541–550 of 992 posts
> Language evolves. Few would defend retaining the “n-word” in contemporary publishing, or any number of other outdated racial slurs which bring the modern reader up short and do not add to the text. But where does sensible pruning give way to unnecessary tinkering? Perfect example of the slippery slope. It started with racial slurs and here we are.
Rewriting stories for children to reflect the values and anxieties of contemporary culture has occurred forever. For instance, see “The Family Shakespeare” by the Bowdlers. Interestingly, critics seemed to pan it for similar reasons to HN’s commentators, but the book sold well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_Shakespeare I’m considerably less dogmatic about this than I used to be. Enid Blyton was a staple of…
As long as the original books exist somewhere, I don't really think it matters if we give a cleaned up version to modern kids.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because being cancelled isn't a real thing. It's usually just scoundrels angry they received the slightest bit of pushback. Dave Chapelle constantly whines that queer people are trying to cancel him while he cashes $20m Netflix checks on a regular basis.
Being cancelled is very much a real thing, since a lot of people have, e.g., spineless bosses who will immediately capitulate to the Twitter mob's demands.
I'm not generally a contrapoints fan, but I really enjoyed the video she made about her experience with this on twitter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8
Or the TED talk "How one tweet can ruin your life" from 2015:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI
We studied To Kill a Mockingbird and The Crucible when I was in highschool. I remember thinking how barbaric and despicable "mob justice" was. I didn't understand it, and I assumed I never would - I thought it was something we reference from history. But twitter really has brought the mob justice style witch hunts back.
I don't understand how anyone can claim its not a real phenomenon. Being cancelled is obviously quite a real experience for the people it happens to.
I'm a non-native English speaker. What's wrong with screeching?
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He had four or five confirmed kills with no indication that the German pilots of the Junkers Ju 88s over Greece were Nazis. He also killed at least one Vichy French Air Force pilot .. again there's no indication whether that pilot (or pilots) were Nazis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl#Fighter_pilot
This is just a weird, though pretty common nitpick, but I'll bite. The pilots he downed were actively fighting for a nazi state. They might have not been nazis themselves, but they were still fighting to spread nazi ideology. It wouldn't matter even if literally no german pilots were actually ideologically nazis, if they were still flying planes and combat missions in hopes of a victory for their side (nazi germany).
Perhaps surprisingly large numbers of the military did not support the Nazi ideals.
High ranking members of the military failed to assisinate Hitler several times.
The specific "nitpick" is that the pilot and crew were very likely to not be actual literal Nazis.
That's just history .. the point of current interest now is the question of whether niche ideologies can take over a state and take it to war on the global stage.
I have this recurring thought with each instance of this neo-puritanism I come across. It feels like society is losing patience for all things human. I sense contempt, almost hatred for the very things that unite us as living beings and separate us from computers. We're not perfect. We live in both place and time. We are born prejudice and survive prejudice. We form opinions through experience. We're practical, funct…
The puritans were largely rebelling from persecution in England and surrounding areas as a continuation of the reformation. They were largely martyred by their own people for their beliefs. Again, it’s a shame that most people only associate that group of people with the fictional work “the scarlet letter” or “the Salem witch trials”.
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It’s homophobic to assume men being effeminate makes them gay.
It’s off the mark, sure, but you can think being effeminate makes someone gay without being afraid of gay people.
Guess Tom of Finland didn't get that memo.
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I'm neither credible nor reputable, but I'm in favor of a weak version of this. When reading older books to my young child, I replace language that suggests that women are supposed to stay at home and men are supposed to go to work. One day soon he'll be able to read, and at that point I'll wish that books that were a product of their time would have been updated for the current time, so that he could just read the b…
Right I really don't get why people are so offended by these changes If a work of fiction is changed to not imply women are meant to stay at home and men are meant to go to work, doesn't that show that, to those offended, on some level those implications are core to what makes that work that work? None of these changes drastically affect the storylines, character arcs, unique characteristics, etc of the stories. If t…
The problem is that Dahl’s work isn’t an essay, or a treatise. It’s whimsical. It’s art! The words chosen, were chosen because they were the words that worked.
Say these two extracts out loud:
> “You mean Prince Pondicherry?” said Grandpa Joe, and he began chuckling with laughter. “Completely dotty, said Grandpa George. “But very rich,” said Grandma Georgina
> “You mean Prince Puducherry?” said Grandpa Joe, and he began chuckling with laughter
They mean essentially the same thing, but they feel quite different. The rhythm of “Prince Pondicherry” has a bounce to it, “Prince Puducherry” is more like walking down hill.
You might make the argument that this trade of is worth making, but it is in fact a trade of.
I have this recurring thought with each instance of this neo-puritanism I come across. It feels like society is losing patience for all things human. I sense contempt, almost hatred for the very things that unite us as living beings and separate us from computers. We're not perfect. We live in both place and time. We are born prejudice and survive prejudice. We form opinions through experience. We're practical, funct…