A new moralism is gripping the literary world
51–60 of 293 posts
Re: A new moralism is gripping the literary world
#52I've noticed this too. The recommendations I'm now getting from my audible account are full of newly-published titles promoting wokism and other morally and intellectually bankrupt junk rather than the classic titles I typically go for.
Re: A new moralism is gripping the literary world
#53Alarmism over cancel culture is weird because cancel culture, which has always existed in one form or another, from one side or another, is what creates something to transgress against. The great, transgressive works of yesterday are so just because they caused controversy and challenge. If transgressive works dropped without a squeek, they wouldn't be transgressive, would they? It's nonsensical to to try to preserve…
There are new conventions forming. Writers who want to break them need to learn how to put up their fists. And writing a medium article complaining about cancel culture is not how that is done.
Re: A new moralism is gripping the literary world
#54What's actually happening: society is justifiably deciding that some things that used to pass without notice, because people were very racist or sexist or homophobic or whatever, are now recognisably and irreparably awful. And we should probably stop doing them because they are hurting people. Both directly, by being the constant micro-aggression wallpaper of marginalised lives, and indirectly, by sustaining a cultur…
Re: A new moralism is gripping the literary world
#55> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/10/not-suitable-c... This extends beyond the contents of the book. Here a "white" (but really Catalan) man was fired from translating a poem because his identity didn't mirror the poet's.
Re: A new moralism is gripping the literary world
#56Re: A new moralism is gripping the literary world
#57> In March 2020, staff at the publishing house Hachette in New York, including employees of Little Brown and Grand Central Publishing, walked out over the planned publication of Woody Allen’s memoir, Apropos of Nothing, because the film director was the subject in the early 1990s of a molestation allegation, for which he was twice investigated without charge. Hachette caved to employees’ demands and canceled the rele…
Re: A new moralism is gripping the literary world
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
As long as you are able to do that, is it truly censoring? No ones burning books here. To say the publishing industry is especially censoring today than before is outrageous. The point is that it self censored in the ethnicity and gender of its authors instead of the material. There’s only one nytimes best seller that can exist about a Mexican immigrant, now do you want that to be written by a white author or a Mexic…
> As long as you are able to do that, is it truly censoring? No ones burning books here. To say the publishing industry is especially censoring today than before is outrageous. The point is that it self censored in the ethnicity and gender of its authors instead of the material. I've been trying to get the older Seuss books. They're impossible to get. And if one of them does happen to be available, the prices are ast…
Re: A new moralism is gripping the literary world
#59What's actually happening: society is justifiably deciding that some things that used to pass without notice, because people were very racist or sexist or homophobic or whatever, are now recognisably and irreparably awful. And we should probably stop doing them because they are hurting people. Both directly, by being the constant micro-aggression wallpaper of marginalised lives, and indirectly, by sustaining a cultur…
No. It’s an ideology of the elites.
Re: A new moralism is gripping the literary world
#60> In March 2020, staff at the publishing house Hachette in New York, including employees of Little Brown and Grand Central Publishing, walked out over the planned publication of Woody Allen’s memoir, Apropos of Nothing, because the film director was the subject in the early 1990s of a molestation allegation, for which he was twice investigated without charge. Hachette caved to employees’ demands and canceled the rele…