Quote:
Originally Posted by Ned
It gets me that people choose to be offended (and it is a choice) then want the world changed to fit in with their newly offended views.
And of course they want history rewritten to pretend that their newly offended views are the only valid ones.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
My opinion is if you don't like the language used, don't read. I know there are a lot of books out there that I won't read because of the language used. But I never once wanted any of those sorts of books to be edited.
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Ned and JSWolf (and probably others): You are writing as if these changes are happening after demands from readers, but that's not what's happening here. I've never heard of any old works being rewritten/edited because of such demands. Dahl, Christie, Flemming, Seuss (and in Nordic countries: Lindgren and Egner) -- it's always the
publisher who makes the choice. And they are doing it because they are worried about readers who feel like JSWolf.
Imagine owning the right to Christie's books. You invest in updated, modern cover art and an advertisement campaign, and are ready to introduce a new generation of readers to the Queen of Crime. You want people to enjoy the first book they read and buy another. You do not want them to wince at "oriental" and n-word and "Indian temper" and "disgusting eyes and noses", abandon the book thinking "ugh, that didn't age well", and never buying another.
Like
arjaybe wrote a couple of pages back, this is a commercial decision. That doesn't mean it can't be criticized, of course, I'm all for demanding that businesses act ethically even if that would hurt their profits. But don't act as if these changes are caused by grass root pressure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ned
In my day, people including academics had lots of different opinions and felt free to air them all without the threat of losing their job or being attacked by a howling mob.
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Are you sure about that? I strongly suspect that people with unpopular opinions have been silenced in both academia and elsewhere forever, but we (mostly) don't hear about it because they were silenced. What's changed is that now it's easier to get your story out.