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A new moralism is gripping the literary world
- stephvd 6y agoIf anything, such controversies make me want to get a copy of said literature and read it at the first possible instance. Can I call it the Streisand effect? Maybe. I have an unsubstantiated theory that this moral compassing at the institutional level (like the article mentions) has gathered more steam after the internet went into our phones and thus became highly accessible to the general public.
- ramraj07 6y agoAs long as you are able to do that, is it truly censoring? No ones burning books here. To say the publishing industry is especially censoring today than before is outrageous. The point is that it self censored in the ethnicity and gender of its authors instead of the material. There’s only one nytimes best seller that can exist about a Mexican immigrant, now do you want that to be written by a white author or a Mexican one? If the white author writes objectively better, why is that? Perhaps encouraging minorities to write about themselves is just one of the methods we can use to solve the social problems these factoids represent? Oh no! White men can’t write from the perspective of groups they have historically dominated and ruled! Cry me a river!
- nickthemagicman 6y agoIf we're censoring ideas based on culture then computers, and cars, and planes, should only be allowed to be used by white men.
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- whydoibother 6y agoWhite isn’t a culture. Also BIPOC have made contributions to all those things. Way to erase them.
- nickthemagicman 6y agoThen Black, Asian, or Latin aren't cultures either? The wright brothers, carl benz, charles babbage, invented flight, automobiles, and computers respectively. All very white dudes.
- jmkb 6y ago"Black" was a label applied to persons of many different cultures in the context of colonialism and slavery. In some places, such as the USA, Black became a cultural identity because it was a legal one; these people and their offspring were governed by a separate set of laws and only legally allowed to raise families with each other. "Asian" is too broad a term to be much use outside of geography. "Latin" is a little more coherent, based on both geography and language. It's still pretty broad though; there are common threads but I don't know anyone who identifies simply as Latin. "White" as a cultural identity is a relatively new invention. Personally I don't see much in the way of a shared culture here. It's problematic for many because in the USA it's been very prominently used by persons and groups who've been opposed to increasing civil rights for non-whites. It's distasteful to others because it represents a flattening of culture -- in my experience, white Americans will generally more readily identify with a particular subset of European heritage and/or with their own state or region. But this may be changing.
- leephillips 6y agoI’m not even sure there is a single “white” culture within the US. I mainly see the idea promoted by people who want to absorb some credit for the accomplishments of others. See some of the other comments here, about computers being invented by “my people”.
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
- Koliakis 6y ago> As long as you are able to do that, is it truly censoring? No ones burning books here. To say the publishing industry is especially censoring today than before is outrageous. The point is that it self censored in the ethnicity and gender of its authors instead of the material. I've been trying to get the older Seuss books. They're impossible to get. And if one of them does happen to be available, the prices are astronomical. I do think there's some level of censorship happening here and I get inklings of book burning when I consider how difficult it is to get these books.
- whydoibother 6y agoPeople are buying them to resell to all the chuds. It’s not some grand plot.
- mcshicks 6y agoDid you try archive.org? I was curious what the concern was with some titles and was able to find a couple there.
- wincy 6y agoA few days ago they were one of the top torrents on a high seas themed site. I archived them if for no other reason than because I’ve been told that I shouldn’t.
- gregallan 6y agoNobody is telling you you shouldn’t archive them. The publishers decided they weren’t comfortable selling them to be shown to children. I’m personally glad that you’ve helped preserve these once-beloved cultural artifacts. However, I’d hope that anyone would hesitate to give these particular books to children in 2021.
- AlexandrB 6y agoIt would be one thing if the publisher just stopped printing them. As pointed out in the article they were banned from eBay (a dubious honour achieved not even by Mein Kampf), and removed from libraries. In terms of giving these to children - I'd argue that this is the parent's decision to make and that there are far worse things we are seem to be ok exposing children to, like advertising or social media.
- kapp_in_life 6y ago>There’s only one nytimes best seller that can exist about a Mexican immigrant Why is that? Surely if both are well written/marketed enough they could both be bestsellers?
- moron4hire 6y agoAlso, it's not like "NYTimes Best Seller" is the gigantic accolade people make it out to be. https://scribemedia.com/get-best-seller-list/ https://scribemedia.com/get-best-seller-list/
- jfengel 6y agoIt's free marketing -- or at least, a marketing amplifier. Sell enough books and you can get your name in front of a bunch more people. Those people at least know that other people are buying your book. That said, your link's observation that it's a curated list actually means that it is more of an accolade than merely sales. It means that somebody at the Times wanted the book on the list, which says more to its readers. It's not much, but when you're trying to stand out in a crowded market, each little bit helps. Popularity has a positive feedback effect, and it's really slow going if you can't take advantage of it. At least for a cycle or two.
- moron4hire 6y agoOn the other hand, if you can sell the "5,000 to 10,000 copies in a week" that is the supposed threshold for getting notice from the NY Times, do you really need help selling your book? Selling books gets you on the list, getting on the list sells books. Which is the bigger effect? Given the NY Times growing irrelivance in the market, the high-profile cases of having their list gamed more than once, their ongoing war against their own users with the 3rd party tracking and bullshit they pull over cancellations, I somehow doubt their list is having much of an impact on anyone.
- jfengel 6y agoI dunno. I do have an indirect personal experience: a podcaster wrote a book, and asked all of his followers to pre-order it in the hopes of getting on the NYT bestseller list. Which I did, and it did. I don't know how much that helped, but the underlying logic makes sense. He had a medium-sized niche audience, but their word of mouth wasn't going to sell a lot of extra copies. This put the book out on a world stage. And it just so happened that this particular book (a nerdy exploration of the politics of pre-Caesar Roman Republic) might appeal to the New York Times readership. That's what the list could be for at its best: a mechanism for breaking out of your niche. I have no idea how many extra books it sold, but it was a meaningful mechanism for trying.
- DC1350 6y agoYou’re just asking white people to quit writing since a book with 0 minority characters is also going to be criticized.
- at_a_remove 6y agoThat's the point, as far as I can tell. An elaborate flowchart is constructed and all paths lead to DON'T, but stated in different ways, so that you cannot see the trap. Write characters that are not exactly like you: you cannot possibly do this right and have no business attempting it. Write characters that are just like you: where's my representation? It just needs a speech synthesizer uttering the words "The only winning move is not to play" at the end. Thus, effectively silenced by your own conclusion, other people can take your place. If you point this out, well, hasn't your kind said enough already?
- andrewzah 6y agoThat is exactly the Streisand effect. My local libraries used to have day/week events specifically to read banned books. I wonder if that's still a thing? If not, publishers/libraries should bring it back as it's a win/win for them.
- npteljes 6y agoSocial media being in everyone's pocket certainly fueled the fire.
- croes 6y agoSo no more Sci-fi Books from the alien point of view?
- ramraj07 6y agoIf it meant an alien race living among us can’t write about themselves, then yes.
- xhkkffbf 6y agoIt's sad that the people at Star Trek couldn't find any Klingon, Vulcan, or Romulon actors to speak with honesty. Pretty much every episode is filled with earth-born actors portraying some other planet's residents. And it's not limited to the aliens. James Doohan pretended to be a native scotsman even though he was born in Canada. Canada!!
- infogulch 6y agoA Bugs Life is an abominable appropriation of insect culture. You're not an ant so you lack the authority to write or read anything that represents ant culture.
- newswasboring 6y agoI know you are being sarcastic but if ants could communicate this is exactly what they will say. The movie represents nothing from their culture and makes shit up. The difference is minority people can fight back.
- swayvil 6y agonon-ants would get outraged on behalf of the ants.
- newswasboring 6y agoWho cares. If someone misappropriated my culture for an entire movie I'll be pretty mad, who cares if someone else also took offence. I feel like this kind of argument only serves as distraction (not implying that's your intent). Do you not think ant culture would be absolutely offended by someone doing this?
- KittenInABox 6y ago> In March 2020, staff at the publishing house Hachette in New York, including employees of Little Brown and Grand Central Publishing, walked out over the planned publication of Woody Allen’s memoir, Apropos of Nothing, because the film director was the subject in the early 1990s of a molestation allegation, for which he was twice investigated without charge. Hachette caved to employees’ demands and canceled the release, which Allen later published elsewhere. I don't really think defending Woody Allen is a good example of any of the purity politics that was first opened up with, and its use makes me suspicious of the entire essay's goodwill otherwise. It's super weird to rope in "these people don't like white people writing brown protagonists" and "the employees of this company do not want to participate in publishing the nonfiction of a credibly accused child molester". I think the essay is significantly weakened by conflating the two in any respect.
- tharne 6y agoI disagree. Living in a free and open society means defending everyone's right to have a voice, and that means defending the free speech rights of those we despise.
- KittenInABox 6y agoNo one is saying Woody Allen shouldn't produce his own memoir. I am saying its weird to conflate not desiring to purchase the nonfiction rights of a credibly accused child molester and then profit off of selling that same nonfiction to otherwise significantly more niche issues such as whether or not a white author should be writing black protagonists. The end of the essay even focuses on the race aspect! I just completely do not understand trying to conflate the purchasing of a credibly accused child molester's work to excessive purity on writing brown/black people in fiction.
- iamatworknow 6y agoThe "conflating" is addressed just a couple of paragraphs later: >The above cases are each distinct. You may agree with how the book world responded in some instances, and disagree in others. But what these cases convey is how much the literary establishment is struggling with a dread of “harm,” related both to content and authors. It speaks to the spreading sense that it thinks of itself as carrying out a moral mission, whose standards are those of progressive activism.
- nickthemagicman 6y agoIt's gripping the entire world. When things are judged, not by how the author intended, but by the readers interpretation, it's a bad situation.
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoOscar Wilde has something to say about censorship (and he knew a little bit about being attacked for writing): > There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. In today’s highly polarized and tribal world, books must also be a way to signal virtue and tribe membership.
- tharne 6y agoThat was exactly Nabokov's point in writing Lolita.
- nickthemagicman 6y agoThis also applies to art in general. Marcel Duchamps Fountain was one of my favorite pieces of art because it called out the art world for judging art based on the fact that it was made by a member of the accepted 'art world' but it was a frickin urinal.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoI didn't think that was the point. I thought that the point was that, within certain flavors of philosophy, there is no such thing as beauty (that is, beauty has no objective reality), and therefore that anything could be regarded as being art. Duchamps' point was that this urinal was as good as the Mona Lisa; that is, Duchamps really agreed with this viewpoint (if I understand correctly). He got upset when critics called it "pretty", because that meant that they had completely missed the point.
- nickthemagicman 6y agoIt beggers the question of 'what is art'? What actually MADE that urinal art was that it was made by a member of the artistic ingroup. If I go hang a urinal in a museum as a web developer I will get arrested and it will be thrown out.
- karaterobot 6y agoThis article is ridiculous. The current wave of book burning, censorship and denunciation is completely different from previous ones, because I support the positions of the mob. I know that this wave of book burnings, censorship and denunciation will lead to a brighter tomorrow. I should point out that I don't support 100% of the positions of the mob, but I won't say which ones I disagree with because I don't want to be next. The differences I have are minor, and I'm willing to change them immediately if necessary.
- vcavallo 6y agoFriendly reminder: It’s typically a good time to do some self-reflection when you find yourself saying “I support the positions of the mob”
- iamatworknow 6y agoI'm guessing the post you're replying to is sarcasm, or trolling, because it seems too perfectly absurd.
- leephillips 6y agoThere is no instance of irony that won’t be taken literally by some tone-deaf reader.
- dantillberg 6y agoThis line of thinking has me gravely concerned for the future of liberal democracy. I don't know where parent lives in the world, but from my perspective in the United States, I deeply fear that there are many Americans who would support an anti-democratic coup (or mob) in a heartbeat so long as it aligned with enough of their political sentiments. Edit: maybe parent is a little too-secretly sarcastic, but even so I suspect many others think like this unironically.
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- seneca 6y agoNone of this will stop until people stop listening to these puritanical prigs and their endless pronouncements. People have to stop ceding the public square to the most shrill. Unfortunately, shrill lunacy drives "engagement", so media and social media alike swarm around it.
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- tharne 6y agoI've noticed this too. The recommendations I'm now getting from my audible account are full of newly-published titles promoting wokism and other morally and intellectually bankrupt junk rather than the classic titles I typically go for.
- octopoc 6y agoHave you tried Downpour? Their customer service is excellent. Their selection is smaller, but if you're mostly interested in classics the two catalogs are probably more comparable.
- Pxtl 6y ago> wokism and other morally and intellectually bankrupt junk duuuuude.
- undefined1 6y agoit's like if Spotify suddenly started recommending Christian Rock.
- hn8788 6y agoSpotify is doing stuff like that. I kept getting a bunch of podcast recommendations for things like "stop asian hate" and "navigating the workplace as a person of color". Over the summer I was getting recommendations for albums and songs called "Black Lives Matter" by no name artists. I ended up cancelling my subscription and switching to amazon music because the amount of space used to push woke political podcasts and music meant that new releases from artists I follow wasn't showing up.
- andrewzah 6y agoIs it that, or are people suddenly becoming aware of these specific podcasts/groups due to current events? Which is more likely: spotify pushing specific agendas, or spotify employing a recommendation engine that recommends things that see a surge in listening activity? Regarding your example of "stop asian hate"- the asian instagram community has been talking about it a lot in wake of current events. It is entirely unsurprising that people would be checking it out after being previously unaware.
- rfrey 6y agoIt's amazing to me, and my long-gone 18 year old activist self, that vocally supporting Freedom to Read week in 2021 would get me branded a right-wing bigot (if anybody cared to brand me at all, which they wouldn't.) It's a depressingly common pattern for an oppressed group which begins to break its chains to be co-opted and weaponized by people who are more interested in revenge than justice and equality.
- treestumpquiet 6y agoThis is queen Victoria’s dream finally realized. We have come full circle.
- meanjeans 6y agoI think the author here misrepresented the JK Rowling thing quite a bit. The idea is not to "scour" her texts for hidden anti-trans sentiment. The idea is that Rowling makes money off of selling her books and has built an empire, and the resultant power is now used by her as a platform to propagate anti-trans speech. Quite a different issue and also quite novel (pun unintended). Death of the Author is a concurrently operating, but in my opinion separate, question.
- vcavallo 6y agoi’m not familiar with JKR’s anti-trans speech. got a quote?
- troutwine 6y agoMight be this is the kind of thing you’re looking for: https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk-rowling-transgender-comments-controversy https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk...
- CodeGlitch 6y ago> On June 6, 2020, Rowling retweeted an op-ed piece that discussed “people who menstruate,” apparently taking issue with the fact that the story did not use the word women. “‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud? I'm still not convinced this is anti-trans. I mean it's reality so for people to want to cancel her over this is ridiculous (which sums up the woke-ideology pretty much).
- troutwine 6y agoThis pulled quote, in isolation, might not be, sure. The question about this particular complaint is whether its meant exclusively or inclusively. Does a woman who has stopped menstruating stop being a woman? Is a woman who has never menstruated and never will, in fact, not a woman? What if these people feel in their person like women? How one reads Rowling's comment in light of these questions informs one's sense of her intent. If you read Rowling's comment inclusively then it's a clumsy, ambiguous complaint about shifting language norms that is harmless and warrants a clarification. If you read the comment exclusively -- which I think is fair given Rowling's other statements over the years -- then I find it hard to read in a charitable light. It is, I admit, entirely possible that Rowling doesn't hold trans-exclusionary views and has merely, accidentally chosen ambiguous wording over the years and is pig-headed enough to be unwilling to clarify but I do find this _unlikely_ considering that she's a famously clear author who is willing to clarify (and extend) her body of work for years after the fact.
- bitcurious 6y ago>https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/10/not-suitable-catalan-translator-for-amanda-gorman-poem-removed https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/10/not-suitable-c... This extends beyond the contents of the book. Here a "white" (but really Catalan) man was fired from translating a poem because his identity didn't mirror the poet's.
- eclat 6y agoWhen will the insanity end?
- Balgair 6y agoEducating others, communicating events, and discussing these cultural touchstones is the beginning of the end for such things. It's a process (I think), and we're all collectively part of it. The end of this particular cycle may not have a definitive date though. I want to stress that honest and open communication about opinions and a commitment to truth and the long process of fact-checking seems to be the best way forward, if not necessarily the easiest.
- tenm43 6y agoFunny you would mention Catalan when Catalonian public schools are trying to extinguish the use of Spanish on the basis that 60 years ago it was "the language of Franco and fascism". The amount of moral crusading in Catalonia against the use of the Spanish language is appalling. Looks like this modern moralism really does extend much farther than publishing books. https://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/2020-11-05/la-comision-de-educacion-del-congreso-aprueba-eliminar-el-castellano-como-lengua-vehicular_2821720/ https://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/2020-11-05/la-comision...
- jseliger 6y agoI'm surprised more writers don't advertise with slogans like "read the dangerous book they don't want you to read." It's also possible that the most interesting writing is happening in the self-published world, or the near-self-published world. That's where current classics like Lolita or Ulysses came from. Or much of D.H. Lawrence.
- eclat 6y agoThat’s what’s happening. Publications like Substack are letting authors escape the censors. Others still like Quillette, Aero, Spiked and more traditional ones like the Spectator have an anti woke consensus mission - and they represent the entire political spectrum. I’m not sure about book publishers but the change is happening across media more widely. The progressive left keeps getting hammered in elections in Europe at least, but it seems certain institutions are going the other way, not least media.
- wincy 6y agoI read a rambling self-published screed by what I can only assume is an alt-right man in his 20s called Harassment Architecture. It was really bizarre and like nothing I’d ever read. I couldn’t put it down, it felt almost pornographic him saying things that just aren’t allowed to be said. Like listening to circa 2000 Eminem in 2021. I’m honestly not even sure how I got the book, I think I was drunk and ordered it off of Amazon. I wouldn’t say I recommend the book, but I think you’re right that there’s a lot of self published stuff now that is really off the wall.
- leephillips 6y agoNeither of those novels was self-published, or “near”ly so.
- Mediterraneo10 6y agoI suppose the OP meant choosing (or being forced) to eschew mainstream publishers when publishing one’s book. Lolita and Ulysses both had to be put out by small presses in Paris where there was no censorship, though indeed this isn’t quite self-publishing because there was a publisher who took on the risk.
- fatbird 6y agoAlarmism over cancel culture is weird because cancel culture, which has always existed in one form or another, from one side or another, is what creates something to transgress against. The great, transgressive works of yesterday are so just because they caused controversy and challenge. If transgressive works dropped without a squeek, they wouldn't be transgressive, would they? It's nonsensical to to try to preserve a space for challenging works by removing the challenge to them.
- heterodoxxed 6y agoMuch of the reaction is people who want to be transgressive but don't truly have the stomach for it. Especially if twitter chatter can break their spirit. There are new conventions forming. Writers who want to break them need to learn how to put up their fists. And writing a medium article complaining about cancel culture is not how that is done.
- vp8989 6y agoHow is it done then?
- heterodoxxed 6y agoKeep writing and don't give a shit.
- JulianMorrison 6y agoWhat's actually happening: society is justifiably deciding that some things that used to pass without notice, because people were very racist or sexist or homophobic or whatever, are now recognisably and irreparably awful. And we should probably stop doing them because they are hurting people. Both directly, by being the constant micro-aggression wallpaper of marginalised lives, and indirectly, by sustaining a cultural environment that comforts bigots in their bigotry. I don't expect HN to understand this. But it is fundamentally different from the various tirades of the Moral Majority and friends. This is not an attempt to impose a religious set of restraints. This is an attempt to make the world kinder and less awful. And it is a good thing.
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- asphaltycode 6y ago> society No. It’s an ideology of the elites.
- imstate 6y agoWho decides what is ok and what isn't? In a free society people are allowed to express views, even if it offends someone. I really don't expect the woke communists to accept a free society though.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago> I don't expect HN to understand this. But it is fundamentally different from the various tirades of the Moral Majority and friends. This is not an attempt to impose a religious set of restraints. This is an attempt to make the world kinder and less awful. And it is a good thing. But the Moral Majority was also an attempt to make the world kinder and less awful. They just had different definitions of "kinder" and "awful" than you do. If you don't like having it done to you (or viewpoints you like), then don't do it to others.
- swayvil 6y agoLook at many of our popular online comics for examples of this. What do we call this, "populist fascism"?
- disposekinetics 6y agoI'm really out of the loop, what is going on in online comics?
- swayvil 6y agoA vast carefulness is occurring. A ubiquitous attempt to stay on the right side of the twitter mob.
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- qotgalaxy 6y agoIf the author is so adamant that everybody has the right to be a published author, why hasn't he sent me my advance for my slashfic yet?
- apocalypstyx 6y agoEvery major publisher is a capitalist enterprise. Editors, et al., are merely devices to operate such enterprise in order to deliver monetary value to board members and shareholders. All decisions, one way or another, are toward that aim, regardless of surface appearance. Those who have a problem with the current situation actually, then, have a problem with capitalism but don't know or can't admit it. Capitalism is not a moral force (except unto itself) and just senses the wind and responds to it to perpetuate itself. The 'woke' stuff Disney used to make was Song of the South. Now it's (whatever they do these days).
- titzer 6y agoI mostly agree with what you wrote, but "Capitalism is not a moral force (except unto itself)" isn't right. It absolutely is a moral force that has passed judgment on lazy, poor, and uneducated rubes who don't toil endlessly and retire unhappy to die early and not drain the system. Our society constantly shames people who don't buy the propaganda about our moral overlords, the Bezoses, Gateses, and Musks of the world.
- apocalypstyx 6y agoThat is what I meant by 'unto itself'. The only type of morality it allows for is what can be deployed as a defense of and perpetuation of itself. (Those whom God has blessed with riches, as the ancient tautology goes, are favored by God. Is there much distinction between the invisible hand of the market and the invisible hand of God? Did we finally invent a God that moves on its own?)
- marshmallow_12 6y agoNo
- gotoeleven 6y agoI wish the woke arbiters of what is allowed would come out with a handy color wheel that you could compare to your skin and it would tell you what you're allowed to write about.
- Pxtl 6y agoI hate this kind of anti-woke reactionary stuff. ... but for aspiring writers, there is a problem. On the one hand, writers should write what they know. They shouldn't try to assume they know some minority's lived experiences. On the other hand, literature should be inclusive. That means including minorities, and not just as peripheral characters. We don't need more My Magical Gay Friend stories. I haven't heard a good discussion on how to reconcile this contradiction. The only avenue that leaves is for straight white people to stop writing, and, y'know: No. The outrage does seem selective. I mean, one of the seminal classics of science-fiction literature on the subject of gender - and a very popular book among feminist readers - is The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin. And I've never heard anyone complain that she wrote a black protagonist, despite not having black experiences. But on the other hand, The Left Hand of Darkness isn't much about the black experience. It's more of a travelogue of a genderless society. So maybe that's the distinction? American Dirt isn't just about a Mexican, it's a story of the Mexican-American immigration experience. And maybe it's right that stories like that should be written by people who're closer to them?
- makomk 6y agoI'm pretty sure, having seen some interviews with Ursula K. LeGuin, that something as transgressive towards our society's assumptions about gender as The Left Hand of Darkness would not have been written or published today, and certainly not by her or anyone who had the same influences and social circles as she did.
- iamatworknow 6y ago>And maybe it's right that stories like that should be written by people who're closer to them? Both books should be able to exist simultaneously.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> I haven’t heard a good discussion on how to reconcile this contradiction. The best way to reconcile it is to stop engaging in the fallacy of division. Literature should be inclusive. Not every individual work of literature needs to be inclusive of every identity. Yes, a cis-het-male-Euro-American writer writing about unique experiences of cis-het-male-Euro-Americans (where characters of other backgrounds are seen only through the perspective of cit-het-male-Euro-Americans) might not speak to lots of people who aren’t cis-het-male-Euro-Americans. So what? It’s not a problem that such works exist, it is a problem when such works dominate available literature to the near-exclusion of other viewpoints.
- Pxtl 6y agoUh, this is definitely going to be a "more heat than light" thread.
- DoofusOfDeath 6y agoI've been trying to figure out why this topic in particular triggers exceptionally passionate discussion on HN. I have some pet theories, but they're really speculative, and I'm not very confident in them.
- danaliv 6y agoThere's passion, and then there's dirty fighting. Name calling and dismissiveness. A veritable army of straw men. Unwillingness to even attempt to understand an opposing viewpoint. Let's call that what it is. It ain't "passion."
- shockeychap 6y agoI don't disagree. But isn't calling anybody who disagrees even slightly with you a racist, or a bigot, or a xenophobe, or a hate monger, or any of a thousand other things, the very height of "unwillingness to even attempt to understand an opposing viewpoint." I don't hear critics of CRT and wokism calling their opponents the most reprehensible and odious names they can imagine. I see plenty of CRT advocates doing just that. Why is this okay?
- blub 6y agoI have the feeling that this movement has the potential of destroying our public discourse culture, to undermine free thinking and remold our societies to be more unfair, capricious and despotic. We're seeing the modern equivalents of witch hunts and book burnings.
- glaukopis 6y agoI always have trouble with stuff like this, because my inner teenage hacker is cheering that "information wants to be free!" while at the same time I'm cognizant of the fact that we have to treat information with a certain level of care. Here's a take I don't necessarily believe, but is about as generous to the new left as I can make it: Ideas can be powerfully virulent, and we're especially susceptible to them when they support something we already suspect (confirmation bias). Under complete deregulation, people seek out information that confirms their biases, and our societal inertia continues unrestricted. The naive solution to me is something like we have now: introduce a friction factor. People are generally lazy, and if they don't have immediate access to something, they won't seek it out. If we make problematic media difficult to find but nevertheless available, we change the general cultural milieu without outright banning difficult texts. This obviously falls apart when it comes to introducing new texts and ideas into the mainstream - if people are disincentivized to print anything that isn't playing by the rules, it's terrible for innovation and creates a whole new brand of inertia. It's also terrible in that it's an unstable equilibrium: if people care enough to keep their foot on the gas in terms of narrowing access to virulent media, it doesn't take much to convince them to go pedal-to-the-metal and start banning everything.
- AlexandrB 6y agoThe "virulent" media these days is 280 chr tweets, videos of guys talking into their phone in their car, and Facebook groups. The idea that anyone today is radicalized by long-form prose is pretty out there. Instead, banning problematic books creates the perfect rallying cry for our generation's ideologues to recruit more followers on social media platforms and Youtube. Of the people talking about the recently discontinued Seuss books, how many have ever even read them? I know I haven't.
- glaukopis 6y agoThis is true, and another reason why I have problems with my "generous" take. However, I'd also suggest that the notion of a friction factor applies to new media as well: if Twitter makes it difficult to be casually racist on their platform, but there still exist sites which allow you to be casually racist, it spares the average individual from having their mental namespace polluted with those "virulent ideas" without eliminating free speech entirely. Whether this is a positive thing, or even an acceptable course of action is something I'm very dubious of, however. This is all just my initial take on the topic though: I always have difficulty engaging with stuff like this and forming opinions constructively since it's just an exhausting concept to try to be productive with people on. edit: I realize now that I misunderstood your point: I thought you were saying "new media can have a radicalizing effect" to which this comment was responding to by saying "light regulation works for new media as well". I now understand you said that "old media doesn't radicalize a significant number of people" which has the obvious endpoint "light regulation of old media isn't necessary". On balance, I definitely agree with that.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> Literature used to be a place for transgressive ideas, a place to question taboos, and seek naked insights into humanity. It no longer is. Bullshit. It still is. It has also always been a place where doing that provoked backlash, and the path of least resistance has been to avoid doing that and follow conventional morality; that, too, has not changed. What has changed is that particular ideas which until recently have themselves been extremely transgressive have moved their way into conventional morality, at least in substantial sectors of society, so that the backlash once associated with transgressive ideas and approaches is now being experienced with what were fairly recently conventional, safe ideas and manners of expression.
- zozbot234 6y ago> Critics, writers and publishers are today enforcing a new vision that treats books less as a vehicle for artistic expression than as a product to be inspected for safety and wholesomeness. In the past few years, this has only gained momentum, with much of what is written about literature, old and new, becoming a series of moral pronouncements. Pay attention, this is how the book-burnings and the witch-hunts start. "Wokism" is the new Right Wing Authoritarianism of this age.
- red02 6y agoLuckily books aren't so new release centric, the fad books will be forgotten.
- DC1350 6y agoIt’s just neo-Puritanism. Treat it the same way crazy religious people used to be treated and we’ll all be fine :)
- h2odragon 6y agoWhen the right wanted to ban media, a quire reasonable counter argument was "you don't have to buy, or read, the things you don't like". Where's that argument today? Why is anything "problematic" an assault against society as a whole, automatically, as well as whatever underprivileged group its offensive to? Have humans lost the ability to tolerate the knowledge that someone, somewhere, may disagree with them? Or is it just the attention elite that think this way?
- xenocratus 6y agoThere isn't a discussion about this where I'm not reminded of South Park's "In my safe space": > We can face almost anything > But Reality we can do without
- donovanian 6y ago> Have humans lost the ability to tolerate the knowledge that someone, somewhere, may disagree with them? Scratch humans. Liberals fancy themselves as apolitical and simply "intelligent." Think of the smarmy liberal culture icon Colbert saying "reality has a well-known liberal bias." Side-note: if this were a critique of conservatives, it wouldn't be flagged. It's a form of classism under the pretense that it's not - that's why they evade examination of themselves by centering the conversation on identity. "I'm not the problem - I'm an advocate for them!"
- karaterobot 6y ago> When the right wanted to ban media, a quire reasonable counter argument was "you don't have to buy, or read, the things you don't like". I don't actually think the situation is all that different. I think it's still a perfectly reasonable counter-argument, which the other side will ignore, just as it did back then! This is all a proxy for tribal, cultural warfare. It's never been about the books themselves, their potential for hurting people or anything else. It's about destroying the other side. The books and their authors and their readers are a means to to that end. There's no room for compromise under that framework. It's a ridiculous and unproductive situation.
- threatofrain 6y agoThere is a more vicious form of cancellation going on. - For example, only in 2003 was gay sex legal throughout the US. Is that a form of cancelling? - It’s still legal to fire or not hire gay people. Is that a form of cancelling? - US conservatives also fight for the right of any public official to follow the calling of Jesus by refusing to sign marriage licenses. Or the constitutional right to refuse business. - Does one not remember the Bush Jr presidential race where a US constitution ban on gay marriage was the get out to vote issue for Christian evangelicals? - We have doctors who cannot follow the prescriptions of their professional societies, such as the American Pediatric Society, because they are banned by law from advising youths on transgender treatment. - There is a race around the country to make it harder for those over 65 to vote, or to reduce voting locations. What is Cancellation? At the core of cancellation is the freedom of association. But freedom of association doesn’t make it so TX can prosecute gay men for having sex in a bedroom. Freedom of association means people either like you or don’t like you, and they will either associate with you or they won’t. Any discussion of harmony must account for a history of cruelty.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoI was genuinely disturbed to discover that some publishers are asking agents about the sexuality of the writers they represent. Right and left seem to have turned the culture wars into different flavours of tribal lifestyle branding - engaging and marketable, but also superficial and substance-free.
- bitwize 6y agoThis is just sparkling consequences, nothing more. Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
- user982 6y agoThis is hilarious: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=persuasion.community https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=persuasion.community
- andrewzah 6y agoIt seems like they only publish articles concerning new moralism/cancel culture. These inevitably descend into flame wars and such.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jancsika 6y ago> She went on to argue that Cummins, a white American woman with some Puerto Rican background, had no business writing about a culture and identity group to which she didn’t belong. Ooh, I just read Gurba's blog. Her argument in essence: a white author's inexperience with a culture leads to bad writing. Example from her blog: Mexican protagonist described by her husband as the smartest women he knows. But Mexican protagonist is continually shocked by occurrences that would not shock a Mexican, but would shock an outsider. Bad writing. There are other points made in the blog. In fact there are some other accusations that stop short of plagiarism, but no examples are given which is pretty unprofessional IMO. Regardless, Gurba is clearly and strongly asserting that the book is a piece of shit from a literary standpoint, and that the author's inexperience with the culture and people is the reason for that shittiness. There's already a certain kind of click-baitiness to publishing a rejected piece that "dunks" on a popular book like this, ok, I get that. But the "New Moralism" author is downsampling that to a completely substance-free pure click-bait of "white people don't belong here" meme. That is sneaky, sneaky, sneaky. If you got sucked in further to the article from that sentence you just got played by the author and possibly by HN's blackbox sorting algo, too.
- MikeUt 6y agoYou may be right about Gurba, but you're dead wrong if you're trying to imply that the criticism of even just that book (to say nothing of the others mentioned in the article) was based only on the grounds of 'bad writing'. From the article: “I was sure I was the wrong person to review this book,” Groff wrote, noting that neither she nor the author were Mexican migrants. “In contemporary literary circles, there is a serious and legitimate sensitivity to people writing about heritages that are not their own because, at its worst, this practice perpetuates the evils of colonization, stealing the stories of oppressed people for the profit of the dominant.”
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoSo if I'm a white male, I'm only allowed to write about white males? That means that if I write a book, it will be full of white males. How does that help the oppressed? It just removes them from the dominant narrative entirely. (I mean, maybe it makes books by white males so bland that nobody wants to read them, and so books by white males stop being the dominant narrative...)
- FrancizHam 6y agoI always notice that when someone is upset about 'moralism' and 'cancel culture' against a text, they rarely engage with the actual criticism against said text. Has anyone actually looked at the drawings in Dr. Seuss' books? His political cartoons? Has anyone actually read American Dirt? I agree that we shouldn't be outright censoring books, but that hasn't happened yet. You can still read JK Rowling, you can still find the six discontinued Dr. Seuss books quite easily. And no doubt, some of the imagery is slightly offensive at best, to overtly racist at worst. The next time someone decries the 'cancellation' of something. Look at their reasoning instead of knee jerk reacting.
- zepto 6y ago> you can still find the six discontinued Dr. Seuss books quite easily Can you? Even used copies are now banned even on eBay. Where do you ‘easily’ find them?
- acdha 6y agoScans are widely available online, which is what most people have been using to discuss the works. It also turns out that used bookstores still exist and that eBay is not the only site on the internet where you can buy things.
- zepto 6y agoThe online scans are illegal. The fact that your first recommendation is to advocate breaking the law just so you can discuss a book, shows quite how totalitarian the situation has become.
- acdha 6y agoThat’d be an interesting fair-use case: criticism is a very solid exemption (i.e. I’d be very surprised if showing the offending images for review wasn’t upheld by the courts) but even if you look at the whole book the other factors are things like whether your use is educational, non-profit, or impacts commercial prospects for the rights holder. That last point seems especially relevant since they’ve very clearly told the world that they do not intend to sell these books any more.
- Fricken 6y agoIronically, this post is flagged.
- swayvil 6y agoIt's been removed from the front page too. Yep, it's messed up.
- shockeychap 6y agoI'm a bit of an HN neophyte, having recently left FB for a place where thoughtful discussion was still welcome. I'm not being rhetorical when I ask, what is going on? Are some highly-rated users just abusing their power to flag, or is this something else? Is HN on its way to being more concerned with virtue signaling than open discussion?
- pseudalopex 6y ago"If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it."[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- swayvil 6y agoSome flag that which they find disagreeable too, of course.
- shockeychap 6y ago"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." It's hard to argue that thoughtful articles like this one don't pertain to an interesting new phenomenon. This concept is, of course, highly subjective. But I've seen countless articles on HN that existed in this space without being flagged. Why should this article, which garnered such high volume of feedback - without flaming - be treated differently?
- 6y ago
- Theory5 6y agoI read sci-fi. The idea that you only "write what you are/know" is laughable. Sure, if you write a book with such offensive ideas about another culture or race, you're a terrible person. But if you research, interview, try to understand, and come at it for a work of fiction, that is what large swathes of fiction is! I read books about spaceships, about robots, about humanity that's split off into different evolutionary groups. I credit part of my immediate acceptance of LBGT+ and people on the sci-fi books I read as a kid, where changing your sex/gender was as simple as a 15 min visit to a shop (or similar), and the protagonists switched genders or sexs regularly. Hell, or some where neutral (in one case, they were neutral, because they used to be a warship, and the author used the female pronouns to describe all characters, even men! Great book series, by the way. Ancillary Justice was the first one). Or with two characters fall in love, when they're not human, or not male and female or whatever. One of my favorite authors (two of them, they're sisters, SK Dunstall) wrote some amazing male protagonists (and female ones). Not once while reading their linesman series did i ever stop and go "they shouldn't write about a male protagonist". Hell, at times their male protagonist was better written as a male protagonist than books I've read written by men! There's a book on my reading list now, (to be taught, if fortunate) about humans genetically modified for specific environments, like space! The discussions these books generate is important, in many cases. Some are meant to, others meant to just be enjoyed. Intent is important as is accurate research and characterization, when possible. Sure, if someone writes a book that's purposely harmful, or accidentally (but with a huge, disproportionate impact) harmful, then the book should be reviewed and maybe issues addressed to the author or by those who sell it. But only when its extremely harmful as a whole. But the important thing is, these are all fiction. There's good fiction, bad fiction, and 90% of it is subjective. Fiction gives you the license to go beyond who you are, what you know, what ties you to the real world. And invites those discussions, invites people to learn more.
- shockeychap 6y agoWhy is this "flagged"? Edit: And please tell me the admins of HN aren't engaging in wrongthink censorship.
- nickpp 6y agoAnd of course - flagged.
- ulisesrmzroche 6y agoI think there’s going to be some serious lash back to this, it’s going way too far for the mainstream leftist. What do we do with William Burroughs then? One thing I have noticed is maybe Jesus had it right with the forgiveness thing. But the woke crowd would probably condemn him too