When I can’t sleep, I like to listen to someone talking about an unimportant topic. That’s how I came across a video essay by Canadian YouTuber Dan Olson during a recent witching hour. It explains why the first one in almost three hours Fifty Shades of Greyfilm, from 2015, is, according to him, a lot better than the book of the same name, and also much better than the later two films.
A Lukewarm Defense is the name of the video, and it is a surprisingly entertaining story about the difficulties of translating this text into film. But what really stuck with me was Olson’s complaint that the Fifty Shadesbooks had received so much unjustified criticism. They would be too superficial, or too dirty because they appealed to middle-aged women. Mind you, Olson thinks Fifty Shades bad novels. But he is convinced that the writer deserves different criticism than she usually receives. That she doesn’t understand at all what BDSM really is, for example.
I see this often. Something or someone is subject to fierce criticism, but not the criticism you yourself had. ‘Yes, I also wanted to say something critical about this, but not like this.’
If I quickly make a list of people who often give me this feeling, I come up with the following women. Yes, I am also critical of Hillary Clinton, but not because she allegedly runs a pedophile ring or because she does not seem ‘warm’ enough. And yes, I also criticize Sigrid Kaag, or Caroline van der Plas, but not because they are said to be an ‘ice queen’ or like eccentric outfits.
Another textbook example of the phenomenon of ‘criticism, please – but not like that’ is of course Israel. That country is exposed to so much anti-Semitism that it is becoming more difficult to express much-needed criticism of the massacre in Gaza. But it also happens with Bill Gates and the WEF, with criticism of diversity training, criticism of NRC, criticism of Joe Biden, criticism of the EU. Each and every one of them has to endure a lot of commentary that sometimes not only misses the point, but is also downright malicious.
Such a situation is uncomfortable. Before you know it, you are defending something that you do not want to defend at all, but rather want to attack yourself. This is often the status quo. And then it gets really dangerous. It may not matter whether the debate is over Fifty Shades is being hijacked by prudish sexists, when it comes to the EU or Israel there is quite a bit at stake.
So, what to do? Do you just keep your criticism to yourself, because your object of disapproval is already receiving so many unfair blows? Because you don’t want to cause extra damage? Canadian left-wing intellectual Naomi Klein describes this dynamic in her book Doppelganger. In the middle of the corona pandemic, she temporarily suspended her own anti-capitalist criticism of Bill Gates, because she did not want to give anti-vaxers extra ammunition. Tactical self-censorship. But she regretted it afterwards.
Because at first glance it seems noble. Why not give some protection to shaky institutions or individuals who are targets of hate campaigns? But in the long run, these kind of gentle healers don’t do anyone any favors. The only way to avoid (dangerous) nonsense criticism calm is precisely by providing well-substantiated criticism yourself. According to Klein, her compatriots would not have been so susceptible to right-wing conspiracies if much more serious criticism had been leveled in the mainstream against, for example, the pharmaceutical industry.
Tactical silence creates a critical vacuum. That will be filled anyway – if not by you, then by anti-Semites, sexists and conspiracy theorists. Biting your tongue only makes you unbelievable. So when in doubt, remain sovereign, remain critical against the grain: before you know it, all the space has been taken up by people who think that the EU is an oikophobic project of local people, or that Hillary Clinton should be prosecuted because of her private e-mail. mail server. Or by the people who think that is the problem with Fifty Shades is that it is about women who love BDSM. The fact that Dan Olson did something in return may be inspiring.
Eva Peek is editor of NRC.