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Post by John Green on Feb 23, 2023 16:59:31 GMT
Something that has just occurred to me is translations. Obviously Dahl wrote in English but there are presumably separate copyrights for the French, German, etc translations. A translation is an intellectual property as the translator will have made choices about the precise wording, idioms, etc to use. I also expect that a translation from the 2020s would be different from one in the 1960s - even if the same person was doing it - as language changes over time. Certainly bible translations changed over time!! When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence. "When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a parapet for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house if any man fall from thence. Whenever you build a new house, you must build a railing for the roof so that you don't end up with innocent blood on your hands because someone fell off of it.  In other words, parapets and battlements are being cancelled!  One English Bible had Adam putting on, well...hide my blushes!-breeches. ' |
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Post by anthonybartley on Feb 23, 2023 21:12:41 GMT
Only in the UK can they censor the masses for the whims of the few.
Honestly, the percentage of people upset about these words would be in the 000.001% of all of his readers. Aside from censorship, I'd say there's a good case for vandalism, given that these were not the author's original intention.
The BBFC under the tenure of James Ferman censored with unrivalled enthusiasm - second only to the Arab states, and in some cases worse.
Now the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) have taken over their mantle with case after case of "we received 6 complaints about this billboard advertisement (seen by many thousands) and therefore must ban said advert. If less than a handful of people complain, that is, apparently, more than enough to get something removed.
I assume we'll banning the car at some point in the near future? It does pose a problem, all those accidents...
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Post by sonnybh on Feb 23, 2023 21:32:05 GMT
Only in the UK can they censor the masses for the whims of the few. Honestly, the percentage of people upset about these words would be in the 000.001% of all of his readers. Aside from censorship, I'd say there's a good case for vandalism, given that these were not the author's original intention. The BBFC under the tenure of James Ferman censored with unrivalled enthusiasm - second only to the Arab states, and in some cases worse. Now the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) have taken over their mantle with case after case of "we received 6 complaints about this billboard advertisement (seen by many thousands) and therefore must ban said advert. If less than a handful of people complain, that is, apparently, more than enough to get something removed. I assume we'll banning the car at some point in the near future? It does pose a problem, all those accidents... Going by the link below we actually get away with a lot, but the right wing press probably don't want you to know that!
Thanks to the religious right the Americans get often feather-bedded in a way Mary Whitehouse could only dream of achieving!
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Post by John Green on Feb 23, 2023 23:13:32 GMT
I'm not actually sure that I'm keen on the idea of 'getting away with' rights. We don't 'get away with' not having mandatory identity cards in the UK. We just don't have them. I'd rather ask; how do governments get away with imposing them? It reminds me of the supposed difference between between the Code Napoleon, and our own system: "The key difference between these two systems is that common law is a bottom-up legal system that implies, “What is not forbidden is permitted.” In other words, common law defines what you can’t do while leaving you free to do everything else, while the Napoleonic Code, also known as civil law, is a top-down system that often becomes a vastly more bureaucratic and controlling approach to governing citizens, effectively spelling out in detail what you can do, under a “Government knows best” mantra." www.tomorrowsworld.org/magazines/2020/january-february/common-law-vs-napoleonic-codeDitto, if I understand them properly, with 'tropes'. I'm concerned that they might be a modern-day version of the old idea of the Free-floating intellectual'. Basically, that yobs have beliefs and opinions that they've been spoon-fed. Ignorant and unreflective, the lower-orders parrot phrases imposed upon their minds by their masters. This is inevitable because, Marxists hold, everyone is restricted in their cultural and intellectual understanding by their relationship to the means of production. Everyone's opinion and world-view are derived and constrained by their being members of a social-class. Everyone's. Only free-floating middle-class intellectuals are able to rise above their historical class-position. So, "You speak rhetoric. I have carefully-formed insights." OK if you're inside the fold! "Mannheim leaves uncertain the question of how the sociologist is to determine what is true and what is false in competing perspectives, and why we should expect that a consensus would emerge even among sociologists themselves. Furthermore, his account of the precondition for this is another feature of his argument that has been criticised: his idea that intellectuals are ‘socially unattached’. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1468795X20986382 |
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Post by darrenlee on Feb 24, 2023 15:45:45 GMT
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Post by John Green on Feb 24, 2023 18:18:16 GMT
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Post by Frank Shailes on Feb 25, 2023 4:55:09 GMT
I'm confused. So are both versions going to be published from now on? How will they mark the new, snowflakey ones to differentiate them from the original versions? |
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Post by anthonybartley on Feb 25, 2023 11:28:37 GMT
"The singer-songwriter and activist Billy Bragg also weighed in on the discussion on Twitter, expressing his support for the changes made to the 2022 editions. “Suppose your mum wears a hairpiece due to chemotherapy and kids in your class call her a witch because they read in Dahl’s book that witches all wear wigs” he tweeted in response to a comment piece for the Telegraph by Suzanne Moore."
So, to clarify, we must ban the witches - or more correctly, any reference to witches being bald - because of women who are undergoing chemotherapy.
I have lost loved ones to cancer, I also have a survivor in the family - but I don't see how Roald Dahl's utterly fictional (fantastical even) work about a series of witches wearing wigs equates to women undergoing chemotherapy. It didn't occur to me as a child when I was read the book - nor did it ever cross my mind in later years. I'd say this is more Billy Bragg's imagination running riot over a non-issue - and if we really did adopt his point of view... well, heaven help us with the can of worms he'd be opening. You could argue that nothing is safe from what the 'imagination' might possibly think could be true.
A giant peach? That could crush a child.
A witch? They could cast spells that kill people
A chocolate factory? Chocolate can cause obesity - obesity can kill.
Do I need to go on?
Where exactly is the role of parenting in all of this? Let's suppose a child did make some sort of connection between the bald witches and mothers undergoing chemotherapy - would it not make more sense for the parent to 'educate' their child about this confusion rather than... editing the entire collected works of a celebrated author? Where is the logic in this censoring for the masses to make up for the laziness of the tiniest of minorities?
But this is the very heart of the problem - there is a (shockingly large) tier of UK society that does indeed lap up the words of people like Mr. Bragg and take them to heart without actually thinking for themselves. Some newspapers even give them a mouthpiece to proclaim their utterly insane thoughts (the Telegraph/Twitter/The Guardian in this case, but the broadsheets in general are no better... and let's not even mention the tabloids for the sake of our sanity)
The UK has a truly surreal history with censorship compared to just about any other nation - it's like these people at the top (notably factions within the Conservative government past and present) just won't let go of this idea that everything you see and do must be cleared with the 'state' first. It's like someone got that copy of Orwell's 1984 and decided that is the UK's future manifesto - that it somehow represents a utopia of law and order - and not the grim dystopia the average sane person sees.
The scary part is that if I were a politician greedy for power - then, yes, Orwell's 1984 would make the perfect guide for me to hold on to power for as long as feasibly possible. I have little doubt about that. The sad reality is that we're now watching many of the scariest parts of that book being played out in real-time - with very little room to stop any of it from happening.
Some might argue that the publisher's u-turn is something of a success for freedom of expression? But that's not true at all if the 'censored' (or vandalised, as I prefer) versions are there on sale right next to them. That isn't a win. It's a temporary reprieve at best.
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Post by John Green on Feb 26, 2023 14:07:02 GMT
I'm coming around to the idea that books published before a certain date should not be republished (we can assume wrong attitudes) until they've been vetted and approved/rewritten by the Committee of Five.
2021 sounds like a good cut-off point.
(Note to self: 'cut-off' is potentially triggering for many. Look for an alternative.).
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Post by anthonybartley on Feb 27, 2023 11:51:18 GMT
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Post by Scot Ferre on Feb 27, 2023 13:49:10 GMT
Well, those are adult books. There’s no need to rewrite these because adults are usually the buyers of the books and can choose to ignore them if they’re concerned about them. |
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RWels
Member
Posts: 2,717
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Post by RWels on Feb 27, 2023 17:11:20 GMT
It so happens that I read one of those Bond passages just one or two weeks ago. It DOES read a bit... dated when one page describes the scene with the words something to the effect of "the air was heavy with the aroma of 200 n......" so I'm not manning the barricades for that one. It also has got little to do with Nineteen Eighty-Four because it's not the government or "The Party" who are directing this. Road Dahl, that was a different case. It doesn't quite compare to just printing the n-word in 2023 as if it's fine. So are both versions going to be published from now on? How will they mark the new, snowflakey ones to differentiate them from the original versions? I foresaw this eventuality two pages ago!  Perhaps they could sell it in two versions. A "Soppy Snowflake Edition" for mental cowards, and another one for tone deaf complaining oldtimers.  |
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Post by sonnybh on Feb 28, 2023 21:44:47 GMT
The more awkward Tintin books are sometimes put in the graphic novels sections of bookshops, in spite of being liberal minded Herge still often drew black people like they were from a Minstrel show until late in the day, unless the American publishers insisted he redrew them as other races!
The Bond novels can be quite cringe inducing to read a few decades on. One book I have written in the late 1990s reviews the novels, films & comic strips & points out of some of the more dated attitudes!
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Post by Stephen Byers on Mar 3, 2023 22:10:17 GMT
REVEALED: Roald Dahl books were neutered by woke consultants aged eight to 30 - led by 'non-binary, asexual, polyamorous relationship anarchist who is on the autism spectrum'
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Post by Stephen Byers on Mar 3, 2023 22:13:40 GMT
And I still think that the Swallows and Amazon film from 1974 beats hands down any later woke version that refuses to call one of the girls by her given name of Titty.
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In other words, parapets and battlements are being cancelled! 
