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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

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. [/quote]
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? [/quote]

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?[/quote]
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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]
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.[/quote]

You're missing the point. I'm not picking nits about the name, I'm talking about the distinction between caving to pressure from an outside group, and voluntarily making a decision that happens to dovetail with [b]current cultural norms.[/b] I don't know how you could possibly make the argument that they're remotely the same thing.[/quote]
They are not current.  They are proposed norms.  Accepted by some and not others.  And being hotly debated too. [/quote]

um no.  Nobody proposes a norm, and then we have some sort of vote, and then hey presto - new norm. They sort of come into being.  Some will accept the new norms.  Some will continue to fight against them.  But yes, when large companies start reworking their advertising, or publishers start choosing what to publish based on evolving societal standards, new norms are being codified.  [/quote]
Well okay, you are getting there.  So who does the codification?  Corporations, lawmakers, bureaucrats and the like?  Can we call them elites? [/quote]

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