4 ms·

This is nice. The architecture is gorgeous. Has anyone talked about adding the US authors who are being canceled? Like Charles Murray? Woody Allen? Harvey Wein

This is nice. The architecture is gorgeous. Has anyone talked about adding the US authors who are being canceled? Like Charles Murray? Woody Allen? Harvey Weinstein (if he ever writes anything)? All headed for the memory hole.

ColanR 7y ago
I don't know what those people have written, but I agree. It's important to save the work of authors we disagree with, just as much the work of authors we approve of. Otherwise we are just as guilty of censorship. And recall, a moral justification for censorship is still censorship. I'm reminded of the apocryphal quote of Voltaire, "I may not agree with what you say, but I with defend to the death your right to say it."
jrochkind1 7y ago
I believe they are all still easily readable both on the internet and at physical libraries, no? My local library has many copies of every Woody Allen book, for instance.
- xhkkffbf 7y ago
  Oh no. Not everyone. He can't even get a publisher for his newest. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/woody-allen-gets-canceled-again/ https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/woody-allen-gets-cance...
  - _jal 7y ago
    He can publish on Minecraft.
    - HenryBemis 7y ago
      Although I am in favour of them printing what they want, let's keep their poison away from children, unless Minecraft has age restrictions in their library.
  - BryanBigs 7y ago
    He could easily self publish. It's not like the government is forbidding him from writing; it's that other people don't want to be associated with it. That's not censorship.
  - simonh 7y ago
    That’s not censorship. He could publish it online or at his own expense whenever he wants, but nobody else is obliged to help him do it.
  - klyrs 7y ago
    You're confusing the freedom of association with censorship. If nobody wants to publish him, it's either an ethical decision of people who don't want to associate with known rapists, or a business decision of people who don't think his works will sell well.
- _jal 7y ago
  Argeed; I don't see evidence that anyone recently "cancelled" has been Fahrenheit 451'ed. Hell, the ones who aren't in prison mostly seem to be getting their careers back.
HenryBemis 7y ago
I don't know why they downvote you. The best think Hitler ever did is kill himself, but still, the poison he has put on paper must live on so we never forget what happened. We do have the risk that some people may follow those writings, but we should not erase history. From Wikipedia: Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the deities, as outlined in his introduction to his work. I do NOT imply that Allen, Weinstein, Hitler are the modern Thucydides buy if we silence them we become them. Let their works be forgotten because they deserve it, not because they were censored (imho).
chc 7y ago
I think you're drawing a pretty bizarre comparison here. Murray's work is still available on Amazon, as well as in most other book stores and libraries. Woody Allen has previously written books that are still available on Amazon, and he recently wrote another book, but does not have a publisher and isn't willing to self-publish, which still puts him ahead of roughly 90% of writers. Harvey Weinstein is a film producer who was recently convicted of multiple counts of rape, not a writer at all.
- xhkkffbf 7y ago
  I don't think it's a bizarre comparison at all. Many of the censored books are only censored in a few countries. They meet your criterion of being available on Amazon. So why are they special but the books disliked in America aren't? And heck, the "self-publish" idea could apply to all of the books in this library. They could also be tossed aside and told to "self-publish." This is a question the library is going to face. I'm just asking the question. And heck, I didn't choose the most controversial people out there for examples, but I'm getting downvoted like crazy. The hairsplitters will blather on about how only governments can censor, but the downvoting going on here sure feels like censorship to me.
  - chc 7y ago
    You asked whether they should upload books by a rapist who hasn't written any books. I really disagree that this is a major quandry these people are going to have to face. Assuming your comment wasn't just an attempt to shoehorn in some barely related grievance about "cancel culture," it is very unclear exactly what comparison you were trying to draw between a rapist and a journalist who's been censored for telling the truth about an autocratic regime.
  - samatman 7y ago
    This is because censorship is when you can't get a text by government fiat, because providing it is illegal. "Canceling" is a worrying trend, I agree with you on that. The people you're talking about are not experiencing censorship in America, making your proposal irrelevant in context. If you had proposed, say, hosting Milo Yiannopoulos' tweets, that would have almost made sense. It's still not state censorship, but they're no longer broadly available, whereas Murray's books clearly are. Almost. There's still a huge gulf here, because if you put Milo's tweets up on a web server (almost certainly someone has), no American need fear loss of access to that site.

ColanR 7y ago

I don't know what those people have written, but I agree. It's important to save the work of authors we disagree with, just as much the work of authors we approve of. Otherwise we are just as guilty of censorship. And recall, a moral justification for censorship is still censorship. I'm reminded of the apocryphal quote of Voltaire, "I may not agree with what you say, but I with defend to the death your right to say it."

jrochkind1 7y ago

I believe they are all still easily readable both on the internet and at physical libraries, no? My local library has many copies of every Woody Allen book, for instance.

xhkkffbf 7y ago
Oh no. Not everyone. He can't even get a publisher for his newest. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/woody-allen-gets-canceled-again/ https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/woody-allen-gets-cance...
- _jal 7y ago
  He can publish on Minecraft.
  - HenryBemis 7y ago
    Although I am in favour of them printing what they want, let's keep their poison away from children, unless Minecraft has age restrictions in their library.
- BryanBigs 7y ago
  He could easily self publish. It's not like the government is forbidding him from writing; it's that other people don't want to be associated with it. That's not censorship.
- simonh 7y ago
  That’s not censorship. He could publish it online or at his own expense whenever he wants, but nobody else is obliged to help him do it.
- klyrs 7y ago
  You're confusing the freedom of association with censorship. If nobody wants to publish him, it's either an ethical decision of people who don't want to associate with known rapists, or a business decision of people who don't think his works will sell well.
_jal 7y ago
Argeed; I don't see evidence that anyone recently "cancelled" has been Fahrenheit 451'ed. Hell, the ones who aren't in prison mostly seem to be getting their careers back.

HenryBemis 7y ago

I don't know why they downvote you. The best think Hitler ever did is kill himself, but still, the poison he has put on paper must live on so we never forget what happened. We do have the risk that some people may follow those writings, but we should not erase history. From Wikipedia: Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the deities, as outlined in his introduction to his work. I do NOT imply that Allen, Weinstein, Hitler are the modern Thucydides buy if we silence them we become them. Let their works be forgotten because they deserve it, not because they were censored (imho).

chc 7y ago

I think you're drawing a pretty bizarre comparison here. Murray's work is still available on Amazon, as well as in most other book stores and libraries. Woody Allen has previously written books that are still available on Amazon, and he recently wrote another book, but does not have a publisher and isn't willing to self-publish, which still puts him ahead of roughly 90% of writers. Harvey Weinstein is a film producer who was recently convicted of multiple counts of rape, not a writer at all.

xhkkffbf 7y ago
I don't think it's a bizarre comparison at all. Many of the censored books are only censored in a few countries. They meet your criterion of being available on Amazon. So why are they special but the books disliked in America aren't? And heck, the "self-publish" idea could apply to all of the books in this library. They could also be tossed aside and told to "self-publish." This is a question the library is going to face. I'm just asking the question. And heck, I didn't choose the most controversial people out there for examples, but I'm getting downvoted like crazy. The hairsplitters will blather on about how only governments can censor, but the downvoting going on here sure feels like censorship to me.
- chc 7y ago
  You asked whether they should upload books by a rapist who hasn't written any books. I really disagree that this is a major quandry these people are going to have to face. Assuming your comment wasn't just an attempt to shoehorn in some barely related grievance about "cancel culture," it is very unclear exactly what comparison you were trying to draw between a rapist and a journalist who's been censored for telling the truth about an autocratic regime.
- samatman 7y ago
  This is because censorship is when you can't get a text by government fiat, because providing it is illegal. "Canceling" is a worrying trend, I agree with you on that. The people you're talking about are not experiencing censorship in America, making your proposal irrelevant in context. If you had proposed, say, hosting Milo Yiannopoulos' tweets, that would have almost made sense. It's still not state censorship, but they're no longer broadly available, whereas Murray's books clearly are. Almost. There's still a huge gulf here, because if you put Milo's tweets up on a web server (almost certainly someone has), no American need fear loss of access to that site.