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

791–800 of 1001 posts

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

#791

Post by _trampeltier »

kstenerud wrote: post #628
wirrbel wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany here, we banned Mein Kampf from being sold (used copyright law to do that). I once stood in a book shop (teenager, time to look at books but not enough money to buy them) and some skindheads wanted to buy it, it wasn't available. They went away. Providing context is good, but frankly also really difficult and why not just provide newer childrens books that are more inclusive.

Upvoted you to counter the downvotes since this actually does add to the discussion. It's important to remember that the power of Mein Kampf lies in its status as a symbol, not its actual contents. Nobody actually reads Mein Kampf, nor have they ever (just like nobody actually reads the Bible unless they're actual preachers). It was (and still is) about the personality cult of a strong man and his message of power vi…

>(just like nobody actually reads the Bible unless they're actual preachers)

I did read a bit from the Koran for a while, just I was interested about what's in it (and why so many people die because of this book) even I don't believe in any god at all.

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

#792

Post by esja »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #782
benlumen wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people really need to realise that this isn't some kind of paradox or contradiction, it's actually consistent. These are the same people who are trying to repeal anti-discrimination legislation because it stands in the way of their agendas. They're undoing decades of actual progress.

I don't agree; I think this is basically a case of different people trying to do different things. There's one longstanding and well-organized interest group promoting the idea that blacks shouldn't be treated badly just because they're black. That group's goals are advanced by making people read To Kill a Mockingbird . There's another interest group promoting the idea that they should have the power to denounce othe…

I agree with benlumen. I think there is a group which is trying very hard to redefine what racism means, in order to advance a different ideology. It seems to be working, at least in America.

For those people, To Kill a Mockingbird is very dangerous, because it espouses the MLK philosophy (colour blindness) which most people agree with, but which they hate.

For these modern "anti-racists", we must instead see race everywhere, and factor it into every aspect of our lives, making constant calculations and adjustments which we can never hope to do correctly, and which contain internal contradictions we can never resolve. This hands those people tremendous power.

They are like parasites who have taken over a host. It took massive effort to reach the point in society where almost everyone agreed racism was unacceptable, and legitimately feared being called a racist. Like all "isms", we reached the point where almost everyone stopped thinking about what these terms actually mean, and just started substituting the word for a value judgement: racism bad, anti-racism good. This is the perfect setup for someone with different goals to hijack the concept.

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

#793

Post by DanBC »

tim333 wrote: post #773
DanBC wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had you ever heard of these six books before today? Have you ever read them? How many were sold? We've been sanitising kids books for decades now. What version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory do you own? The original with actual African slaves and the colonialist rescue narrative, or the later version with Oompa Loompas and the colonialist rescue narrative? What version of Edward's Sneeze from the Thomas the Tan…

>The original with actual African slaves They weren't slaves in the original story - they were Africans but were offered payment to come work at his factory and went voluntarily.

You have to feed your slaves or they die. No-one suggests that this is somehow paying them.

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

#794

Post by tubularhells »

sildur wrote: post #747
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…

Virtual book burnings, virtual public shamings... We are stepping closer and closer to virtual middle ages...

At this point I'm hoping for the Balkanisation of the internet, so that we Europeans wouldn't have to put up with American opinions on the web anymore.

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

#795

Post by tsimionescu »

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 publisher deciding not to publish these books as children's books anymore (it could make sense to publish a special edition as 'Racially insensitive Seuss books', but that's another matter). However, why would eBay prevent sellers from selling them? I view eBay as a second hand book market, would I not be allowed to sell a copy of Mein Kampf there?

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

#796

Post by 4ggr0 »

enriquto wrote: post #674
4ggr0 wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two things I can't quite comprehend as someone who's not from the US. * Why exactly the n-word is exclusive to black people. In my mind, either no one uses the word if it's offensive, or everyone can use it in a neutral way. I don't know of any other single word which is gatekept. I mean, I never want to use it, so it's not about that. I guess it has to do with pride and being able to use a word which was o…

> Cultural appropriation This. I'm as left wing as they come, and agree wholeheartedly with 99% of the current far-left discourse. But some of this "cultural appropriation" stuff is just nuts.

Same boat as you. I would call myself a socialist, or at least on the very left spectrum. Put an LGBTQI+ flag on my balcony to show support, try to talk to people about BLM issues in my country etc.

But cultural appropriation is really something I don't understand/can't get behind...

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

#797

Post by dabbledash »

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'…

Do you think they won’t be pulled from libraries?

I’m looking forward to Banned Book Week this year. It’s always interesting to see what small percentage of people are serious about their principles.

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

#799

Post by yerwhat01010 »

john_moscow wrote: post #297

I think, the social mechanics of this process is very simple. Ability to tell others what to do is called power. Some people are more power-hungry than others, so they seek ways to assert themselves over others. That's a perfectly normal human thing to do. What matters is the way you would achieve power in a society. Getting power through building up your name as a notable researcher or author is one thing. Playing f…

One of the authors of the "academic" papers which sparked this cancellation is on the board of a nonprofit that makes political children's books.

The point is "Aufheben der Kultur" - the abolition of culture. They attack Seuss because he's a beloved children's icon and a common cultural reference point we love and share. The point is to permanently taint him so we no longer have that reference point, detaching us from our shared culture so that these ideologues can shoehorn in some garbage woke propaganda to children at the youngest age possible.

Make no mistake: Dr Seuss won't be the last icon they come for.

Post reply on HN