The writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has firsthand experience with the swift and intense outrage that can flow toward an individual in the age of democratized publishing. Say something potentially objectionable these days, and you will hear about it from every direction. Adichie's characterization of women and transgender women as being fundamentally different ignited a firestorm of controversy last spring—and though she later clarified what she meant, she never really backed down.
“I think people are frightened of saying what they think, and I think that's a bad thing for society,” she told The Atlantic's national correspondent Ta-Nehisi Coates and editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg in Paris recently. “The problems in the left interest me more because I just think that there's an increase in—‘intolerance' is maybe putting it simply—but there's a feeling that you're supposed to conform.”
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