Editing Dahl and others

[econophile]

Further respectful discussion of the morality of censorship and revisionism is welcome in my low traffic ethics thread

Ethics

I hope that this thread can be a place to discuss the philosophy of ethics and apply moral reasoning to specific ethical questions. This is meant to cover the three main branches of ethics, which are normative ethics (roughly, systems of general action-guiding principles), applied ethics (what do normative ethical systems say about specific moral choices), and metaethics (what is the status of normative systems and claims). Some resources that I’ve found to be useful: The Elements of Moral P…

[MrWookie]

It’s not a strawman. It’s an extreme hypothetical that gets you to see that yes, we do routinely censor children’s material and that censorship is in fact good.

[cassette]

I’m inclined to agree that censoring some of the Dahl books is good, but that means not reading them, not rewriting them like some dystopian one-world government.

The fact that they’re racist means it’s more important NOT to rewrite them. Taking the racism out of a racist guy’s* book is bad.

*seriously, look up this guy’s antisemitism.

[MimosaDef]

@Trolly

Adapting a story is miles apart from editing the original text to say something it didn’t say.

So what if they just called it an adaptation?

[NoMatterWho]

There is a major difference between publishing the book in your example, and removing offensive words from Dahl’s work. Your extreme hypothetical makes no sense.

[bobman0330]

@MrWookie

It’s not a strawman. It’s an extreme hypothetical that gets you to see that yes, we do routinely censor children’s material and that censorship is in fact good.

The problem here isn’t some abstract moral point, it’s that Dahl’s talentless parasite heirs and some soulless publisher drones screwed up a bunch of classic literature and are going to use copyright to keep the real versions out of print for another 50 years. It’s not really very complicated. If the edits were good, sure, fine, whatever, but they’re actually horrible.

[Trolly]

Because it’s not really an adaptation.

[MrWookie]

Perhaps there is, but you are the one making the far bolder claim that kids should confront discomfort and read offensive things. Clearly, though, you believe at gating certain kinds of offensive or uncomfortable material by age at the very least. Are the kinds of offenses in Dahl’s books age-appropriate for the kids who would be reading them? I’m not so sure.

[econophile]

#ReleaseTheDahlCut

[MrWookie]

@bobman0330

The problem here isn’t some abstract moral point

Are you sure? Because I seem to be reading a lot of abstract moral points that use this as a jumping off point. Not to mention the fact that if there isn’t some abstract moral point to be made here, then the moral panic about editing the book would seem to be completely unjustified. There would be no need to scaremonger about this happening to other works of literature or other art forms. It would be a really brief and boring discussion about whether anyone wants to buy the new editions.

[NoMatterWho]

I do not think it is difficult to imagine the censoring of sexual violence and even misogyny in canonical literature. Children’s literature is the first step, but if the threshold is “offensive” then middle school and high school works are next up on the chopping block.

The acquiescence of the public to changing the words in classic literature is frightening if it leads to, say, the removal of Sethe’s rape in Beloved.

[MrWookie]

Yawn. There’s nothing in your slippery slope argument that would lead anyone to believe that this particular instance of the owners of the work editing their own work would lead to mass censorship when the amount of censorship that we already have in abundance has not. It’s perhaps interesting that the owners in this case are not the author, but it’s hardly unprecedented for authors to change books after publication.

[NoMatterWho]

There’s already trigger warnings given prior to dramatic offensive material in high school lit classes.

You’re yawning off a cliff.

[MrWookie]

@NoMatterWho

There’s already trigger warnings given prior to dramatic offensive material in high school lit classes.

So what? A trigger warning is hardly censorship.

[CanadaMatt3004]

Oh no, we are warning people who may have been victims that something in a work might remind them of that trauma.

The horror!

[Xiaolongbao]

I am not certain but I think that eventually the copy right expires and anyone can print the original. I guess he either didn’t care enough or have the foresight to prevent his estate from printing edited versions of his works.

[6ix]

@econophile

This is akin to the ET re-release where the cops had flashlights instead of guns.

wat

[6ix]

@MrWookie

@NoMatterWho

There’s already trigger warnings given prior to dramatic offensive material in high school lit classes.

So what? A trigger warning is hardly censorship.

@CanadaMatt3004

Oh no, we are warning people who may have been victims that something in a work might remind them of that trauma.

The horror!

I believe NMW is saying they have trigger warnings therefore they don’t need to censor. Trigger warnings are great and totally non-controversial. Cable TV movie channels were decades ahead of their time.

[MrWookie]

But yet he implies they are the edge of the cliff.

[6ix]

I read the first few posts and am now reading from the bottom up, so you may be right and I’ll have to amend that statement shortly.