John Banville joins other high-profile signatories to reject ‘cancel culture’
IRISH novelist John Banville has joined JK Rowling and other high-profile figures in penning a letter voicing fears for free speech.
The open letter, which was published in New York’s ‘Harper’s Magazine’, said that recent protests for racial and social justice were a “needed reckoning” but decried what was described as the weakening of open debate in favour of “ideological conformity”.
Mr Banville and JK Rowling, along with Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood and British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie, were among some 150 highprofile writers, journalists and professors to sign the letter.
The letter comes in the wake of Ms Rowling – and other celebrities – falling victim to “cancel culture”.
This is where public figures face criticism for perceived acts of offence, and an attempt is made by those opposed to their views to remove them from their platform and so “cancel” their cultural influence.
The letter reads: “The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.
“While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty.”
Ms Rowling came in for intense public scrutiny after sharing her opinion on transgender issues. While likening hormone therapy and surgery for transgender people to “a new kind of conversion therapy”, she said that she is in no way transphobic. However, many opponents online called for her to be “cancelled”.
The Harry Potter author tweeted yesterday, saying that she was proud of the letter she had co-signed with fellow writers.
“I was very proud to sign this letter in defence of a foundational principle of a liberal society: open debate and freedom of thought and speech,” she wrote.
Mr Banville has previously spoken about the importance of integrity in writing.
In the Harper’s Magazine letter that he co-signed, the value of freedom of thought and speech is emphasised.
“We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters,” it reads. “But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought.”
The letter sparked debate online with many social media users agreeing with its content while others claimed that the signatories were seeking lost relevance.