Quote:
Originally Posted by 4691mls
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I recall that thread and yes...that's the conundrum. If we're going to condemn people who thought the prevalent thoughts of their times, then, yes, Dorothy L. Sayers also, has "gotta go." Her attitudes were pretty vanilla, regular stuff, again, FOR HER TIME.
Picking and choosing which 100-200-year old attitude we're willing to support or read about or live with, versus another, seems, to me, to verge on hypocrisy. Reading Sayers doesn't make me a misogynist or an anti-Semite, any more than reading Haggard makes me a bigot. Sayers created one of the best-loved detectives, the Golden Age, of all time. Should she now be
canceled? "Whoops, no more accolades for
you, lady!"
If one is going to talk the talk and say that it's improper to read
anything, from
any era, that represents
any ideas, thoughts or author beliefs that are incompatible with today, then we have to give up pretty much EVERYTHING that was written before...hell, the 1990's. That's walking the walk.
Otherwise, well..
what's being discussed? I mean, if we're applying purity tests to books...man, we got a ton of people and authors and publishers that will NEVER pass. Or, we're selectively saying--and I'm sure that this doesn't apply to anyone here--that
some types of bigotry, racism, condescension, mistreatment, etc., are "okay" and others
aren't.
My own opinion is that taking that view would make us pretty entrenched, narrow people. That we would only read that which already matches our own beliefs? Seriously? Who thinks
that's a good idea? Isn't part of what we do, in reading, is exposing ourselves to other ideas, other thoughts, other cultures, other beliefs, to expand our horizons? I mean, if we only want our own beliefs echoed back at us, we can give up reading and just head on over to Twitter.
Anybody, of course, can read
whatever they want and pass up anything that they want. But a bit of consistent logic might save all us us a lot of angst.
Just a thought.
Hitch