Harry Potter, JK Rowling & the Social Justice Generation | Skeptic TaraElla 2020

Welcome back to Skeptic TaraElla. Today's episode is basically a follow-up on my comments about the outrage over JK Rowling's alleged transphobia, which as I explained last time, isn't even true from what I see. But regardless of the validity of those claims, I want to talk about somthing else today: why there has been particular upset at Rowling's comments. After all, whether we like it or not, it's not like her opinions on this topic are not common out there in the general population.

It appears to me that Rowling is actually being held to a higher standard than most other people. I think it has to do with her being the writer of the Harry Potter series. I remember about two years ago, I read an article about Gen-Z or Zoomers being the 'social justice generation', and how Harry Potter's message about good vs evil was a core inspiration for this generation. Besides Gen-Z, I guess it also applies to younger Millennials, because from what I see, they have also been massive Potter fans since they were kids. Now, I am a bit too old to have read Harry Potter during my childhood, and I don't exactly know that experience. I guess reading Harry Potter for the first time when I was a teenager would be a different experience. So forgive me if I say something that you don't like. I don't mean to spoil anyone's childhood memories.

The Harry Potter universe is a typical fantasy universe in one major way: it has a clear demarcation between good and evil. You know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, perhaps with the rare exception of a few characters like Snape. The other thing about the Harry Potter universe is that it is, from what I see, quite political, which is unusual for a fantasy book series, especially one for kids. There are clear analogies to racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry. People have also talked about whether the four houses are sort of analogous to political parties in the real world with their distinct ideologies, something which I can certainly see myself. It is therefore likely that, at least for some people, the Harry Potter universe represents an idealized version of our own reality, where the good guys and bad guys are always easily identifiable, and the good guys always win. Rowling, being the author of all this, has to be one of the good guys, and because the good guys always agree in the Potterverse, this sort of creates a psychological expectation that Rowling has to agree with you the reader, in your view of social justice issues. Therefore, when Rowling turns out to not entirely agree with you, there is some cognitive dissonance.

The fact is, we don't live in the Potterverse, nor can such a world even exist. In the real world, there isn't a clear demarcation between the good guys and the bad guys, because things are so complex that even people with good intentions often disagree. In the real world, it is rare that a social conflict comes down to the good guys vs the bad guys. Much more often, it's actually people with good intentions disagreeing with how to approach a problem, because they have different prior knowledge and life experiences, and perhaps a different prioritization of various values. Furthermore, there are rarely only two sides or two standpoints to a real world conflict. Which is why the Harry Potter model simply can't be applied to real world social justice problems.

I guess this latest Rowling drama is a good reminder that the real world is nothing like the Potterverse. Still, some people who vehemently disagree with Rowling have called on people to drop Harry Potter and read another book. The trouble is, that is not a solution at all. From what I see, that is just escapism, the refusal to deal with the imperfections of the real world, and the desire to escape into another fantasy of clear-cut good vs evil, now that Harry Potter has been ruined for some of you. The problem with this attitude is, if we really want to help improve the world, we should leave all those good vs evil fantasies behind, because they not only fail to help us understand the real world, they can even hinder effective conversation, by encouraging us to imagine people who disagree with us as the bad guys. I mean, it's good to read a fantasy book about some good vs evil battle once in a while, but as mature adults dealing with real world problems, it's important to remind ourselves that reality simply isn't like that at all. So, my advice is, read Harry Potter, read some other books you like, but don't expect the real world to be anything like those books at all.