Post by queenzod on Feb 19, 2023 20:47:25 GMT
I hate that word. I grew up in the northern US (Michigan, which some folks call the Midwest but I always thought of it as the north), and I never heard that word growing up. Sure, there was plenty of racism (but not like down south), and most whites were very careful to treat black people as equals. It was also a more repressed time and people held a strict pretense of being polite, even if they didn’t feel it, or maybe I was just sheltered and/or naïve. Sometimes I think a little repression is a good thing, especially if it makes you more careful of how what you say affects people, unlike today where folks can just say any old garbage, lol.
I don’t think I’ve ever uttered that word. So I can understand how it makes people uncomfortable and not even want to look at it. It does for me. At the same time, weirdly enough, I also agree that perhaps there are times (like historical context), when it should be used. It’s just letters on a page. Strange, isn’t it, how powerful the tools for communication we created can be?
Regarding Dahl, I think the copyright to his work was sold after his death to Puffin, iirc, so legally I guess they have the right to change what they want to change. Morally and artistically, certain historically, I don’t think they’re in the clear. There’s something almost sinister about it, considering today’s climate of censorship and the sensitivity levels of some people.
There’s been an interesting series of threads on Twitter recently about the neo-Puritanism of the young, which began with a tweet from a young person who said there was a sex scene in a movie they were watching. They were affronted and didn’t think that should be allowed because they hadn’t given their consent to see it, and they likened it to sexual abuse. Of course they got absolutely torn apart in the replies, since hitting “play” is giving consent (also there’s ratings, etc.), but it was interesting and a bit worrisome how there are increasingly these kind of takes from folks who constantly want the world molded and created for their personal beliefs.
I guess that’s the push and pull of free speech and that discussion has always been going on, but it seems odd to me to hear an argument for *less* freedoms coming out of the mouths of young people, who I normally consider being the avant-garde of the progressive movement.
I don’t think I’ve ever uttered that word. So I can understand how it makes people uncomfortable and not even want to look at it. It does for me. At the same time, weirdly enough, I also agree that perhaps there are times (like historical context), when it should be used. It’s just letters on a page. Strange, isn’t it, how powerful the tools for communication we created can be?
Regarding Dahl, I think the copyright to his work was sold after his death to Puffin, iirc, so legally I guess they have the right to change what they want to change. Morally and artistically, certain historically, I don’t think they’re in the clear. There’s something almost sinister about it, considering today’s climate of censorship and the sensitivity levels of some people.
There’s been an interesting series of threads on Twitter recently about the neo-Puritanism of the young, which began with a tweet from a young person who said there was a sex scene in a movie they were watching. They were affronted and didn’t think that should be allowed because they hadn’t given their consent to see it, and they likened it to sexual abuse. Of course they got absolutely torn apart in the replies, since hitting “play” is giving consent (also there’s ratings, etc.), but it was interesting and a bit worrisome how there are increasingly these kind of takes from folks who constantly want the world molded and created for their personal beliefs.
I guess that’s the push and pull of free speech and that discussion has always been going on, but it seems odd to me to hear an argument for *less* freedoms coming out of the mouths of young people, who I normally consider being the avant-garde of the progressive movement.