiction that are affected.

I was once in a Facebook group of editors. Somebody posted a list of "old-fashioned" terms such as woman and man, male and female, and a corresponding list of terms everyone should replace these words with in future.

I responded with a comment saying that any editor who flagged my language in this way and demanded such changes would see themselves out the door in a wink. The comment was followed by a flood of angry faces and then I was booted from the site.

Can you just imagine future books; the titles alone:
Little Uterus-Havers
The Menstruator on the Train
Gone Vagina-Owner.

Not to mention the content, for example romance:

"They saw a uterus owner across the crowded ballroom. They strode purposefully through the throng and clasped them in their arms. They swooned in ecstasy and lifted their lips, ready for a passionate embrace. The penis-holder whispered in their ear: Your chest is so beautiful! You are the breeder of my dreams!"

"Breeder of my dreams." Omg I want to laugh out loud except that is might be the future.

I think it's mostly journalists, YA and children's writers, and writers of non-fiction that are affected.

That is my perception as a reader. It seems quite clear that publishers and editors are aware that crowbarring allegedly inclusive language into fiction aimed at adult women will only break reader immersion and hurt sales.

I think I can see the shadows of it creeping into adult SF&F because of the overlap with YA. It's quite interesting some times, if I have a week where I get to read a load of new releases one after the other. You sensitise yourself to commonalities in composition and see the new fashionable tropes developing.

"They saw a uterus owner across the crowded ballroom. They strode purposefully through the throng and clasped them in their arms. They swooned in ecstasy and lifted their lips, ready for a passionate embrace. The penis-holder whispered in their ear: Your chest is so beautiful! You are the breeder of my dreams!"

Thank you for this. I needed a good laugh.

I think I can see the shadows of it creeping into adult SF&F because of the overlap with YA. It's quite interesting some times, if I have a week where I get to read a load of new releases one after the other. You sensitise yourself to commonalities in composition and see the new fashionable tropes developing.

I don't read speculative fiction at all, so this cup has passed me by! I do read a lot of historical fiction with female protagonists, and that's a genre that definitely is not going to fall victim to wokeness. I think the (mostly female) readers of such books would rise up in collective outrage. They are very discerning and know exactly what they want. They just wouldn't buy the books. And publishing in the end is about sales; they give readers what they demand. So we're pretty safe in that corner.

It is absolutely creeping into adult SF&F as well as crime and women's (eh, uterus-owners'?) fiction. Smaller references rather than central characters, but it's there. (In itself this would not be a bad thing, but I know many of us know that this does tend to lead to the OTT language/ideology stuff.)