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About JKR outing herself as a TERF: it's not unexpected.

Harry Potter started as a mashup of two genres: the English boarding school novel, and magician school.

The former is … problematic. I mean, REALLY problematic, insofar as it enshrines the Arnold System.

/1
Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School from 1828-41, effectively designed the Victorian public school system, including the prefect system and organized sport: it trained the English male ruling class for 150 years.

/2
It's a system designed to churn out members of the House of Lords, Tory MPs, colonial governors, and army officers. It emphasizes hierarchy, social status, and entitlement: Boris Johnson is a not-atypical product.

/3
And all of Hogwarts (except the magic) is there in embryo.

The House system? Check. Prefects and hierarchical delegation of power among the pupils? Check. Eccentric and authoritarian Masters? Check.

The system exists to train its graduates to take power.

/4
Let's also factor in the brutalization boarding schools on the Arnold model inflict on their inmates: here's @GeorgeMonbiot reporting from the inside: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

… Now ask yourself what values the "Harry Potter" franchise's view of education privileges.

/5
For a related field, space opera, Michael Moorcock pointed out the reactionary conservativism underlying so much of the field in his essay "Starship Stormtroopers":anarchogeekreview.com/essay/starship…

… And I don't need to lecture you about H. P. Lovecraft's racism, do I?

/6
A writer's work often reveals their unacknowledged ideological leanings. (Not always: some authors can scrutinise stuff they hold no truck with honestly. More power them.)

And the "Harry Potter" universe rests on an uncritical acceptance of some very nasty assumptions.

/7
Privilege, and power, are accepted uncritically in Harry Potter: so is the relative dehumanization of Muggles and enslavement of non-human beings. Also the doctrine of discipline and punishment.

/8
… And the status of LGBT people in such an authoritarian, racist, imperialist hierarchy is *always* at the bottom, because by refusing to conform to their assigned gender roles, they threaten to undermine the system.

/9
Anyway, I think I'm done with this thread. (Apologies for accidentally tweeting @ someone who didn't need it, and then having to go back and delete/repost the second half of it.)

Why I'm not surprised JK Rowling is a TERF: the end.

/10
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Charlie Stross
@cstross
For non-British readers: what has happened in the UK since 2016—and the media aren't talking about—is that the Conservative Party, in a bid to staunch votes lost to the hard right, has been captured by the very hard right factions they tried to outflank. There was always a … /1
… hard-right racist/xenophobe element in the Tories, but Brexit was a wedge issue. Responding to insurgent parties on the right (BNP, UKIP, BXP), the Tories swung harder right, until political entrepreneurs like Boris Johnson seized control.

Current Tory leadership is … /2
Quite possibly to the right of the US Republican Party mainstream (albeit without the Dominionist Christian element).

The Conservative Party has an aging voting base and has almost completely written off the Millennial and Gen-X demographics (who skew left by 30% in polls). /3
Read 11 tweets
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Charlie Stross
@cstross
Dystopia is an emergent side-effect of kakistocracy.

(Actual COMPETENT tyranny is … rare … because tyranny is usually a product of incompetence; when it’s competent we tend to call it something else.)
Random supplementary thought: Saddam Hussein having about $200M in banknotes plastered into his bedroom walls in one of his palaces was a symptom of incompetence—he didn't have a clue what money was or how it worked. Mentality of a small town bank robber, not a head of state.
But he was totally capable of massacring entire ethnic groups who didn't support his regime, or personally executing rival party leaders.
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Charlie Stross
@cstross
If this were to follow the UK trend (spoiler: it won’t, not exactly, at any rate), the USA will be majority no religion in about 20-30 years. Which has big political implications for the christianist/dominionist right.
When religiosity declines, two things seem to happen: many secularized folks use a religion as an identity tag long before they openly identity as no religion; secondly, at a certain point, non-believers stop pretending. Result is an abrupt collapse in religion’s credibility.
Examples: maybe Ireland since 1990, definitely Scotland in 21st century (Rose to majority no religion from the ~20% level in under 20 years, per social attitudes surveys).
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Related threads

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Simon Kleef 🕎
@stage_365
The Great Harry #Potter #Hoax 1/14

Nigel Newton's mother was allegedly named Anne St. Aubyn. No doubt you will say, “What?” Who is Nigel Newton? He is the founder of Bloomsbury Publishing, the publisher of J. K. Rowling

nytimes.com/2008/02/18/us/…
The Great Harry #Potter #Hoax 2/14

Bloomsbury Publishing has a relatively small author list, but we find a George Hoare on it
bloomsbury.com/us/an-introduc…
The Great Harry #Potter #Hoax 3/14

Rowling is supposedly reconciling with her father. Notice how old she is in the article: 47
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2…
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CNN International
@cnni
Luk Delft is a convicted pedophile. He’s also a Catholic priest. But he hasn’t been defrocked. Instead, he was appointed director of a charity that works directly with vulnerable children and families. cnn.it/34cboPe
The Salesians -- Delft's religious order specifically devoted to protecting children -- knew about his offenses. For years, they covered up his abuse, moving him from post to post: cnn.it/34cboPe
March 2001: Delft confessed to sexually assaulting two boys at a boarding school in Belgium. He was moved to another school and not reported to police.
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Aboud Dandachi
@abouddandachi
As anyone will know, I’m not a fan of Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib. Many of my newer followers will have first noticed me due to a Tweet or two I had addressed to them.

In response to one of my Tweets, I got this response

/1
Now, the second part of this Tweet is actually something worth addressing, the accusation of being a self hating Muslim.

A bit about my background. I did my highschool in Saudi Arabia, receiving a strict Wahabi education. I've been on the Hajj twice, and Umra many times /2
But I was never religious. For too many reasons to lay out here, I was never an observant Muslim, but I never rejected my Muslim identity. To me being a Muslim was always more cultural than religious. Not for a moment did I ever think to leave Islam /3
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Post-Culture Review
@PostCultRev
"Popular media should be taken seriously as art, it's just as vital and meaningful as any classic work"
"Okay. Super-hero movies are mostly male power fantasies that yearn for a world of total moral clarity that can only be achieved through a kind of benign fascism"
"Please stop"
"The Harry Potter stories are primarily inspired by a tradition of English school-days tales, and despite some superficial updates has recreated those stories' assumptions about class and privilege completely"
"Um, no"
"Star Trek is the bedtime story of a colonial empire"
"No it isn't"
"In Star Wars the rebels will never have more than temporary victory because the responsibility and moral compromise of true power would tarnish as fantasy of righteousness"
"I will kill you with fists"
Read 6 tweets
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Lilah Sturges
@lilah_sturges
Okay, here are some actual writing tips:

1. Write whatever you want and don't write what you don't want.

When you sit down to write something, feel free to ignore absolutely every rule about writing you have ever learned. It's a first draft; fuck it! You can always fix it...
... in the editing stage. Some of my best writing has started this way. When you get some crazy idea just run with it and see what happens, even if it seems stupid or impractical. At the very least you'll learn something and you can always trash it if it doesn't work.
As to the not writing what you don't want, there are two parts to this. Sometimes you feel like there's something you should do for the sake of form, like revealing the killer in a murder mystery. But what if you don't feel like it?... Then don't! It might suck but maybe not!
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