“The Witch Trials of JK Rowling”

an open letter

1

One of the great joys of traveling is putting my phone on Airplane Mode and forgetting about the constant stream of film/TV/podcast/music/book suggestions we’re constantly recommending to at each other as a form of social capital.

These days, I’m mostly overwhelmed by just how much art and knowledge is out there and how little brain space I have to appreciate it, an inundating fact of 21st century life that often spills over into my creative world.

When the noise is turned down, however, I remember to watch the world outside the bus window and listen to the conversations in the pub and breathe the air out by the sea, taking my time to traverse new landscapes via busses and trains, as I’ve been doing in Ireland for the last four days.

2

I haven’t properly listened to podcasts in years. Sometime after 2016 I started to feel that the most prominent podcasts were those that simply reinforced my most unexamined opinions, moralistic convictions, and sense of righteous self. There’s literally a podcast for everyone now, which is a good thing, but there’s also one for our most calcified opinions, which is less than ideal.

My other reason was more prosaic: I no longer had a significant commute in Paris via metro and was tired of associating walking from Point A to Point B as an opportunity to do more / learn more / be better / be productive.

Without a pair of headphones in my ears, I soon remembered what it felt like to flâner and to have a think, or to actually listen to the conversations on a terrace, or to simply walk for the sake of walking without having to learn a new language or understand a foreign conflict or listen to humorous and/or well-educated folk opine about whatever.

But sometimes there’s a podcast … sometimes there’s a podcast that feels more like a genuine work of art, one that ignites my spirit and demands my attention, so much so that I end up writing a piece on Substack on my cellphone with my big thumbs while traveling on a train from Cork City towards County Wicklow south of Dublin.

Regardless of your stance on literally any sociopolitical subject, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, created and hosted by the contentious

Megan Phelps-Roper

, is one of those works of art that challenges my core beliefs in various ways and, essentially, includes perspectives from all sides of the political / human spectrum.

This particular podcast is an illuminating investigation into the types of cruelty human beings can commit when they become convinced they’re doing “the right thing” (spoiler alert: we are all of us susceptible to these convictions).

So while I won’t make the mistake of suggesting anyone “should” listen to it, The Witch Trials of JK Rowling inspired me enough to write these words, and I want to thank the producers for their work in a the brief open letter down below:

Dear The Free Press,

A brief note here to thank you and yours for The Witch Trials of JK Rowling. 

I am a Spanish American novelist who moved to Paris to write books 13 years ago. As a child, Harry Potter shaped my ideas of storytelling and the importance of being a thoughtful and empathetic human being; your podcast only reinforces these virtues on both fronts.

From a more sociohistorical perspective, I studied the psychology of genocide through a master’s degree, specifically focusing on how the country of Goethe was taken over by an extremist ideology that was absolutely convinced it was doing the right thing in silencing what it considered to be their “objective” idea of “evil.”

This era is a frightening one because of how many parallels there are between now and then. Ideological bigotry and feverish dogmatism have come to dominate the “debate” (there is no longer legitimate, healthy discourse) on all sides of the aisle, and your podcast is an essential reminder of the value of dialogue. It is also a valuable resource for understanding the importance of nuance, critical thinking, and to examine our own biases when it comes to illuminating the human condition.

Thank you. My creative writing students at the Sorbonne will benefit from your fantastic work next autumn. Here’s to living by Andre Gide’s dictum: “Believe those who seek truth, doubt those who find it.”

Best,

Samuél Lopez-Barrantes