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Supporting Gaiman is supporting a rapist; it will negatively impact a couple people directly.
Supporting Rowling is much worse.
"Being a rapist is better than being a transphobe"
lemmy.ml everyone
such incredible insight, Rowling as an anti-trans activist is engaged in a genocidal movement which has of course a much larger scale of both number of people harmed and the severity of that harm
I hate Rowlings and her stupid and dangerous ideas, but I don't think it is genocide? Or is it some pro iseaeli stance that makes you say that?
I'm asking because I think it's important to not use genocide for eveything bad because it just waters down the words meaning, and in the end when there is a "real" genocide people will compare it to lesser evils.
Not saying you're wrong, but I would like to know the reason behind you saying it!
Genocide is technically a process and a sliding scale. It exists by degrees. It may seem hyperbolic to classify some actions as genocidal particularly when they are slow or the number of deaths do not seem absolute but it is still genocide.
What defines a genocide via international Convention is any of five acts intended to diminish the population of a cultural community. None of these have to be a totality of the group it can be only in part. The important thing is victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly. The five acts of genocide are :
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Killing members of the group
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Causing them serious bodily or mental harm
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Imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group
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Preventing births
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Forcibly transferring children out of the group
While a number of countries are full five for five in regards to trans people you only really need one to qualify. Things like the lack of reporting of Trans deaths, the removal of services needed by the group including medical care or critical mental health resources as is happening with the closure of LGBTQIA+ specific crisis support in the US, the labelling of Trans people as pedophiles or removal of children from the custody of supportive parents into state custody by labelling gender affirming attitudes as "child abuse", the forcing of trans people to endure security risks because of laws that often get them arrested for following them such as bathroom bills... All of these are genocidal measures they just aren't fast acting.
While it may seem like the point of the word is to be splashy and attention grabbing that need not be the point of it. The cultural expectations that genocide need only be wartime type measures of systematic elimination is a disservice to a lot of other genocides that are happening globally.
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It's just utilitarianism. Utilitarian generally seems to piss off a lot of lemmites though; I thought people would have a more negative reaction to it here.
(Btw I agree the number of people harmed is larger but I think it's debatable whether or not the (per-person) severity of the harm is larger.)
the anti-trans movement's achievements like taking away gender-affirming care have directly been shown to result in increased suicides, as far as I know Gaiman's actions have not directly killed anyone, while Rowling's advocacy does directly support a movement that results in deaths - I think the per-person severity of harm when a trans person self harms, attempts suicide, or succeeds in suicide (not to mention when anti-trans bigots rape, torture, and murder trans people) are all worse AFAIK
It's true that Gaiman's actions haven't directly killed anyone, but I'm not sure there are enough victims to definitively say that getting raped by Gaiman would cause less propensity for suicide than Rowling's advocacy against trans people. But... I suspect you are right.
yeah, I agree with you - the harm is severe, it's just with such a small population we can't show the concrete harm the way we can with a trans population where deaths are already happening (but that doesn't diminish the actual harm to Gaiman's victims, which I would say is extreme).
utilitarianism: for when you need the worst possible take delivered in the most insufferable manner using the least amount of critical faculty to answer the questions nobody asked.
All that true and it works ™
Now we just need people to listen to our hot takes and we're set.
funny thing is the last time i bothered thinking about utilitarianism was when i was reading about the zizians using it to justify murdering just whoever they pleased. i'm not convinced it works, it's a school of philosophy for stupid pedants who want to feel smart and justified in whatever they already think.
well the zizians were obviously insane, nobody likes them. The rationalists disowned them, just like they disowned FTX.
As a moral philosophy, I am not certain about utilitarianism. But outside of morality, if you're going to have preferences, you might as well do the math.
Does buying Gaiman's work after he's dead still benefit him or can I separate him from the art at that point? I don't wanna support him, but I do wanna read his work someday
pay someone to print you an "illegal" copy, or to get you a DRM-free e-book copy.
Or just buy his books used, he sees no money from that
Just pirate the books and read them now if you want to read them but don't want to give him money. Don't feel like you need to pass a purity test when it comes to your reading list, even more so when it comes to books he only co wrote like Good Omens.
I would say so, yes. The only issue then being, can you enjoy reading their work knowing what you know ?
Anecdotal, but I read the Mists of Avalon years ago and enjoyed it enough to want to read more. Then I found out about the author (and her husband) sexually abusing children, including her own daughter, and I absolutely cannot bring myself to read any more of her books.
Fuck abusers. I'm glad she's dead and I don't give two shits what she had to say about anything when she was alive.
i was unaware of any actual incidents with her until now. i read fall of atlantis as a kid and literally cried when it was over because i loved it so much. re-read it as an adult and the pedophile apologia is so blatant that i immediately stopped reading it and stopped mentioning her name at all.
I wonder if I am unusual in that I am able to read good books by bad people without feeling gross. (I'm not claiming that I would support a bad person, just that reading their books doesn't generally cause me particular anguish.) Is this something that is unusual about me, or do people just assume that it should be difficult to read books like that, but most people aren't bothered? Same with movies and music. Listening to Michael Jackson or David Bowie from my personal archives, I don't feel any particular difficulty despite the allegations against them.
Just dont buy it... his work is great but why give any more money to him OR his estate when there are way simoler options.
Sail the high seas.
Buying Gaiman's work after he's dead won't benefit him, but it could have the second-order effect of giving the impression to people that people broadly don't care about boycotting rapists. It's a lesser sin than supporting him now.