J.K. Rowling & The Cost of Speaking Freely - Warren Smith
Chris Williamson (host), Warren Smith (guest)
In this episode of Modern Wisdom, featuring Chris Williamson and Warren Smith, J.K. Rowling & The Cost of Speaking Freely - Warren Smith explores warren Smith on Rowling, Free Speech, and Rising Political Violence Chris Williamson and Warren Smith discuss J.K. Rowling’s controversial status, Emma Watson’s perceived backtracking, and Smith’s own firing after defending Rowling in a classroom exchange that went viral. Smith outlines how that incident reshaped his life and career, and shares why he views Rowling’s position as mainstream and rooted in common sense. The conversation broadens into concerns about free speech on campuses, growing student support for political violence, and how postmodern ideas erode shared standards of truth and acceptable behavior. They close by reflecting on dehumanization of public figures, the fragility of civil discourse, and the uncertain future of universities and political culture.
Warren Smith on Rowling, Free Speech, and Rising Political Violence
Chris Williamson and Warren Smith discuss J.K. Rowling’s controversial status, Emma Watson’s perceived backtracking, and Smith’s own firing after defending Rowling in a classroom exchange that went viral. Smith outlines how that incident reshaped his life and career, and shares why he views Rowling’s position as mainstream and rooted in common sense. The conversation broadens into concerns about free speech on campuses, growing student support for political violence, and how postmodern ideas erode shared standards of truth and acceptable behavior. They close by reflecting on dehumanization of public figures, the fragility of civil discourse, and the uncertain future of universities and political culture.
Key Takeaways
Public principles are tested when cultural winds change.
Rowling’s consistency versus Emma Watson’s apparent softening highlights a key question: do people hold positions out of conviction, or only while they’re socially advantageous?
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Going viral can abruptly force a personal ‘fork in the road.’
Smith’s five-minute classroom conversation about Rowling seemed trivial until it went viral, leading to national TV, institutional backlash, and ultimately a new career path he felt compelled to pursue despite major risk.
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Campus norms are shifting toward justifying coercion against speech.
Survey data cited in the conversation show a sharp rise in students supporting violence or physical disruption to stop campus speakers, suggesting many no longer see conversation as the primary tool for resolving conflict.
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Suppressing conversations tends to intensify underlying problems.
Smith argues that when contentious topics (like gender or ideology) can’t be discussed openly, resentment and extremism grow underground, making eventual conflict more likely and more explosive.
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Postmodern skepticism of objective truth undermines shared standards.
He links current campus and cultural turmoil to postmodern ideas that treat all perspectives as equally valid and deny a ‘fabric of reality,’ making it harder to agree on what counts as correct or harmful behavior.
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Legal frameworks are a last-resort line between speech and harm.
Smith emphasizes that, amid subjective claims about ‘hate speech,’ clear legal boundaries—like prohibitions on direct incitement or defamation—are the most workable way to define when speech has gone too far.
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Dehumanizing prominent figures lowers inhibitions against cruelty and violence.
Williamson notes that once someone crosses a certain fame threshold, many stop seeing them as human and treat them as symbols, which normalizes extreme rhetoric and may blunt moral outrage at real-world attacks.
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Notable Quotes
“When conversations are not allowed to occur, it only makes the problem worse.”
— Warren Smith
“Her position, I think, is rather mainstream, conventional. It's not risqué in any way.”
— Warren Smith on J.K. Rowling
“We see the world through stories… conflict drives story. And we cannot separate the character from the story.”
— Warren Smith
“It doesn’t exactly fill me with hope that this is, although horrific and an atrocity, just another news story that the world continues spinning through.”
— Chris Williamson on political violence
“If I know one of your opinions, and from it I can accurately predict everything else that you believe, you’re probably not a serious thinker.”
— Chris Williamson
Questions Answered in This Episode
How should we evaluate whether someone like Emma Watson is genuinely reconsidering past positions versus simply following cultural trends?
Chris Williamson and Warren Smith discuss J. ...
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What institutional safeguards, if any, should universities adopt to meaningfully protect dissenting speech without enabling genuine harassment or incitement?
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To what extent is postmodern thinking on campus responsible for rising intolerance of opposing views, and how could that be empirically tested?
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How can individuals maintain nuanced, non-tribal political identities when both sides punish deviation from their preferred orthodoxy?
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What practical steps could media creators and platforms take to reduce the dehumanization of public figures without stifling criticism or satire?
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Transcript Preview
J.K. Rowling is back in the news. How do you feel about her recent debacle?
I can understand where she's coming from. I think it was effective, I don't see any problems with it. I can understand why she would say that. I would probably feel the same way if I were in her position, honestly.
Yeah, she's become a lightning rod. So for the people that didn't hear, uh, Emma Watson went on Jay Shetty's podcast, said some stuff, and it seems, at least from the outside, like she's starting to sort of row back some of the condemnation that's been there, because maybe it's not as sort of trendy as it used to be, and this is kind of the big complaint that everybody has. Do you actually stand on this principle or are you just blowing with the fucking wind? And, uh, I think J.K., in this big tweet that's had like 46 million impressions, which is th- that's enough, that's enough to get people to take notice. Uh, she, she literally says it, like basically, if it wasn't for the fact that she had to say that she loves and treasures me, uh, sh- J.K. wouldn't have piped up. But she is now beginning to detect this change maybe in the sort of cultural weathervane, uh, and, um... Yeah, dude, be careful what you say on the internet.
Yeah, I think she's just... Emma Watson's being opportunistic. It's interesting though that the tide is turning in that way, 'cause that's how you can tell that it really is, when people start to perform differently like that. And it's all for business interests, I think, probably. But J.K. Rowling, I mean, if it wasn't for J.K. Rowling, I wouldn't be talking to you right now either, so some of those things applied. I was, when I was reading through that tweet, 'cause J.K. Rowling messaged me in the wake of my firing, and that really meant a lot to me. I think authenticity is something that's really important to her. But yeah, she's a, she's a remarkable person to do that, to take the time to do that, so... I have a soft spot in my, in my heart for her. Always will.
Hmm. Why do you think she's such a lightning rod for this stuff? Like what's, what's uniquely interesting about her position?
Well, I think it's first and foremost that her work is the best-selling book in the world next to the Bible. It's, for millennials it's, it's our Star Wars, it's more than that, uh... So she created this... She became richer than the Queen off of fiction, um, so there's that. But, I mean, her position, I think, is rather mainstream, conventional. It's not risque in any way and I think that's why... That's one of the reasons I think it's become such a zeitgeist, 'cause people, when they listen to it, it's like this, this is very reasonable, it seems very logical. That's part of the reason why that video of me talking to the student did what it did, because it's just so common sense, it seems like. There's nothing crazy about her position.
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