3 ms·

Note one massive difference: nobody was trying to make a law that Dahl’s books be sanitized or running around to libraries and getting his books banned. That wa

by Fezzik 1y ago

Note one massive difference: nobody was trying to make a law that Dahl’s books be sanitized or running around to libraries and getting his books banned. That was a publisher taking unilateral action changing works they own (for better or worse). I see a massive difference between the two things.

fc417fc802 1y ago
[flagged]
- NietzscheanNull 1y ago
  This argument strikes me as fairly textbook "whataboutism." TFA shows a clear and present case of a particular action taken by one political faction. Your argument, that the opposing faction is equivalent to a greater or lesser degree and would follow the same course of action, rests entirely on a hypothetical; it isn't supported by any concrete evidence or cited examples. I'm certainly not asserting that any one faction/party holds a monopoly on moral high-ground, just highlighting that this kind of argument is frequently used as a tactic to deflect discussion away from ground truth considerations and shift the debate towards (artificially) neutral conditions.
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    I certainly don't think it qualifies as whataboutism. I'm neither preaching inaction nor attempting to refute any prior claims. Neither do I attempt to claim a broad general equivalence. It seems to me that you are disregarding the context? From up thread: > No political party seems to be on the side of a principled defence of freedom of speech. I did cite an example, at least indirectly, when I mentioned other countries. Consider the online speech measures in the UK as but one example. Not the same political party to be sure but the underlying ideology is shared. The only significant difference (IMO) is the presence or absence of first amendment protections.
- radixdiaboli 1y ago
  > I don't doubt for a second that the far left would create such laws if they could. I mean, they could as much as the fringe actors this article is about. I'm not sure what you think is stopping them from going for it in the same fashion.
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    As already mentioned, the support for it appearing somewhat less uniform as far as I can tell. Plus I would expect the knowledge that it will be swiftly struck down to discourage efforts. Of course I would have expected the second point to apply to the GOP as well, yet here we are, so clearly my world model has some inaccuracies in this regard.
    - allenrabinovich 1y ago
      That’s a really exhausting, long-winded, bloviating way of saying you are wrong.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- omnimus 1y ago
  What is far left in US? From what you are saying i got impression there is only far right and far left in US to vote. I am not from US but that doesn't seem right.
  - bitwize 1y ago
    [flagged]
FateOfNations 1y ago
It was even done in consultation with the Dahl estate/family, although they choose to ignore Roald Dahl's professed opinions about editing his works.
belorn 1y ago
The problem with censorship is in general never about any specific application of it, but rather the principle. When censorship becomes culturally acceptable, self censorship and political polarization follows as a natural consequence. The massive difference between government censorship and private cooperation censorship is unlikely to effect how people feel and react to it.
jeffwask 1y ago
Additionally, a lot of the language was very out of date with racists and discriminatory undertones so parents had stopped buying the books. It was driven by the market because if they didn't adjust the content to adhere to what parents expect in children's literature today the stories and moral lessons would be lost to the dustbin of history and merely interesting historical artifacts. I would regularly see stories on Reddit where someone was gifted one of the more borderline Dahl novels and they binned it rather than giving it their child. I'm sure their internal metrics were painting a similar picture. That's bad for business. It wasn't change for social justice. It was change or watch your IP die and everyone involved still wanted the money.

by Fezzik 1y ago

fc417fc802 1y ago

[flagged]

NietzscheanNull 1y ago
This argument strikes me as fairly textbook "whataboutism." TFA shows a clear and present case of a particular action taken by one political faction. Your argument, that the opposing faction is equivalent to a greater or lesser degree and would follow the same course of action, rests entirely on a hypothetical; it isn't supported by any concrete evidence or cited examples. I'm certainly not asserting that any one faction/party holds a monopoly on moral high-ground, just highlighting that this kind of argument is frequently used as a tactic to deflect discussion away from ground truth considerations and shift the debate towards (artificially) neutral conditions.
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  I certainly don't think it qualifies as whataboutism. I'm neither preaching inaction nor attempting to refute any prior claims. Neither do I attempt to claim a broad general equivalence. It seems to me that you are disregarding the context? From up thread: > No political party seems to be on the side of a principled defence of freedom of speech. I did cite an example, at least indirectly, when I mentioned other countries. Consider the online speech measures in the UK as but one example. Not the same political party to be sure but the underlying ideology is shared. The only significant difference (IMO) is the presence or absence of first amendment protections.
radixdiaboli 1y ago
> I don't doubt for a second that the far left would create such laws if they could. I mean, they could as much as the fringe actors this article is about. I'm not sure what you think is stopping them from going for it in the same fashion.
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  As already mentioned, the support for it appearing somewhat less uniform as far as I can tell. Plus I would expect the knowledge that it will be swiftly struck down to discourage efforts. Of course I would have expected the second point to apply to the GOP as well, yet here we are, so clearly my world model has some inaccuracies in this regard.
  - allenrabinovich 1y ago
    That’s a really exhausting, long-winded, bloviating way of saying you are wrong.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
omnimus 1y ago
What is far left in US? From what you are saying i got impression there is only far right and far left in US to vote. I am not from US but that doesn't seem right.
- bitwize 1y ago
  [flagged]

FateOfNations 1y ago

It was even done in consultation with the Dahl estate/family, although they choose to ignore Roald Dahl's professed opinions about editing his works.

belorn 1y ago

The problem with censorship is in general never about any specific application of it, but rather the principle. When censorship becomes culturally acceptable, self censorship and political polarization follows as a natural consequence. The massive difference between government censorship and private cooperation censorship is unlikely to effect how people feel and react to it.

jeffwask 1y ago

Additionally, a lot of the language was very out of date with racists and discriminatory undertones so parents had stopped buying the books. It was driven by the market because if they didn't adjust the content to adhere to what parents expect in children's literature today the stories and moral lessons would be lost to the dustbin of history and merely interesting historical artifacts. I would regularly see stories on Reddit where someone was gifted one of the more borderline Dahl novels and they binned it rather than giving it their child. I'm sure their internal metrics were painting a similar picture. That's bad for business. It wasn't change for social justice. It was change or watch your IP die and everyone involved still wanted the money.