This Dahl situation seems ridiculous and deserving of derision.

I would also like to bring your attention to the Florida school book ban which applies not just to new editions of one author, but to an entire state's education system:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/florida-bo...

Justifying censorship with other censorship is a spiral of doom.

I'm sorry, maybe I don't understand your reply. Did you read my comment as some sort of justification of either the Dahl estate's rewriting of Dahl's work or the state sponsored censorship in happening in Florida?

I read it as, "we're complaining about Democrats when we should really be complaining about Republicans." I apologize if that was unfair.

edit: even though you've made a careful distinction between "rewriting" and censorship here that a lot of people who support censorship make. I'm probably projecting this upon you, but it goes along with the diabolical "It's not censorship unless the government does it, and when the government does it, it's fighting hate and misinformation."

Burning books is referenced in my username.

I think both things are bad.

One of the joys of being politically indie is that I can feel disgust at actions originating from across the political spectrum.

It read to me as if you think there isn’t sufficient standing to criticize these edits as long as another problem exists. The “I would also like to bring to your attention…” makes the denouncement in the previous sentence seem sarcastic. Replied in good faith to what I hope was an earnest question.

That was not my intention at all.

I thought clearly stating that I thought TFA was a messed up situation made that clear.

I think both things are not good.

I get it. I understand your meaning.

Revisions by the rights-owner are “censorship”, now?

Yes, they are censorship by the rights owner of the author's work. Clearly and uncontroversially.

edit: also, a "rights owner" is what we call someone who has a government-granted monopoly on the right to publish a work. Granting or transferring exclusive publishing rights to entities that would be willing to censor a work would be a government end-run around prior restraint.

> Yes, they are censorship by the rights owner of the author's work.

Is that true when the rights owner (as is often the case) is the author? If it is not (or if it is but it is not problematic) in that case, why would it be if the rights owner is the author's heir, or an entity to whom the author or their heir has voluntarily, whether for value or other reasons, transferred the rights?

> also, a “rights owner” is what we call someone who has a government-granted monopoly on the right to publish a work.

Yes, under our copyright system that is, with very rare exceptions, the author, their heirs, or people to who such rights have been transferred by one or the other (and, in the case of transfers by authors, there is even a one-time take-back privilege with a specific time window.)

Self-censorship is arguably the most insidious and pernicious of all forms of speech suppression.

Last time I looked at claims about Florida "book bans", they were actually just hysterical overreactions to removing books from the mandatory public school curriculum - is this more of the same?

I don't really care that much about what's in school libraries, to be honest - almost no one actually gets books from there anymore. What's much more significant, at a societal level, is what publishers choose to (not) put out.

> they were actually just hysterical overreactions to removing books from the mandatory public school curriculum

"Approved on March 25 by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, HB 1467 gives parents and members of the public increased access to the process of selecting and removing school library books and instructional materials."

So you would be absolutely incorrect. This was absolutely about banning books from schools, not just the curriculum - an unashamed "you will not say these things in school", grab for power.

> I don't really care that much about what's in school libraries, to be honest

Yeah and I don't super care for schools either, but unfortunately they are a mandatory way to brain wash young people unable to completely think for themselves...

The law makes it a felony for a teacher to make books available that are not approved by a specially trained librarian.

This isn’t about what’s on a curriculum, it’s about what a teacher is allowed to have on their book shelf.

You can read the bill here if you have any questions. https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1467/BillText/er/...

Any type of censorship is stupid. We, the regular people, are getting attacked by both sides and I’m getting so sick of it.

Before censorship used to be the bedrock of conservatives but now more and more it’s both sides that think it’s okay. To a GenX liberal, I’m sickened by the current state of politics these days.

This just seems to relate to school libraries, but the books presumably would be available through public libraries or Amazon? School libraries by design have a pretty limited selection, generally confined to the topics covered by the curriculum.

Or am I wrong in understanding the nature of the ban?

Completely wrong, it's a pretty naked power play by the governor.

This was not my experience at all. School libraries provided a wide variety of content, books spanning many genres, time periods, etc. I read a little bit of everything and am grateful to have been able to experience that, instead of being constrained to whatever some adults may have thought would have been "good for me".

It's true that I had access to public libraries with this same variety, so what happens when those are the next target? I couldn't afford to buy books on Amazon. Would I just have been forced to read e.g whatever religious or political media that's been approved for my consumption?

...the vetting in her school district...

These are actually specific to the Duval school district, which was pulling books before the recent law, not to the "entire state's education system".

https://pen.org/banned-books-florida/ - 176 books removed from classrooms in Duval County, Florida, in January 2022 for “review.”

Local governments across the spectrum have always exercised the right to make choices appropriate for their communities, sometimes to great derision of opposing parties - e.g., left-leaning districts banning Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Removing them from the school library (but having them available in many other venues) seems like a much smaller problem than attempts to rewrite existing works to fit the current atmosphere.

>the Florida school book ban which applies not just to new editions of one author, but to an entire state's education system.

I see no problem with the government determining what information can and can't be made available to children at public school. This isn't the government making certain information verboten universally, it's ensuring that other people cannot indoctrinate your children with information you find objectionable. Children's minds have become the new front-line of the culture war, and this is an entirely reasonable reaction.

I see it as a totalitarian measure, rather than leaving it to school librarians to make those choices, while listening to the expressed feedback and requests from the students and their parents at that school.

That's fine until librarians or teachers consistently get it wrong. A school librarian's discretionary power isn't intrinsic, it is granted conditional on its proper use. I'm sure there are many topics that if a teacher or librarian presented to your children you would move to remove their discretionary power. The debate is merely on what topics cross that line.

> I'm sure there are many topics that if a teacher or librarian presented to your children you would move to remove their discretionary power

I would first consult with them, and, if necessary, go to the school board if I thought they were being unnecessarily intransigent (or too ideological). In other words, I much prefer working from the bottom up, i.e. from the local community level, rather than having prescriptions imposed from the top down.

Strange how Camus and Morrison books are banned, but they are authors who are covered on Florida's now preferred Classic/Christian Learning Test: https://www.cltexam.com/tests/authors/

How are students supposed to study for the test if the authors are banned? :)

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/02/17/de...

People (ok, old school liberals -like the Clintons- as well as libertarians and other freedom loving classes) used to make fun of sects and other religious minorities with uhh, different sensibilities who were too prudish or uptight for their alternative censored versions of popular works --well, the joke's on us!

The speed at which history is being colonized to retroactively establish a new reality is pretty astounding. Elements who usually are loosely in the same camp are rushing over each other and throwing each other under the bus in order to establish moral superiority over the new barbarians.

To be clear, I'm not espousing the use of crass language; I however, would like to leave it to people to have the ability to make that choice themselves to be civilizer or vulgar rather than impose it upon them as some virtue.

This reminds me of Kavafy's poem.

Waiting for the Barbarians

https://youtu.be/Ajy55VtGbzY

> I'm not espousing the use of crass language

Fucking A, bro.

> old school liberals -like the Clintons-

Is this a joke? Or are actual "old school liberals" so "old school" now that liberals by the ten-year-old definition count as "old school"?

"Old school liberals" are people like Friedman and Mises, not the Clintons.

It should have read “including”. One can’t rely on previous icons as examples as they are being passed at best as irrelevant and at worst as being echoes of a feudal past.

In any case, it’s a very surprising quick turn of events. Even Orwell the prototypical anti-fascist is ensnared. Perhaps denouncement awaits.

There is a time and place for both crass language and flowery language. You would get severely penalized for speaking in "high english" in some places, just as you would not (usually) want to cuss out everyone in your boardroom meeting.

No question. But let the people use what they want as is accepted within their circles and circumstances --but the current revisionism is surprising.

> just as you would not (usually) want to cuss out everyone in your boardroom meeting.

Good you put that usually in there. It can be surprisingly effective when used sparingly.

True historical justice will only be achieved when I can read that it was in fact a phalanx of stout-flanked lesbians of color that stormed the beaches of normandy to liberate france.

As much as this is an obvious joke, it’s lazy and dangerous. Quite easily distinguishable from what this post is about. Conflating rewriting history with treating historical fictional works as living documents are two separate things, that deserve separate space for debate.

Dangerous? Go outside

Spot on. But it's a degree of nuance the anti-woke mob don't want to understand. It's good to see posts that try stamp out the culture war flames.

Dangerous in what way? Honest question

So you think editing out offensive wording in fiction is equivalent to changing who the protagonists were in a historical event?

That is both silly and a hyperbolic attempt to shutdown a fair discussion that reasonable people might form differing conclusions from. Censorship isn't the only tool against free speech.

That still doesn't explain how the hyperbole is dangerous.

Shutting down a reasonable conversation you don't agree with is tantamount to censorship. If you don't consider that dangerous, well again, reasonable people will disagree.

That's really what you think the wokeness warriors want - historical revisionism?

Well yeah. It already is taken as fact in many circles that the primary purpose and intent of the American legal system and government was the subjugation of minorities.

While I think there is some value and truth in critical analysis of race, gender, or governance that challenge prevailing assumptions, many people have lost the plot entirely and any positive context

> It already is taken as fact in many circles

You can really say this about anything. Not that I am disagreeing with you, but it’s a dubious way to frame anything you wish to state.

Sure, I agree it isn't very specific, but I wasn't trying to make a general claim, just provide a hopefully recognizable example of revisionist history.

I think it would be different if I was claiming that most people believe this narrative, or something like that.

I could have pointed to some specific academics who feel this way, but I'm not sure that is any more convincing. Basically any example can be ignored with a no true scottsman argument if someone is obstinate instead of curious.

Can you please provide a (credible or somehow representative) source claiming that the primary purpose and intent of the American legal system and government was the subjugation of minorities.

Yes. Look at the 1619 project. Historical revisionism is exactly what that is all about.

Revisionism tries to change facts. 1619 is another interpretation of history that can coexist with others. No one stops you from teaching or believing the traditional narrative.

From Forbes: Jonathan Zimmerman, an educational historian at the University of Pennsylvania, believes that teaching “The 1619 Project” alongside other interpretations of history “represents a huge opportunity to teach students what history actually is: an act of interpretation.”

This is typical conservative misrepresentative simplification and wailing overreaction. Also see "They want to take away our hamburgers".

1619 is changing facts, you don’t get to promulgate lies along with them by trying to classify it as “interpretations”. The things they teach are a lies. And the more that lies are taught the worse we are as a society.

And I’m a GenX liberal btw I just call out bullshit and lies when I see them from both sides. And it’s typical millenial/Gen z liberal fascists that like to classify anyone they don’t agree with as “conservative”. There’s a huge number of centrist liberals like myself that are sick of the lies and the tide is turning against liberal fascists that are ruining what it means to be liberal.

I stand corrected. Yes, 1619 is revisionism, a term which is common usage is actually closer to negationism. But I was sloppy with my choice of words.

Calling out inaccuracy is a good thing. This issue generally is still an overreaction. And I did not call you a racist.

Well nothing else is sacred to zealots, so it's not unimaginable.

Pretty sure Zuckerberg is working on that videogame as we speak for his metaverse.

Well now that you've written it, it shall be hallucinated, at the very least.

This is true, now more than ever I wonder how humans will fight back against the ever watchful eye of AI. The mops are wet with moon drapes.

Probably by not fighting and just loving.

> Every record has been destroyed or falsified ...

Selling the only remaining original unedited Roald Dahl's book for 3 kilograms of gold. Really a bargain for this unique collectibles item. Anonymity and discretion is guaranteed.

The word gold is antisemitic. Why would you reference such a hateful trope?

'Gold' also refers to a color, and so is doubly offensive.

/s - but they really did make changes like that to Dahls' work. It's so disturbing.

The point might be better served by looking to the real world example of sanitizing literature that gave the English language the word "bowdlerize": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_Shakespeare

HN loves bringing up Orwell in contexts that are not comparable. This is bad, but not in an Orwellian way.

How is rewriting old texts to make them align with modern politics not Orwellian?

This is not the government rewriting old texts and destroying the originals to promote the image of always having the same ethics. This is an estate trying to sell the books they have the rights for.