I’m a liberal democrat horrified by the current Dr Seuss drama and normalization of censorship

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who the hell is hurt by the publisher taking this book out of print? Good god. Don’t make this bigger than it is. The books are old, some people find them offensive, some don’t. Nothing sinister to wor er about. Concern troll is a concern troll.

I’m in total agreement with this!! PP, what other offensive books do you think we can start to take down from circulation? Nothing bad ever happened from these actions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who the hell is hurt by the publisher taking this book out of print? Good god. Don’t make this bigger than it is. The books are old, some people find them offensive, some don’t. Nothing sinister to wor er about. Concern troll is a concern troll.

I’m in total agreement with this!! PP, what other offensive books do you think we can start to take down from circulation? Nothing bad ever happened from these actions.

The book was taken out of print. As in the seller has decided not to sell them any more. They aren’t being burned or removed from existence. You can find a copy at a used bookstore somewhere, if they want to sell it.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Come on. Come ON. This guy up there acting like he’s discovered water is wet. Is this a joke? People facing consequences for their words and deeds is not something new ffs. Unless you’re a white dude I guess.

Half of you are amd at me because I pointed out a subjective social change that I don't like and the other half are mad because they don't think anything has changed.

Meanwhile, my prior answer to you was deleted for using a normal english word that happens to sound like a racial slur. That's a part of this change in itself, but now I can't even talk about it.

I guess you don't see it. That's ok. You don't have to.

OP, what I think no one ever wants to admit is that there will be “innocent” victims of societal standards.

There will be, just as there have always been consequences for people of color for falling out of line. And that’s something that happens when we make progress.

Do you think that the fact that Neera Tanden is a brown woman has nothing to do with the fact that she couldn’t get a position in the administration over MEAN TWEETS? Like mean tweets ever stopped the nomination of a white man.

People of color and women are always punished for the most minor of indiscretions, and now that white people are getting a taste, it’s cancel culture.

Maybe the larger problem is that our society is so punitive in general. Everything is your own fault, everything is your responsibility. No one’s apology is accepted, no one is reformed, once you have a prison record you’re a pariah. Unless you are rich and white.

Yes, that's true. And pretty much what I'm saying, although from a somewhat different perspective. We do need a more forgiving society. And to the extent that the powerful are now more aware that we need to be more forgiving, that's a good thing. On the other hand, our social structures are not well designing for forgiveness and we don't know yet how to make it better. So as this process goes forward, I ask those who are not able to forgive their enemies, to consider forgiveness in their hearts, even if you do think they deserved their punishment. You can do both, and if you do we will be that much closer to a more forgiving society for all.

Once again, you don't have to agree with me. But I think you can agree that there is nothing wrong with thinking this way other than you don't like it.

I think you missed my point a little bit, OP.

Were you so "scared" and "worried" when Colin Kaepernick lost his job over a silent protest? People of color are "canceled" all the time without a rousing defense from "worried" white people.

Yes, I was.

Really?

Then why post about Dr. Seuss and not Neera Tanden?

I’m sorry, op, I’m just sort of skeptical of your whole premise here.

I'm not the OP.
Sorry you are skeptical. If your standard for skepticism is "why didn't this anonymous poster say something on a different topic" you are probably much too "skeptical" to listen to anybody you don't like. No matter what I say, when, where, or how, there will always be much more I didn't say and you can always shoot me down for that. And I can shoot you down exactly the same way. Which is not really skepticism at all, but cynicism.

I’m sorry, pp, you just seem like a concern troll. With all of the things going wrong in this country, this should be so low on the list.

Ok Thanks. I understand. We are all cynics now. That's actually one of the themes raised by a topic like this. I commented on this thread because I have personal interest in old books and the real reason this got so much attention on both left and right is that it is being seen as a minibattle in the culture wars. That makes it worthy to talk about.

I said these things repeatedly and almost everyone questioned my motives or called me names, and almost none of them considered that I might actually believe what I was saying. Of the ones that did think I believed it, none of them thought there was any value in talking about it, so they too did not comsider that someone might assign a different value to the topic than they do.

Anyway thanks for listening. Cynical ages are painful and divisice, but they never last. We will know better times are coming when we are able to hear each other once again.

[Anonymous]

Viva Seuss!

[Anonymous]

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Exactly! You are well within your rights to criticize the decision. And I fully support that right.

But when posters like OP say this is "censorship" (not you, I think), that isn't a matter of opinion. That is factually wrong.

That may be technically true, but part of the problem here is that this is now a widespread cultural phenomenon. Many people say "times change" and that's true, but this change is so new that we don't have a widely accepted word for it yet. Calling it "publisher's rights" doesn't capture it because it isn't really about their rights and it's way bigger than just publishing. "Cancel culture" is a better term, but that's too perjorative. What do you think it is?

So a publisher cancelling their own books is "cancel culture?"

How about you take over the publishing of money-losing books and start subsidizing the publisher?

I really doubt they were losing money. Those books cost nothing to print and sales were low but steady. Furthermorez they actually purpose was to keep Seuss's books in print. Plus they said that they cancelled book because the specific images were racist. So why are you making up a story that this was strictly a money decision?

As I said, "cancel culture" is not a good term. But we have no other term for "removing a statement or image from social circulation due to the perception of racism, whether voluntarily or involuntarily."

Whatever that is, it's less than 10 years old and growing fast. They were isolated cases before that. There were other reasons things get "cancelled." But this particular reason and social process is new.

Why do you consider voluntary acts part of cancel culture? Isn't the point of cancel culture that the person or company faces negative consequences - boycotts, mean Tweets, etc - if they don't stop engaging in behavior that others find problematic?

Unless you can point to any evidence that the Seuss family was pressured into taking these books out of circulation, all of this handwringing about Dr Seuss' books being cancelled is just another culture war wedge issue contrived by Republicans. Voluntarily taking books with racist caricatures out of circulation because they do not honor Dr Seuss' legacy is hardly an example of cancel culture.

Forget the name! Look at the definition. That's new. Simply unheard of ten years ago. Nobody did that. That's why we still print Mein Kampf and you can buy it on Ebay. It's the most racist book in history. Nobody ever thought to cancel it.

Who is "we"? Who exactly is printing it?

Oh brother. So you actually are perfectly okay with the printing and promoting of racist ideas?

I'm a DP (sorry forgot to put that), and no. My point was that the PP is wrong. The original publisher of MK is not still printing it. It actually was cancelled, the copyright holder refused to publish it anymore, until the copyright expired and someone new picked it up an annotated it in 2016, and many bookstores still refuse to shelve the annotated reprint. Also, if PP got it off of Ebay, someone is selling is second hand, just like they can do with all the other out of print books. So PP was wrong, people did cancel MK (and rightly so).

[Anonymous]

It’s okay to censor conservative viewpoints. How else will we be able to make room to print articles that push the new morality of “modern families”, such as the one that appears on the front page of cnn.com today with a celebratory focus on the “throuple” that are raising a baby together.

Oh I’m sorry, was that polyamorphobic? People laughed at the idea of any of these things being a slippery slope and yet here we are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Who the hell is hurt by the publisher taking this book out of print? Good god. Don’t make this bigger than it is. The books are old, some people find them offensive, some don’t. Nothing sinister to wor er about. Concern troll is a concern troll.

I’m in total agreement with this!! PP, what other offensive books do you think we can start to take down from circulation? Nothing bad ever happened from these actions.

The book was taken out of print. As in the seller has decided not to sell them any more. They aren’t being burned or removed from existence. You can find a copy at a used bookstore somewhere, if they want to sell it.

Please tell us how many should we not be concerned about? What’s the tipping point? And which books? And if the reason is “because we’ve deemed them racist so don’t want to publish racist books but go ahead if you want to sell them,” who is going to risk selling them in a climate that decides you are a racist if you sell them, read them, own them, but them? The problem is with the idea that these practices are creating a climate of cultural pariahs. Sure, right now you don’t care bc Dr Seuss isn’t your hill to die on. You can take it or leave it. It’s just a couple of books.

But why those books??? Mein Kempf is still in print and up for sale on every platform (And I think it should be!) because you don’t erase the past or evidence of it just because it may be ugly. Doing so will
Push it underground! It always will!

Instead you shine a light on it. Publish it, sell it, point out why it’s not good or how sensibilities of western society have changed and how our mobility as a people has helped us grow to appreciate one another’s differences and celebrate each other’s varied cultures rather than point or laugh at the “funny” or “odd” ways of the “other.” Allow for growth, change, human betterment rather than erasing evidence that it used to be another way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s okay to censor conservative viewpoints. How else will we be able to make room to print articles that push the new morality of “modern families”, such as the one that appears on the front page of cnn.com today with a celebratory focus on the “throuple” that are raising a baby together.

Oh I’m sorry, was that polyamorphobic? People laughed at the idea of any of these things being a slippery slope and yet here we are.

Yeah they changed Mr. Potato Head as well.... apparently Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head was making the left uncomfortable.

People would have laughed in your face in 2011 if you'd suggested that in 10 years people would find the term "Mr. and Mrs." offensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s okay to censor conservative viewpoints. How else will we be able to make room to print articles that push the new morality of “modern families”, such as the one that appears on the front page of cnn.com today with a celebratory focus on the “throuple” that are raising a baby together.

Oh I’m sorry, was that polyamorphobic? People laughed at the idea of any of these things being a slippery slope and yet here we are.

Yeah they changed Mr. Potato Head as well.... apparently Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head was making the left uncomfortable.

People would have laughed in your face in 2011 if you'd suggested that in 10 years people would find the term "Mr. and Mrs." offensive.

Yes in a free market, there was apparently a huge untapped demand for gender neutral potatoes.

[Anonymous]

Apparently people want ungendered potatoes, and don't really care ebough about books with racist imagery to buy them (or check them out of libraries), until Fox news whips them into a frenzy.

[Anonymous]

Shhhh, op. You’re about to get canceled and lose your job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Apparently people want ungendered potatoes, and don't really care ebough about books with racist imagery to buy them (or check them out of libraries), until Fox news whips them into a frenzy.

Sort of weird you revived a two week old thread about a trivial matter to tell us that. Was this on Fox News again? I wouldn't know, I don't watch any TV news at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently people want ungendered potatoes, and don't really care ebough about books with racist imagery to buy them (or check them out of libraries), until Fox news whips them into a frenzy.

Sort of weird you revived a two week old thread about a trivial matter to tell us that. Was this on Fox News again? I wouldn't know, I don't watch any TV news at all.

I don't believe OP is a liberal democrat. I think this is a fake thread engineered as a distraction because real people/voters are enjoying their stimulus and getting vaccinated at a fast pace. No one cares these outdated books will no longer be in print.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently people want ungendered potatoes, and don't really care ebough about books with racist imagery to buy them (or check them out of libraries), until Fox news whips them into a frenzy.

Sort of weird you revived a two week old thread about a trivial matter to tell us that. Was this on Fox News again? I wouldn't know, I don't watch any TV news at all.

I don't believe OP is a liberal democrat. I think this is a fake thread engineered as a distraction because real people/voters are enjoying their stimulus and getting vaccinated at a fast pace. No one cares these outdated books will no longer be in print.

Excuse me but FYI, two of those books - Mulberry Street and If I Ran the Zoo - were routinely in the TOP TEN bestselling children’s books right up until they got yanked from publication.

Since they’re selling for THOUSANDS on used book services online, I’d say some people care a whole hell of a lot.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better...its not.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently people want ungendered potatoes, and don't really care ebough about books with racist imagery to buy them (or check them out of libraries), until Fox news whips them into a frenzy.

Sort of weird you revived a two week old thread about a trivial matter to tell us that. Was this on Fox News again? I wouldn't know, I don't watch any TV news at all.

I don't believe OP is a liberal democrat. I think this is a fake thread engineered as a distraction because real people/voters are enjoying their stimulus and getting vaccinated at a fast pace. No one cares these outdated books will no longer be in print.

Excuse me but FYI, two of those books - Mulberry Street and If I Ran the Zoo - were routinely in the TOP TEN bestselling children’s books right up until they got yanked from publication.

Since they’re selling for THOUSANDS on used book services online, I’d say some people care a whole hell of a lot.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better...its not.”

His is simply untrue.