The nerve of Jon Ronson

[RoyalCorgi]

Jon Ronson has an interview in the Sunday Times (sorry, no share token) about why the culture wars will soon burn out:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jon-ronson-interview-the-culture-wars-will-burn-out-soon-8gsj9wrj0

This is a man who failed to stand up for women who were being bullied on social media and being banned from Twitter for standing up for women's rights. He fell out with Graham Linehan over Linehan's support for women's sex-based rights. Far from being a dispassionate observer of the culture wars, he has actively chosen a side - the wrong side.

This is what glinner has written about his conversation with Ronson - which I suspect Ronson initiated hoping to leverage it for his new Radio 4 series mentioned in the above Sunday Times article:

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/so-what-if-youve-been-publically

I did roll my eyes at that article. But I will be listening the programme to come to an informed view:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011cpr/episodes/guide

I'll be surprised that when he moves onto the "culture war" of gender identity, he acknowledges that there is real substance to the objection to the dismantling of safeguarding and that it isn't, paraphrasing President Trump, simply a situation in which there are very bad people on both sides.

Can anyone tell me which bit of the paper this is in? I have today’s Sunday Times but I can’t find it!

You should hear him whinge and moan in the first programme about his ID being stolen for a fake Twitter account. Yet the identity of womenkind being stolen? Nada. He's a prick.

From Oct 2020 ....

"Jon Ronson a number of years ago when he criticised me for sharing a photograph of a hulking 53-year-old trans-identified man sharing a sports team with some college girls. Jon was more outraged by my sharing the photograph than he was concerned for the girls in it"

"He was still more concerned about the bloke on the basketball team than he was about any of the girls"

"a career built on one book in particular ‘So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed’, which makes his silence on the shaming of JK Rowling, myself and others, particularly craven."

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/so-what-if-youve-been-publically

Bah, I included an archive link forgetting they aren't allowed on MN. I must stop doing that.

The article on Ronson is an interview and on the website it's in the News section.

Really disappointed in him. I've bought all his books. Not a fan anymore.

I got bored halfway through.

Was there any point to the article other than (self) promoting Ronson as the sane, calm, cool voice of reason unlike , well, anyone else who isn't Ronson?

Was there any point to the article other than (self) promoting Ronson as the sane, calm, cool voice of reason unlike , well, anyone else who isn't Ronson?

No, I don't think so. I'd stake a large sum on Ronson's coverage of the trans debate in his new R4 programme focusing on hysterical feminists getting irrationally angry. The words "extremists on both side" and "toxic debate" will almost certainly be uttered.

Wow, that big girl in the photo! (and the looks on the faces of the rest of the team) How can anyone think that's OK!?...

Share token:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/918ca412-3e63-11ec-99b0-4bd8727a059f?shareToken=0cf36c422a899381909da1fb815e8a32

thanks for starting this thread OP. he has got a bloody nerve.

"The journalist who saw cancel culture coming before anyone else"

UGH! self congratulatory man. He doesn't care about the cancelled so he's not an expert on cancel culture

Ah found it, it’s at the end of the News Review bit .

I just skimmed it, irritated. I used to love him!

Is that true what Graeme L says - that he didn’t weigh in on the JK stuff?! Says a lot given that he was all over anyone else being social media shamed.

@NoThankYouSaurus

You should hear him whinge and moan in the first programme about his ID being stolen for a fake Twitter account. Yet the identity of womenkind being stolen? Nada. He's a prick.

Yup

Ronson is being interviewed on the Today programme on Radio 4 and his central thesis is that a culture war is the battle of dominance between conflicting values.

The way he's talking about this, it seems that the problem is silly people who've got the wrong end of the stick and the solution is nice people being nice.

Things Fell Apart starts tomorrow at 9am on Radio 4.

I had some hopes that he might start to understand the pov of the womem who are objecting to self id etc. At about the time it all blew up with GL he got into a twitter convo with Gia Milinivich. They obviously knew each other personally and he was saying it was odd to find himself in the other side from ppl who he knew and otherwise was on the same page as. They took it off twitter so I hoped he would at least understand & not dismiss, if not agree. The weird thing about this 'debate' though is it seems almost impossible for people to understand the other person's perspective & disagree on the issue. There is only agree & understand fully, or disagree & dismiss as incomprehensible. Its extraordinary.

I haven't read his 2015 book but this series sounds interesting. I'll give it a go.

He is a prick, but there's clearly a lot of cognitive dissonance going on which he's resistant to anyone cutting through.

The problem with having a discussion is that it's not simply different perspectives on the same thing but it's two largely separate conversations, one based in material reality and the other based on self-perception, with the latter actively rejecting material reality. What is the "middle ground" is such a situation?

Agree, nauticant.

Yes, I think that's why people are so angry about the existence of people (mostly women) who put their liberal rationalist credentials in jeopardy by showing trans activism up for the misogynistic entitlement based on pseudoscience that it is.