If we want to stop publishing books because they are deemed hurtful for some as has happened with 6 Dr Seuss titles, which books should be next? ie what are the most hurtful and discriminatory books you know of?
The Bible
The Koran
The First Testament
These are the top of my list.
Couldn't the publisher's just redact the offending material and re-issue a pamphlet.
The books are not hurtful any more than a book of Harry Potter god.
It is what people do with the information. It is the persons thoughs and acts and use of the books.
The bible is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder ..., and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Hebrews 4:12
Religion ... pure and faultless is this: to help widows and orphans in need and avoiding worldly corruption. James 1:27
According to Guinness World Records as of 1995, the Bible is the best-selling book of all time with an estimated 5 billion copies sold and distributed.
Illogical atheist Jim Jones used the bible "...to get people out of the opiate of religion ". Then killed over 900 people.
If it weren't for the fact that the Dr. Seuss books were written specifically for early readers, I doubt they'd have been discontinued.
Don't you believe it, the BBC cancelled a whole load of classic films a few years back, including one that is widely acknowledged as one of the top ten greatest comedy films of all time Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). This was done for the single use of the children's nursery rhyme "Eeny, meeny, miny moe" which contains a contemporary use of the N word, which could have been bleeped. This is even after the nationality of the lead character was changed from the source material from being half Jewish to half Italian to be sensitive to the Nazi atrocities.
This is creeping censorship is for the purposes of revisionist history by the soon to come "the Ministry of Truth".
Many years ago the works of Enid Blyton where censored to remove all mentions of Gollywogs living in toy town, by changing them to goblin dolls. This was a possibly understandable measured response, but today ALL Enid Blyton works would have been canceled outright and probably will be given time for all sorts of other reasons because the books are contemporary to their time of authorship.
Once this is established as a precedent, we can say good by to
Dickens (Anti Semite, sexist, racist, class conscious prejudice and lack of diversity)
Shakespeare (Anti Semite, sexist, racist, class conscious prejudice and lack of diversity)
Charles Kingsley (Anti Semite, sexist, racist, class conscious prejudice and lack of diversity)
and D. H. Lawrence will be back on the banned books list before you can say Lady Chatterley.
This is not about sensitivity, it is about revisionist history and attempt to not only improve the society of today, but to spread the lie that the western world was ALWAYS subject to the social sensibilities of today and only a minority of nasty deviants were ever Anti Semite, sexist, racist, swine who never had statues erected to them.
Okay. So Quaker Oats changed the name of Aunt Jemima. It's wasn't banned. The estate for Theodore Geisel decided to discontinue new publication of 6 Dr Seuss books. They weren't banned. It was a business decision by the family. The right wing is so fucked up. They regurgitate whatever they hear on FoxNews. Mr Potatohead. What fucking bullshit!