Wednesday, August 27, 2025
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Rowling's crime? Have a nuanced view of transsexuals, and correctly noting that in some circumstances they infringe on the hard-won rights of women. She has never denied the humanity of trans people, nor has she advocated hatred. Her arguments have been calm, reasoned, and grounded in the language of women’s rights.
She has said or done nothing offensive. But the "progressive" community have declared her a transphobe, and the media is too lazy to deal with the nuance and merit of her position.
The only thing that makes her "disgraced" is that certain people declared her to be, and the repetition of the lie at one point in time became the accepted truth, a shorthand associated with her that is extremely difficult to break.
Sound familiar?
Israel acts morally against enemies that take advantage of that exact morality. It does more to minimize civilian casualties than any state in the history of war, yet it is vilified while the Islamist enemy, which has done more that any military force in history to put its own civilians in danger, escapes such scrutiny. Israel is labeled "genocidal" and "using starvation as a weapon of war," when all one needs to do is to read for five minutes to see that none of this is true.
But in the case of both Israel and Rowling, at one point something happens: the lies overtake the narrative.
Once a false framing takes hold, the burden of proof flips. The accused can no longer defend themselves against charges that were never true to begin with. Worse, even neutral or sympathetic observers unconsciously adopt the language, because the shorthand becomes journalistic muscle memory.
This is narrative capture: when repetition, not reality, determines reputation. It is a form of cancellation not through argument, but through branding and the Big Lie. And once it sets in, it requires extraordinary courage - and constant, conscious pushback - to undo.
Rowling and Israel remind us that reputations can be reshaped less by what one does than by how one is described. In a healthy culture, labels are earned through evidence. In a captured culture, labels are imposed by narrative convenience. The result is a distortion of public perception. In the case of a nation like Israel, it is a distortion with deadly consequences, not only for Israel but for Jews worldwide.
In a healthy world, fact checking and skepticism would be taught as normal high school subjects. Anyone can be manipulated but people can learn to resist it and think for themselves, rather than outsource their opinions to journalists or protesters.
Until we recognize and resist this mechanism, more individuals and more nations will find themselves condemned not for what they do, but for how they are framed.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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