A couple of days ago, the internet bore witness to Elizabeth Gilbert cancelling publication of her forthcoming novel because, apparently, it had been mobbed with 1-star reviews on Goodreads by Ukrainian nationalists who insist that solidarity with Ukraine requires avoiding any engagement with Russia, even with the idea of Russia as depicted in a novel about anti-Soviet dissidents. This idea is insane on its face, but writers are panicky creatures, and if anything the kind of rare financial success that someone like Gilbert enjoys tends to make writers even more nervous: I have no doubt that she thinks of her success as a fragile thing, because every successful writer is friends with dozens of unsuccessful ones whose work they admire. Maybe she got spooked and decided to cancel, or maybe she and her publisher are just putting off the book for now and waiting until the storm passes; those pre-orders will still be there, after all. Whatever the reasoning might have been, the book is off for now.
Gilbert, being a writer in a certain kind of Nice Liberal mode, talked about not wanting to cause “harm” by releasing a book set in Russia, and that’s the point where the affair starts becoming contemptible. The Ukrainians have been invaded by an imperialist power: that is a fact. They deserve our solidarity and support in trying to fend off that invasion. But Nice Liberals in this country have been operating for years on a set of loosely-if-at-all related premised about what constitutes harm, our duty to avoid it, and the authority of lived experience. These are all good heuristic principles to keep in mind: we do harm people in ways that aren’t overt and it’s laudable to try in good faith to avoid that, and we should carve out distinct space for the knowledge of people who have direct experience of something that we’re studying or talking about. But these are heuristic principles, not logical ones: we can’t just outsource the work of judgment.
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