Since the beginning of the millennium, an identity ideology has been establishing itself in public opinion, and unfortunately also in a growing number of academic institutions, which in the name of an indiscriminate moral imperative of non-discrimination tends to replace the right of the individual with that of collective belonging to an ethnic, religious, sexual or gender group. By collectively placing the blame for social, racial or sexist discrimination not on personal responsibility but on the ethnic or sexual group to which an individual belongs, especially the original sin of white males, the so-called ideology Woke (i.e. "politically and socially vigilant") advocates, starting from today's moral evidence, the indexing and cancellation of the historical-artistic-cultural memory of past eras and personalities and the denial of freedom of speech (in addition to blackmail and heavy retaliation and sometimes up to physical violence and death threats) for those who do not subscribe to the thought Woke or does not approve of its implementation. All this at the expense of a pluralistic, tolerant society and free debate.
But the fact of having white skin and being born in a given country or continent can rationally mean ipso facto that you are guilty of racial discrimination or homophobia or Islamophobia? And isn't outlawing a skin color and sex group like white males a form of racism? The reduction of individuals (and of the fundamental value of personal responsibility) to their group betrays a neo-tribal ideology – pre-modern and pre-democratic – harbinger of serious conflicts, of a war between clans. To understand where this neo-tribal mentality leads, it is useful to cite some illuminating examples.
At the oath of US President Joe Biden, a young African-American poet, Amanda Gorman, had urged the United States to leave racism behind to embark on a common path together. After the street protests of the movement black lives matter and the clashes following the murder of the African American George Floyd by the police, with its poetic text launched an appeal to get out of the climate of civil war that is gripping America. Dutch publisher Meulenhoff asked writer Marieke Lucas Rijneveld to translate Amanda Gorman's verses. After an avalanche of hysterical criticism from activist Janice Deul and the movement Woke who deprecated the choice of a "non-black" translator ("How can a white, too white, transfer experiences that she has not lived into another language?"), the publisher and the Dutch poet gave in by giving up the translation. If logic were consistently applied woke a heterosexual could therefore not translate Proust or Verlaine and a non-Jewish male could not translate Anne Frank's testimony.
The case reveals a grimly irrational extremism, but what makes it serious is the fact that the violence of the criticisms (amplified by social media and by a press at the mercy of algorithms and the hunt for views) today pushes writers - and their editors - to self-censorship. A self-censorship in the service of the great approval that George Orwell had denounced in the preface to Farm of animals. The case of British writer JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, raises serious questions about the methods used to condemn those who do not share the thought Wokeespecially in the field of sexuality. You have had to suffer from LGTBQ activists unjustified accusations of trans-phobia, summary trials and heavy threats even on issues that should be considered debatable or subjected to free discussion. Her faults?
Having publicly stated that “when it comes to determining the legal status of gender, self-reporting gender identity is insufficient”; citing the claims of radical feminist and lesbian Magdalen Berns that she dared to say to a transgender woman “you are not a man”; having supported the right for women (biologically such) to have spaces dedicated only to them in reception centers for abused women or in prisons. Or respond to those who consider sex only a choice and not a reality that «if sex is not real, then there is no such thing as same-sex attraction either; if sex is not real, then the reality experienced globally by women is erased». "Saying these things is not hate - says Rowling - it's just telling the truth."
In a documented article that appeared in the New York Times which meticulously analyzes all of Rowling's statements, Pamela Paul affirms, in defense of Rowling (who has also received death threats), that «nothing the writer has said qualifies her as trans- phobic. She denies neither gender dysphoria (the suffering caused by feeling one's gender identity is different from one's sex), nor the transgender right to exist, to specific medical care and equal wages. There is no confirmation of her accusation of "endangering transgender people". A judgment that confirms that of the journalist EJ Rosetta, who had criticized her in the past: «I didn't find any trans-phobic message in what Rowling said. You're burning the wrong witch!"
This conclusion clearly clarifies a threat that must be taken seriously: the advent of a new inquisition. Nobody denies (not even - and she says it explicitly - JK Rowling) that transgender people are still sometimes the object of ridicule or discrimination, which must be fought and abolished. But this does not authorize ostracism and death threats against those who declare that they do not share, for example the opportunity to authorize minors to change their gender with a simple self-declaration of gender identity. An event that occurred at the University of Geneva last year is worrying: masked LGTBQ activists interrupted two conferences dedicated to this issue, even snatching the microphone from a speaker shouting "a non-transgender white woman has no right to speak on such an issue". The freedom of academic research is threatened by violent censorship. Not only in the United States but also in Switzerland.
Confirming the seriousness of these drifts for society and for university institutes (which form the future ruling class), in June 2020 one hundred and sixty academics and writers wrote a letter-manifesto "On justice and an open debate". The letter - signed by professors from MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale and other prestigious universities such as Francis Fukuyama or Noam Chomski, as well as by writers such as Salman Rushdie and JK Rowling herself or feminist activists such as Drucilla Cornell - is a call for mobilization in defense of freedom of speech and research, whose central points should be reproduced. “Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to calls for greater equality and inclusion in our society. But they have nonetheless intensified a new set of attitudes that tend to undermine our norms of open debate and tolerance by favoring ideological conformity. We need to oppose the climate of intolerance that has established itself everywhere. The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is becoming more restricted every day. Censorship is spreading even more widely in our culture: intolerance of opposing viewpoints, public pillory, ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex political issues into blinding moral certainties. Panicked institutional leaders are issuing hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of thoughtful reforms. Publishers are fired for licensing controversial pieces; the books are withdrawn for presumed inauthenticity; journalists are prohibited from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting literary works in class; a researcher can be fired for disseminating a peer-reviewed academic study. The result has been to constantly narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisals. We reject any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other. If we don't defend what our work depends on, we shouldn't expect the state to defend it for us." Words that sound like a call to mobilize against the threat of a tribalization of society and the advent of a new inquisition.
