4 ms·

Honestly? If the choice is between "lock these works away because they contain something that could be offensive" or "bowdlerize the shit out of everything", th

by LocalH 4y ago

Honestly? If the choice is between "lock these works away because they contain something that could be offensive" or "bowdlerize the shit out of everything", then as far as I'm concerned, lock 'em up and throw away the key. At least they'll still exist in that form if they do so, for future generations to regain access to, once society realizes that this is not the way.

op00to 4y ago
Have you read the James Bond books? I have. They’re terrible. Like, ignoring the racist bullshit they’re pablum. This is not some huge societal loss.
- sircastor 4y ago
  Terrible or not, they are a significant cultural icon (even if they don’t correlate closely to the films) to 20th century western culture.
  - op00to 4y ago
    Did I miss in the article that the original version of the Bond books are somehow contraband? I’ve got an entire set of yellowing paperbacks somewhere. I hope they don’t come for me!
- dustfinger 4y ago
  It is a matter of precedence. Censoring written works is a slippery slope. Eventually, you end up with a documented history that never was.
  - nhchris 4y ago
    It's not censorship - censorship would be a black bar over the offending text. This is falsification.
    - throwuwu 4y ago
      That’s a cartoon depiction of censorship. You can censor by editing or omitting text as well. The black bar would actually be preferable because it would clearly indicate that there was content there before and that someone had censored it. It’d only be improved by writing the names and addresses of the censors in the book so they can be judged appropriately by history.
    - dustfinger 4y ago
      Black baring over text is a form of redaction.
  - sircastor 4y ago
    Being a bit pedantic about it, Isn’t that what we already have? “History is written by the victors”?
    - throwuwu 4y ago
      You’d have to assume a conspiracy among all historians both amateur and professional for that cliche to be true. The people that write history are humans and they all behave and believe in different ways. You’ll never find an unbiased version of history whether it’s written by the victors or the defeated.
      - dustfinger 4y ago
        The word conspiracy has been effectively demonized. The truth is, societal fractions at all levels conspire against one another on a daily basis, from community sport leagues conspiring to form strategies to defeat their rivals to executives in multi-national corporations trying to dominate a global market-space. > You’ll never find an unbiased version of history whether it’s written by the victors or the defeated. That is true. I think being unbiased is extremely difficult. Maybe impossible; I am not sure. Worse yet, there would never be a way of knowing whether something is biased or not.
  - op00to 4y ago
    A censor would remove the offending books from circulation. No one is burning the old books. The original book will continue to be found in used book stores, church rummage sales, parents end tables, and so on for years and years to come. Scans are certainly available online at the various pirate sites, so likely available for my lifetime at least. Please explain how releasing an edited, updated version of a book that is more marketable in today’s world is censorship when the original works are fully available.
    - dustfinger 4y ago
      > A censor would remove the offending books from circulation That is actually not what censoring a book means. According to the Oxford Dictionary [1]: > to remove the parts of a book, film, etc. that are considered to be offensive or a political threat Regarding your last comment: > Please explain how releasing an edited, updated version of a book that is more marketable in today’s world is censorship when the original works are fully available. That would be by definition. Regarding your second comment: > The original book will continue to be found in used book stores, church rummage sales, parents end tables, and so on for years and years to come. Scans are certainly available online at the various pirate sites, so likely available for my lifetime at least. They would be around. They would become rarer and rarer overtime. Most people would grow up believing that the author wrote the censored version of the book. Moreover, they would grow up believing that the way the book was written was reflective of the setting of the book in our actual history. That is the way of things and the censurers know it. [1]: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/censor_2?q=censoring https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/englis...
- incone123 4y ago
  If we switched out Bond for some book you do think would be a societal loss, what would be your preference?
  - op00to 4y ago
    I don’t believe releasing an updated version of a book would ever result in a societal loss. Burning books en masse? Sure. A new edition of an existing book? No. You’re getting worked up over nothing. Settle down.
robertlagrant 4y ago
> If the choice is between "lock these works away because they contain something that could be offensive" or "bowdlerize the shit out of everything" It's not the choice.
- rvnx 4y ago
  The right thing to do could probably to add notes to educate the reader and keep the version original. But requiring notes; this is already assuming that the reader is an idiot that can't think by himself.
  - thrill 4y ago
    The reader should educate themselves if they find material differing from their preconceptions.
  - tzs 4y ago
    Even an older book that has absolutely nothing in at that could offend anyone often has things that won't make sense to a present day reader so some kind of aid would be appreciated by many. A two edition approach might work well. One edition would have the text just as the author wrote it, with notes added or maybe even short articles to explain things to today's readers. That could include different attitudes toward race in the book's time, period slang that hasn't survived, other language changes, technology, clothes, government, housing, and more. The other edition could be the story updated for a modern setting. If it is set in London for example and the protagonist frequently travels around town in a dog-cart, update that to a taxi. If the story involves a religion that people then thought was maybe some kind of shady cult but is now fairly mainstream, replace that with some current shady possible cult (e.g., if you were updating "A Study in Scarlet" you might change Mormons to Scientologists). The annotated original edition would be the one you'd use in literature class, or read on your own if you wanted a period piece, or knew enough about the time the book is set in to not be slowed down to much by out of date references. The updated edition would be the one most people who just want to read a good story could choose. > But requiring notes; this is already assuming that the reader is an idiot that can't think by himself. Most people aren't reading works of fiction to think. They are reading them to be entertained. If they like some characters in the book they will often adopt some of the attitudes or behaviors of those characters without even realizing it. This is especially true of younger people.
DoreenMichele 4y ago
James Bond is not great art. It has female characters with names like Pussy Galore. It's an adolescent fantasy that was mocked by the Austin Powers movies. The character Q is a cheap plot device for resolving plot issues easily once the author has painted himself into a corner. Once in said corner, you go back in time and insert some gadget invented by some prescient genius that Bond will never use again and probably should have used at some earlier point but didn't. James Bond is dated and really no longer works well. He was originally a ladies man in a conservative era when women did not readily put out who saw so much action because his wife died and he was all heart broken over that and women knew he was the marrying kind and blah blah blah. Now that everyone goes on Tinder and casually hooks up with random strangers, there's nothing special about James Bond getting laid left, right and center. It's juvenile, it's out of date, it's misogynistic and generally ridiculous. It does not need anyone handwringing about trying to preserve its original form like there's something sacred there. Don't get me wrong, I certainly watch the movies. But, no, they are not high art that requires special protection for the benefit of future generations.
- haswell 4y ago
  I agree with most of this comment, but I'm struggling with the conclusion. What I find deeply concerning is not the distortion of the pristine original state of James Bond. What I find deeply concerning is the whitewashing of cultural artifacts and the implications of both the intent of such actions and the potential outcomes. The quality of the content itself does not reduce the cultural popularity and impact that the content had in its time, and altering the content can only cloud any modern examination of the past. Old content that ages poorly should do just that - age poorly. We should look back at it and roll our eyes and wonder what we were thinking. We should draw conclusions from this more modern examination that help guide the creation of future content that doesn't perpetuate the same problems. There is no progress without reflection and a place from which to move forward. And this quickly turns into a "First, they came for..." type of scenario, IMO.
  - DoreenMichele 4y ago
    We routinely update Shakespeare. Westside Story is an updated version of Romeo and Juliette. Popular works being kept current so we can still enjoy them even though things have changed is nothing at all like "First they came for...." It's more like the opposite of that.
goosedragons 4y ago
The original works should be available somewhere. Ian Fleming's stuff is out of copyright in Canada so the Canadian Project Gutenberg has most of the books and there's about 20 million versions on Amazon for $1 or two. 20 years from now it'll be out of copyright anywhere and your local bookstore will have unedited copies based on old ones from the 60s.

by LocalH 4y ago

op00to 4y ago

Have you read the James Bond books? I have. They’re terrible. Like, ignoring the racist bullshit they’re pablum. This is not some huge societal loss.

sircastor 4y ago
Terrible or not, they are a significant cultural icon (even if they don’t correlate closely to the films) to 20th century western culture.
- op00to 4y ago
  Did I miss in the article that the original version of the Bond books are somehow contraband? I’ve got an entire set of yellowing paperbacks somewhere. I hope they don’t come for me!
dustfinger 4y ago
It is a matter of precedence. Censoring written works is a slippery slope. Eventually, you end up with a documented history that never was.
- nhchris 4y ago
  It's not censorship - censorship would be a black bar over the offending text. This is falsification.
  - throwuwu 4y ago
    That’s a cartoon depiction of censorship. You can censor by editing or omitting text as well. The black bar would actually be preferable because it would clearly indicate that there was content there before and that someone had censored it. It’d only be improved by writing the names and addresses of the censors in the book so they can be judged appropriately by history.
  - dustfinger 4y ago
    Black baring over text is a form of redaction.
- sircastor 4y ago
  Being a bit pedantic about it, Isn’t that what we already have? “History is written by the victors”?
  - throwuwu 4y ago
    You’d have to assume a conspiracy among all historians both amateur and professional for that cliche to be true. The people that write history are humans and they all behave and believe in different ways. You’ll never find an unbiased version of history whether it’s written by the victors or the defeated.
    - dustfinger 4y ago
      The word conspiracy has been effectively demonized. The truth is, societal fractions at all levels conspire against one another on a daily basis, from community sport leagues conspiring to form strategies to defeat their rivals to executives in multi-national corporations trying to dominate a global market-space. > You’ll never find an unbiased version of history whether it’s written by the victors or the defeated. That is true. I think being unbiased is extremely difficult. Maybe impossible; I am not sure. Worse yet, there would never be a way of knowing whether something is biased or not.
- op00to 4y ago
  A censor would remove the offending books from circulation. No one is burning the old books. The original book will continue to be found in used book stores, church rummage sales, parents end tables, and so on for years and years to come. Scans are certainly available online at the various pirate sites, so likely available for my lifetime at least. Please explain how releasing an edited, updated version of a book that is more marketable in today’s world is censorship when the original works are fully available.
  - dustfinger 4y ago
    > A censor would remove the offending books from circulation That is actually not what censoring a book means. According to the Oxford Dictionary [1]: > to remove the parts of a book, film, etc. that are considered to be offensive or a political threat Regarding your last comment: > Please explain how releasing an edited, updated version of a book that is more marketable in today’s world is censorship when the original works are fully available. That would be by definition. Regarding your second comment: > The original book will continue to be found in used book stores, church rummage sales, parents end tables, and so on for years and years to come. Scans are certainly available online at the various pirate sites, so likely available for my lifetime at least. They would be around. They would become rarer and rarer overtime. Most people would grow up believing that the author wrote the censored version of the book. Moreover, they would grow up believing that the way the book was written was reflective of the setting of the book in our actual history. That is the way of things and the censurers know it. [1]: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/censor_2?q=censoring https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/englis...
incone123 4y ago
If we switched out Bond for some book you do think would be a societal loss, what would be your preference?
- op00to 4y ago
  I don’t believe releasing an updated version of a book would ever result in a societal loss. Burning books en masse? Sure. A new edition of an existing book? No. You’re getting worked up over nothing. Settle down.

robertlagrant 4y ago

> If the choice is between "lock these works away because they contain something that could be offensive" or "bowdlerize the shit out of everything" It's not the choice.

rvnx 4y ago
The right thing to do could probably to add notes to educate the reader and keep the version original. But requiring notes; this is already assuming that the reader is an idiot that can't think by himself.
- thrill 4y ago
  The reader should educate themselves if they find material differing from their preconceptions.
- tzs 4y ago
  Even an older book that has absolutely nothing in at that could offend anyone often has things that won't make sense to a present day reader so some kind of aid would be appreciated by many. A two edition approach might work well. One edition would have the text just as the author wrote it, with notes added or maybe even short articles to explain things to today's readers. That could include different attitudes toward race in the book's time, period slang that hasn't survived, other language changes, technology, clothes, government, housing, and more. The other edition could be the story updated for a modern setting. If it is set in London for example and the protagonist frequently travels around town in a dog-cart, update that to a taxi. If the story involves a religion that people then thought was maybe some kind of shady cult but is now fairly mainstream, replace that with some current shady possible cult (e.g., if you were updating "A Study in Scarlet" you might change Mormons to Scientologists). The annotated original edition would be the one you'd use in literature class, or read on your own if you wanted a period piece, or knew enough about the time the book is set in to not be slowed down to much by out of date references. The updated edition would be the one most people who just want to read a good story could choose. > But requiring notes; this is already assuming that the reader is an idiot that can't think by himself. Most people aren't reading works of fiction to think. They are reading them to be entertained. If they like some characters in the book they will often adopt some of the attitudes or behaviors of those characters without even realizing it. This is especially true of younger people.

DoreenMichele 4y ago

James Bond is not great art. It has female characters with names like Pussy Galore. It's an adolescent fantasy that was mocked by the Austin Powers movies. The character Q is a cheap plot device for resolving plot issues easily once the author has painted himself into a corner. Once in said corner, you go back in time and insert some gadget invented by some prescient genius that Bond will never use again and probably should have used at some earlier point but didn't. James Bond is dated and really no longer works well. He was originally a ladies man in a conservative era when women did not readily put out who saw so much action because his wife died and he was all heart broken over that and women knew he was the marrying kind and blah blah blah. Now that everyone goes on Tinder and casually hooks up with random strangers, there's nothing special about James Bond getting laid left, right and center. It's juvenile, it's out of date, it's misogynistic and generally ridiculous. It does not need anyone handwringing about trying to preserve its original form like there's something sacred there. Don't get me wrong, I certainly watch the movies. But, no, they are not high art that requires special protection for the benefit of future generations.

haswell 4y ago
I agree with most of this comment, but I'm struggling with the conclusion. What I find deeply concerning is not the distortion of the pristine original state of James Bond. What I find deeply concerning is the whitewashing of cultural artifacts and the implications of both the intent of such actions and the potential outcomes. The quality of the content itself does not reduce the cultural popularity and impact that the content had in its time, and altering the content can only cloud any modern examination of the past. Old content that ages poorly should do just that - age poorly. We should look back at it and roll our eyes and wonder what we were thinking. We should draw conclusions from this more modern examination that help guide the creation of future content that doesn't perpetuate the same problems. There is no progress without reflection and a place from which to move forward. And this quickly turns into a "First, they came for..." type of scenario, IMO.
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  We routinely update Shakespeare. Westside Story is an updated version of Romeo and Juliette. Popular works being kept current so we can still enjoy them even though things have changed is nothing at all like "First they came for...." It's more like the opposite of that.

goosedragons 4y ago

The original works should be available somewhere. Ian Fleming's stuff is out of copyright in Canada so the Canadian Project Gutenberg has most of the books and there's about 20 million versions on Amazon for $1 or two. 20 years from now it'll be out of copyright anywhere and your local bookstore will have unedited copies based on old ones from the 60s.