Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

941–950 of 1001 posts

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#941

Post by asoneth »

mcguire wrote: post #929

https://www.seussville.com/statement-from-dr-seuss-enterpris... Statement from Dr. Seuss Enterprises March 2, 2021 Today, on Dr. Seuss’s Birthday, Dr. Seuss Enterprises celebrates reading and also our mission of supporting all children and families with messages of hope, inspiration, inclusion, and friendship. We are committed to action. To that end, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, working with a panel of experts, including e…

A few of these books are only incidentally racist so I hope Dr. Seuss Enterprises sees fit to tweak and re-release them similarly to the Richard Scarry classics[1] others have mentioned.

Cultures have been bowlderizing kids books for as long as there have been kids books. Early versions of classic fairy tales had characters meet gristly ends -- skinned alive, forced to wear red-hot iron shoes, decapitated, eyes plucked out, etc. You can still find the original versions (including on eBay) but the kids section of the library generally carries the revised versions and no one was shocked that Disney decided not to animate the part of the story where the little mermaid had to choose between murdering the prince in his sleep and bathing her feet in his blood or committing suicide in the ocean.

Though when kids are old enough to think critically about this sort of thing I generally agree with Philip Nel [2] that reading books and talking about them is a much better approach to problematic books, so I also hope they ultimately decide to release annotated versions as well. I just wouldn't stock those in the kids section of the library.

[1] https://www.upworthy.com/8-changes-that-were-made-to-a-class...

[2] https://philnel.com/2010/09/19/censoring-ideology/ is

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#942

Post by skyde »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #648
lgleason wrote: post #562

As dis-heartening as this story is, compared to a couple of years ago, it is encouraging to see lots of comments from people beginning to wake up to what is going on with this craziness and not being modded here. Free speech is about protecting the right of the un-popular and views that some may find utterly repugnant. Why? because, as we are seeing with all of the woke craziness, when you don't stand up for everyone…

There's two kinds of freedom: freedom from and freedom to. These are some children's books that contain illustrations that some people find offensive and the publisher (and sellers) are deciding they no longer want to be associated with and sell to children. There are internet forums where the images are available and people can view them without the police knocking your door down, and I'm sure these are available in…

I understand the main problem with the book is the "China man" Caricature. Can someone (ideally Chinese) explain why it's offensive? Is it more offensive or racist than a painting like this https://imgur.com/a/4k0IFDG ? If so could you explain why?

How is my 6 years old son supposed to draw an ancient Chinese villager without being racist ?

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#944

Post by jmull »

lodi wrote: post #934
jmull wrote: post #903

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believe in liberty as a principle don't you have to support ebay's decision to decide whether or not they want to sell a particular book? I don't understand their decision here, but so what? It's their store, why should you or I tell or anyone else them what to sell? Woke crazies try to impose their ideology on others by complaining and shaming on the Internet. I think you're doing the same thing here. The dif…

> If you believe in liberty as a principle don't you have to support ebay's decision to decide whether or not they want to sell a particular book? Not exactly, no. Even the most laissez faire among us would probably agree that you need to set and enforce some ground rules to prevent monopolies, externalities, information assymetries, and other market failures. Also ebay isn't a bookseller choosing what books to stock…

> Even the most laissez faire among us would probably agree that you need to set and enforce some ground rules to prevent monopolies, externalities, information assymetries, and other market failures.

Sure, of course there are ground rules. Things that are illegal are not permitted. But what are you suggesting the rule would be that would apply in this case?

And by rule, we're taking about a law, right? Otherwise, it wouldn't be binding and we're right back to where eBay is within its rights to decide not sell (or list, if you prefer) these books.

To be clear, I think it's fine to complain about ebay's stance here. I don't agree with it. But you can't do it in the name of free speech or liberty generally as the previous poster is attempting to do.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#945

Post by skyde »

newacct583 wrote: post #758
h0l0cube wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair these books ought to live on Archive.org, because they are basically 'classics' at this point. Plenty of problematic and dated books live there. While it has some Dr. Seuss books, it doesn't have the problematic ones, but for at least historical reasons, it should. https://archive.org/details/texts?and%5B%5D=dr+seuss&sin=

To be genuinely fair, the six books we're actually talking about are minor works that no one reads to kids anymore. We're not talking about Green Eggs or the Lorax here. Even absent any controversy about racially insensitive artwork (I mean seriously: there are africans drawn as half-monkeys and a chinese man whose eyes are slanted lines! This is not stuff modern kids should be presented with), these definitely aren'…

Honest question if "eyes with slanted lines" is racist. How should my 5 years old draw a Chinese face instead.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#946

Post by chmod600 »

jmull wrote: post #931
chmod600 wrote: post #913

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is suggesting that eBay should be forced to facilitate the sale of a patticular book. The concern is over what society feels is shameful and how it's handled. Right now we are ashamed of things we shouldn't be and the remedy we're choosing is exclusion. That doesn't sound like a formula for success. On top of that, this is all being pushed by a tiny minority that has gained more power than we realized. Surely…

That's all fine. You think eBay should sell those books. I do too. My question is, who's decision is it to make? Yours? Mine? The government's (through laws or regulations)? Or ebay's?

To answer directly, it's not eBay's decision because eBay is not a single person. I guess it's the CEOs, or someone under them, or maybe the board, or the shareholders.

I don't want to override the decision. But there is a disturbing context to the decision that's worth discussing.

Why are people making these decisions? Why are they coordinated and collective? Who are the beneficiaries?

And have we, as voters, shareholders, etc., put trust in the wrong leaders? Maybe all this crazy stuff professors have been promoting all this time wasn't just for attention. Maybe they meant it and taught their students to do it. And we are now seeing the results.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#947

Post by mercer »

NeverFade wrote: post #915
chmod600 wrote: post #913

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is suggesting that eBay should be forced to facilitate the sale of a patticular book. The concern is over what society feels is shameful and how it's handled. Right now we are ashamed of things we shouldn't be and the remedy we're choosing is exclusion. That doesn't sound like a formula for success. On top of that, this is all being pushed by a tiny minority that has gained more power than we realized. Surely…

Indeed, the arbitrariness of the leftist standards, and how easily and frequently they are liable to change, is in fact the point . President Obama praised, quoted, and recommended Dr. Seuss's books in official press releases throughout his presidency, all the way to his last year as president - 2015: https://nypost.com/2021/03/03/barack-and-michelle-obama-prai... But now, barely 6 years later, the Leftist Mob has co…

Obama is very much not a leftist.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#949

Post by Alenycus »

nindalf wrote: post #933
Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #905

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can support the right to be a Nazi while strongly criticising it. People can say that they really think eBay is doing the wrong thing, and maybe even boycott them, without necessarily saying they should be forced by law to stock children's books that became out of fashion thirty seconds ago.

> You can support the right to be a Nazi while strongly criticising it. You have the luxury of never having seen your country and culture being taken over by Nazis. Never living with the regret of being tolerant of Nazis. I have. It sucks. It's so easy to talk in platitudes like this when you know your own life won't be affected in any way. How about supporting the right of QAnon adherents to spread their poisonous p…

Glad to see people probably over 100 are participating in hacker news.

Unless you grew up in Weimar Germany, you have never seen your country taken over by Nazis

Post reply on HN