Originally Posted by
Hellion
In regard to cognitive dissonance, I was referring to people being incapable of defining a person by more than just one thing. To use the Rowling example again: are her opinions on the transgender debate unpopular/bad/harmful/etc? The consensus seems to be "yes." But should my feelings for and experience of the Harry Potter books be fundamentally changed because of the author's opinions? No. And anyone claiming otherwise needs to seek counseling, because that lack of cognitive dissonance is unhealthy. I read one report of a distressed fan retroactively damning the Potter books in the wake of Rowling's remarks about transfolk because the books themselves feature no trans characters and therefore the books promote trans-erasure. By that logic, most stories in existence practice trans-erasure and are harmful. It's nonsense.
The point I'm trying to make with the Trump comparison is that, now that Rowling has said some stuff that's upset people, there are those who will only ever see her as a TRANSPHOBE!!! and they'll trash her books and boycott any future books and continue to harass her on social media because Rowling will forever be defined by that one thing for them. I was comparing with Trump not to simply say she's better than Trump (which she certainly is), but to illustrate that, unlike Trump, Rowling also has a lot of redeeming qualities. Trump will only ever be defined negatively because, well, he has no redeemable qualities and he's never done any good for the world. But cancel culture treats both Trump and Rowling like they're equally bad, though they're not really on the same level.
Another example from popular culture is Mel Gibson. Most likely a racist, anti-Semite, alcoholic, and all-around unpleasant man in his personal life. He was blacklisted, people boycotted his films, etc. But I still enjoy the hell out of the silly romp that is Braveheart. Or Michael Crichton? Dude had some borderline racist views of the Japanese and is likely on the wrong side of the climate change debate. But he also gave us Jurassic Park, and Jurassic Park demands all our love. Cognitive dissonance is the ability to separate one's feelings for the artist from their feelings for the art.
And again, I'm all for calling people out on outrageous/negative/wrong opinions and beliefs, but there's got to be some limits/moderations/considerations involved. It's impossible for everyone to agree with everyone else about everything. We're never going to reach that level of conformity and I think anybody that wants to is crazy. And my problem with cancel culture is that it treats every offense, no matter how major or how minor, the same and it treats every offender, whether it's the president of the United States or a nobody on a comic book forums thread, the same. There needs to be distinctions.
I don't find these to be "questionable" criticisms of the Left (some of the reactions I've gotten here are proving my point). And cancel culture isn't solely a Left issue, either, but in the example of cancel culture going after Rowling, it seems to be driven primarily by the left. As a centrist, I don't consider myself to be magically better than either left or right. I have way more left-leaning views than I do right-leaning views. But most if not all of my views are moderate rather than extreme, hence, "centrist."