And why did the Cloud-men become Cloud-people? Why is it sexist to call a group of men men? Why was the Trunchbul's description changed from horse face to just face? How does that help? Some people are ugly. It's a byproduct of the genetic lottery.
Overall I think sensitivity training is nonsense. All it does is force people to censor themselves before speaking at the risk of getting canceled. From your example: I'm not a gypsy, but even if I was don't you think the correct reading of that would be something akin to, "Gypsies in the past used to swindle, but now we can be cognizant of that behavior and not do it, thus being a better version of ourselves." I don't see why offense would necessarily be taken. Getting offended by reminders of the past that we didn't even live seem like nonsense to me.
I'm not going to go through every example you mentioned because this comment shows the exact problem with that. You are putting the origin of the term on some fault with the Romani people. Have you examined why that is? Are you sure that they did actually swindle people more than other groups? If they did, why did they do it? Was that a byproduct of their position in society? I admittedly don't know much Romani history, so I can't speak to it directly. However I know Jewish people were similarly thought of as swindlers because they were often bankers, and they were often bankers because that was one of the few jobs non-Jewish society would allow them to have. The fault doesn't lie with the Jews, it lies with the rest of society.
That same concept applies elsewhere. Like white generally being used to represent good and black bad. That is such a fundamental aspect of our culture that it seems silly to try to change it, but the silliness originates in a lack of examination of the origin of those standards.
My point is exactly that by not washing out these words, we allow ourselves to have conversations about and raise exactly those points you mentioned. It allows us to think about the root causes of these terms and reflect on our own behavior.
> That same concept applies elsewhere. Like white generally being used to represent good and black bad. That is such a fundamental aspect of our culture that it seems silly to try to change it, but the silliness originates in a lack of examination of the origin of those standards.
Have you considered that the white/black differentiation of not about color but about what humans can perceive? To me it seems as if it would have been established because humans can see during the day vs. can't do so well at night. There are many reasons outside of race where light/dark, black/white make sense.
Why do we assume that these books are always accompanied by these conversations and these conversations wouldn't happen without these books? Many times kids read these books alone and no one ever talks to them about these words. Other times they are read in specific classes in school in contexts that aren't ideal to address these issues. An English teacher shouldn't have to spend all their time teaching history to keep these things in context. Let those conversations happen in social studies and history classes.
>Have you considered that the white/black differentiation of not about color but about what humans can perceive? To me it seems as if it would have been established because humans can see during the day vs. can't do so well at night. There are many reasons outside of race where light/dark, black/white make sense.
Yes, but whether the origin lies in racism or not isn't necessarily the only deciding factor. Just the question of whether it originates in racism is often enough to distract from a book. Like an editor might suggest an author change phrasing to avoid an unintentional rhyme or pun, sometimes a word should be change to avoid distracting the reader with considerations about whether a term is racist or not. The obvious example is the word "niggardly"[1]. Its etymology has nothing to do with race, but editors will still warn you against using it because the distraction is causes makes it a poor word choice in most situations even if the word itself is inoffensive.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_n...
The value of a book is that you experience the world through a viewpoint that is different than your own.
That viewpoint may not be pretty, or fun, or something you agree with. Honestly - most of the books that I value challenge me by exposing me to something raw and unfiltered that I have not experienced myself.
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That editor also doesn't have the experiences of the author, and changing word choice is changing the world that author is speaking about.
If the author's goal is to actually tell a genuine story that they connect with - to expose the world to their own thoughts and feelings and history - then changing those things is not trivial.
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I don't want to read a bland mash of "editor approved" stories. I want to read stories that are told by individuals, with all their quirks and intricacies.
I want to hear their opinions and words. Not some filtered, white washed, toned down version of them.
I want to make up my own mind about whether that story was valuable, or touching, or compelling, or horrible, or repelling. I don't want to never hear it in the first place because an editor decided they didn't like it and struck it out.
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Basically - if the author doesn't give a shit and is just trying to sell the most books... fine. Go with the editor's picks for the words. Let them control the narrative and story. They have the most experience with selling books and their advice is probably decent.
If the goal is to write down a story that is meaningful to the author... don't change the author's words.
I'm not acting as thought police because I literally didn't police their thoughts - I left them the fuck alone.
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I'm struggling to tell if your comment is satire or not, because it's pretty dense (and not in the "filled with words" kind of way).
But this is fundamentally what editing is which brings me back to the original question of how is "thought policing" different from editing. In what situations is it acceptable to edit words that someone wrote?
>I'm struggling to tell if your comment is satire or not, because it's pretty dense (and not in the "filled with words" kind of way).
I'm just trying to understand your position by asking questions.
When the author is present and engaged in the process.
Would Dahl care about these changes? We don't know. And that's the problem. It's no longer his book - it's the diluted version.
Alternatively - if the author is gone... when the story is no longer bound by copyright seems a sane approach. If you want to edit his words, make them compete with the original versions (or other folks edits). If the edits are genuinely better - they will win out.
Does this mean you would be fine with this process if it involved the author in this process and they approved of changes to a book decades after it was originally released?
>Would Dahl care about these changes? We don't know. And that's the problem. It's no longer his book - it's the diluted version.
>Alternatively - if the author is gone... when the story is no longer bound by copyright seems a sane approach. If you want to edit his words, make them compete with the original versions (or other folks edits). If the edits are genuinely better - they will win out.
Does this mean that in situations in which the author is dead and the books are still under copyright that you are ok with a publisher that decides to stop publishing the book, basically the Dr. Seuss situation?
What is the difference between "thought police" and simple editing?
For example, if I wrote a book and used a word like "gypped", I would appreciate an editor saying "Change this word to something like 'swindled'. 'Gypped' is derived from 'Gypsy' and is inherently an insult to the Romani people." Is that the editor being the "thought police" or them doing their job well?
Is the objection to the Dahl changes simply that this is happening after the books were already published?