Funny Events of the "Woke" world

[Xprimentyl]

Ok, wow, classic Roald Dahl books like Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and James And The Giant Peach are being censored for language potentially offensive to readers. These changes include changing the word "fat" to "enormous," "small men" to "small people," and qualifying that there's nothing wrong with witches described as "bald beneath their wigs" as there are plenty of reasons why a woman might wear a wig.

This has gotten really dumb. Is anyone actually being paid to sanitize every work of literature because "someone" might be offended? Where does this shit stop, or where can sign up for such an asinine job, because I can find a litany of potentially offensive language in an Ikea instruction manual if the money's right since the bar has effectively been so lowered as to be underground at this point.

EDIT: Sorry, it appears this subject is already under discussion here; I just spend so little time in Current Events that I'd not caught it. As you were.

 

[Absent]

Roald Dahl wrote the screenplay for the movie.

Oooh I completely forgot about that. Or always failed to wrap my mind around it.

Also isn't Sax Rohmer's world simply based around prevalent orientalism ? With the "charm" and the "magic" and the "menace" of the East in general (some of which based on pragmatic cultural differences such as looking each others in the eyes being deemed as a sign of honesty in one culture and of hostility in another), with the obvious underlying colonial ideology (them savages and their dangerous reluctance to assimilate to our superior christian culture) and standard erotisation/exoticism ?

I see Rohmer more as a consequence than a cause. After all, his stereotypes applied, with some variations, to many other colonial targets (the menace of voodoo, the african sorcerers, the hostile native, etc). Also the "yellow peril" pre-dates Fu Manchu by 40 years or so. Even if Fu Manchu also codifies a certain form of secret society leading evil genius (but again, you used to have jesuit or jewish conspiracies in litterature before that)...

I'd be curious about which stereotypes were specifically owed to Rohmer. Especially as they are fun to trace for a fan of both the earlier Holmes stories (of whom Neyland Smith and Petrie were blatant ripoff) and the later Bob Morane novels (which main baddie is a clear-cut Fu Manchu transposition, without the racist undertones).

 

[Absent]

Ok, wow, classic Roald Dahl books like Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and James And The Giant Peach are being censored for language potentially offensive to readers. These changes include changing the word "fat" to "enormous," "small men" to "small people," and qualifying that there's nothing wrong with witches described as "bald beneath their wigs" as there are plenty of reasons why a woman might wear a wig.

This has gotten really dumb. Is anyone actually being paid to sanitize every work of literature because "someone" might be offended? Where does this shit stop, or where can sign up for such an asinine job, because I can find a litany of potentially offensive language in an Ikea instruction manual if the money's right since the bar has effectively been so lowered as to be underground at this point.

The same happened with some dated, now offensive words in Mark Twain's novels (and I dont think Twain could be suspected of racism, or could he ?). It's really strange to adjust older books to current perceptions, instead of appreciating their testimonies of nuances and variations. Or even flaws.

BUT, I may be a gigantic hypocrite about that. Because I actually like the fact that Tintin albums were edited to tone down their implicit racism and antisemitism. But again, they were toned down by the author himself. But again, sometimes under pressure I think. So... I babble but I don't even know myself where I draw the line...

 

[Ag3ma]

Ok, wow, classic Roald Dahl books like Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and James And The Giant Peach are being censored for language potentially offensive to readers. These changes include changing the word "fat" to "enormous," "small men" to "small people," and qualifying that there's nothing wrong with witches described as "bald beneath their wigs" as there are plenty of reasons why a woman might wear a wig.

This has gotten really dumb.

I'm far from unsympathetic to this view. But maybe that's because I'm now basically an old fogey hopelessly distant from what today's yoof consider right and proper.

I get removing some particularly charged terms from old books (such as typical racist words). But I struggle a lot more with removing words like "fat". You can call them "enormous" instead, but it's not fooling anyone as to what's going on. I don't understand what the problem with the wig passage was either.

On the other hand, does it really matter if the books are re-written slightly? They're hardly timeless texts of absolute truth. Is a 2023 child going to pick up the book and lose anything significant from these alterations? How many adults perhaps re-reading them for the first time in 20-30 years with their children would even notice the changes? it all seems like worrying a little bit too much over nothing.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Oooh I completely forgot about that. Or always failed to wrap my mind around it.

Also isn't Sax Rohmer's world simply based around prevalent orientalism ? With the "charm" and the "magic" and the "menace" of the East in general (some of which based on pragmatic cultural differences such as looking each others in the eyes being deemed as a sign of honesty in one culture and of hostility in another), with the obvious underlying colonial ideology (them savages and their dangerous reluctance to assimilate to our superior christian culture) and standard erotisation/exoticism ?

I see Rohmer more as a consequence than a cause. After all, his stereotypes applied, with some variations, to many other colonial targets (the menace of voodoo, the african sorcerers, the hostile native, etc). Also the "yellow peril" pre-dates Fu Manchu by 40 years or so. Even if Fu Manchu also codifies a certain form of secret society leading evil genius (but again, you used to have jesuit or jewish conspiracies in litterature before that)...

I'd be curious about which stereotypes were specifically owed to Rohmer. Especially as they are fun to trace for a fan of both the earlier Holmes stories (of whom Neyland Smith and Petrie were blatant ripoff) and the later Bob Morane novels (which main baddie is a clear-cut Fu Manchu transposition, without the racist undertones).

Hmmm, not sure actually, I read about that some years back and not sure of the source. The secret society (and the moustache) can be laid at his door, yeah, and I'm led to believe that there was a stereotype of Chinese labourers being hardworkers and being a good catch for lower class women, with romantic novels ending when she escapes the dodgy bloke and ends up with the nice Chinese guy.

But yeah, historically he's interesting.

 

[Ag3ma]

Hmmm, not sure actually, I read about that some years back and not sure of the source. The secret society (and the moustache) can be laid at his door, yeah, and I'm led to believe that there was a stereotype of Chinese labourers being hardworkers and being a good catch for lower class women, with romantic novels ending when she escapes the dodgy bloke and ends up with the nice Chinese guy.

But yeah, historically he's interesting.

I enjoyed the Fu Manchu movies when I was a child, they were pretty good fun, and no real awareness of quite how racist they were - not least because at that age I had no real concept of racism existing at all.

 

[Xprimentyl]

On the other hand, does it really matter if the books are re-written slightly?

No, it doesn't matter... which is why I take exception to the fact anyone felt the need to do it at all. We as a global society have much, much, MUCH larger issues to tackle, and editing classics for extremely nominal reasons is a bit like dusting the baseboards of a house while it's on fire.

I'm all for inclusion, representation, and being cognizant of people's sensitivities, but c'mon; pick your battles. At the very least pick more important battles. Are we really going to comb through centuries of literature to edit out words like "fat" and "men" for the sake of the obese and gender sensitive who otherwise might not have even noticed had it not been for someone being hypersensitive on their behalf? It's condescending. I doubt any obese person reading Charlie And The Chocolate Factory feels any better identifying with a now "enormous" glutton whose enormity and gluttonous nature are his entire characterization and purpose within a timeless children's' story.

That said, I know Dahl was no saint, and if any his works detailed a Jew choking on a bagel while twirling their payot curls, fine; let's pull it from the shelf for its poor taste, but I don't think the use of the words "fat," "men," or referencing bald witches was an attempt to shame anyone that it should be edited almost 60 years after the fact. But since that's what we're doing, I know a book about a parent who sacrifices his own child in a very violent fashion who then comes back to life after three days that might upset some parents and/or people who've lost someone to death when resurrection wasn't a reasonable option.

 

[Thaluikhain]

No, it doesn't matter... which is why I take exception to the fact anyone felt the need to do it at all. We as a global society have much, much, MUCH larger issues to tackle, and editing classics for extremely nominal reasons is a bit like dusting the baseboards of a house while it's on fire.

Disagree there, large issues needing to be dealt with does not necessarily preclude dealing with smaller ones, unless doing so is a distraction, which is often is.

OTOH, in this case this is really stupid. If there's a problem with Dahl's work we can acknowledge and move on. Or just read something else, it's not like we'd be missing a lot of people lost interest in him.

This reminds me of the school that decided to stop telling stories about the three little pigs, because it might offend Muslims. Noe of the people behind the idea was Muslim, or seemingly ever spoke to a Muslim about the issue, and greatly confused the local Muslim community. Getting the same vibes from this, myself.

 

[Buyetyen]

This reminds me of the school that decided to stop telling stories about the three little pigs, because it might offend Muslims. Noe of the people behind the idea was Muslim, or seemingly ever spoke to a Muslim about the issue, and greatly confused the local Muslim community. Getting the same vibes from this, myself.

I really do wish my ostensible side would do more listening instead of crusading. Yeah, the mix of righteousness, indignation and outrage is addictive, but so is crack cocaine. It's frustrating that so many people go for the low-hanging fruit or invented problems because it's easy.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Childrens books and childrens media, certainly from around that age, tended to go for very easy targets; fat people, ugly people, people with exagerated features, like their noses. We've moved past that mostly, so I can understand that popular works like Dahl's - which are full of the "ugly, fat EVIL" - might have some people decide to add a bit of nuance. Though I don't know if simply changing a word will make the fat character not still get ridiculed for being fat. In that case it's not so much the word itself, it's the character (in this case Augustus Gloop), and whether they're defined by being "enormous" and made a fool of.

Roald Dahl's books are kinda problematic by nature by todays standards, and changing the words won't make much of a difference. He was mean-spirited in his writing, probably because he was a piece of shit in real life, and the targets in his books won't change because the descriptors changed. The best you can hope for is parents who might be reading these books to their kids providing some nuance themselves.

Honestly, J.K Rowling's books have the same kind of schoolyard nastiness, and they're FAR more popular than Roald Dahl's. It's sort of a nice sentiment though from the Roald Dahl Story Company to show that this type of writing in childrens books is severely outdated.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I really do wish my ostensible side would do more listening instead of crusading. Yeah, the mix of righteousness, indignation and outrage is addictive, but so is crack cocaine. It's frustrating that so many people go for the low-hanging fruit or invented problems because it's easy.

Yep, many, many legitimate and serious complaints about the "woke" people. It's just they tend to get drowned out by the made up ones from the other side.

 

[McElroy]

OTOH, in this case this is really stupid. If there's a problem with Dahl's work we can acknowledge and move on. Or just read something else, it's not like we'd be missing a lot of people lost interest in him.

It must be about the recent Netflix acquisition. The depressing fact of the matter is that big media companies hire/have diversity consultants that tell them to go for these changes.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Disagree there, large issues needing to be dealt with does not necessarily preclude dealing with smaller ones, unless doing so is a distraction, which is often is.

I'm not saying smaller issues can't be tackled, just that those small issues should have more than a nominal impact if we're going to expend energy and effort addressing them. Who was offended by Charlie And The Chocolate Factory? Where's that person, and is their life now better for it having been edited retroactively?

*Looks around and sees no one*

This, to me, reeks of outrage for the sake of outrage. Like someone woke up unhappy, and pointed their pissy stick at the first thing they saw. Efforts like this really diminish the more important efforts when they get rolled into the collective ideal of ostensibly effective and purposeful change. My next question is why did I learn of this watching the morning news? Could they not simply have edited future printings of these books without telling the world they had changed them in ways only noticeable if you're an anal-retentive and nitpicky editor? Like, someone really just wanted to piss people [like me] off, i.e.: the veritable finger an inch from my nose and teasing "I'm not touching you."

To be clear, I don't care that they changed the books. My literary purism does not extend to as niggling a detail as a "fat" kid now being "enormous;" whatever, it's just really stupid and a waste of time serving little more than to rile up and divide people so we can argue amongst ourselves over stupid shit while the planet is simultaneously melting and freezing, World War III is starting right over there, and the latest batch of COVID is still in the oven.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I'm not saying smaller issues can't be tackled, just that those small issues should have more than a nominal impact if we're going to expend energy and effort addressing them. Who was offended by Charlie And The Chocolate Factory? Where's that person, and is their life now better for it having been edited retroactively?

*Looks around and sees no one*

This, to me, reeks of outrage for the sake of outrage. Like someone woke up unhappy, and pointed their pissy stick at the first thing they saw. Efforts like this really diminish the more important efforts when they get rolled into the collective ideal of ostensibly effective and purposeful change. My next question is why did I learn of this watching the morning news? Could they not simply have edited future printings of these books without telling the world they had changed them in ways only noticeable if you're an anal-retentive and nitpicky editor? Like, someone really just wanted to piss people [like me] off, i.e.: the veritable finger an inch from my nose and teasing "I'm not touching you."

To be clear, I don't care that they changed the books. My literary purism does not extend to as niggling a detail as a "fat" kid now being "enormous;" whatever, it's just really stupid and a waste of time serving little more than to rile up and divide people so we can argue amongst ourselves over stupid shit while the planet is simultaneously melting and freezing, World War III is starting right over there, and the latest batch of COVID is still in the oven.

Oh sure, I agree with that.

The depressing fact of the matter is that big media companies hire/have diversity consultants that tell them to go for these changes.

Yep, and I suspect the consultants often have no qualifications beyond an influential family to get the job, judging by their decisions.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

I know a book about a parent who sacrifices his own child in a very violent fashion who then comes back to life after three days that might upset some parents and/or people who've lost someone to death when resurrection wasn't a reasonable option.

You know, my favourite section in that book is Ezekiel 23:20. You should check it out, perfect reading for children.

 

[Thaluikhain]

You know, my favourite section in that book is Ezekiel 23:20. You should check it out, perfect reading for children.

Only part of Ezekiel people seem to remember.

 

[Hawki]

...but does the book still end with an act of genocide bankrolled by counterfeit money, and a child happy about dying young because he wouldn't want to outlive his grandmother?

One can hope!

 

[Xprimentyl]

You know, my favourite section in that book is Ezekiel 23:20. You should check it out, perfect reading for children.

As a man, the comparison of men to farm animals greatly offends me, though it is flattering to learn that every time a woman has called me an "ass," they were clearly implying how well endowed I am (which is strange; I never slept with that lady I cut off on the highway the other day; how could she know I'm a human tripod?)

 

[Thaluikhain]

As a man, the comparison of men to farm animals greatly offends me, though it is flattering to learn that every time a woman has called me an "ass," they were clearly implying how well endowed I am (which is strange; I never slept with that lady I cut off on the highway the other day; how could she know I'm a human tripod?)

Well, if they reason for your driving like that was an appendage getting visibly caught in the steering wheel or something...

Apparently, though, humans are disproportionately well endowed compared to most animals, which probably really disappoints furries into realism.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

And the goalposts have moved once again.

1) Nope
2) Why are you guys so anti-science? Referring to terms that aren't a thing?

No, it isn't debunked. It's a theory, with evidence both for and against, that requires further investigation to unpick where it may be true and where it may not be. There's still every possibility it will survive testing, even if in some amended form.

Random numbers produce the same results... It's not a human bias. If you had a bias for picking say "tails" more than "heads" in a coin flip random numbers wouldn't give you the same results.

But you don't "add it all together" in the original Dunning-Kruger study to get the Dunning-Kruger effect. The authors were very explicit in stating the effect was a personal bias exhibited by individuals within the study. It was not the overall effect on the stats.



No, it wasn't. We have a walking, talking example of it right here.



I don't care whether you think it's "the norm", or what you think most people do. That has absolutely zero relevance to anything we're talking about.

That bias doesn't make sense when you look at the study as a whole.

IT DOESN'T EXIST...

First of all, no it doesn't. You just want to believe it does for no other reason than that you just want the people calling you out on your pretentiousness to be wrong about something. But you being too much of a child to so much as acknowledge your unfamiliarity with the topic does not entitle you to redefine terms to suit your purposes.

Second, no it wasn't. There are those who dispute it, but that's both not especially damning in itself and not the same as it being debunked. Moreover, it's irrelevant to the point that you invoked an incorrect definition of the term, which itself was - again - your poor attempt at deflecting from the criticism that you don't know the subject matter. The conversation basically tracks to:


That's more or less how this conversation has gone. Let me be clear here: This is not a spoken conversation, it is a written series of posts. It's a lot harder to make people forget what the point is when the written record is so easy available. You aren't going to trip me up with that. And the only thing you'll succeed in doing by trying that kind of bullshit is to further lower my opinion of you. What you're doing is not clever. It's a transparent effort to try and pretend that the criticism directed at you doesn't count for one reason or another (in this case semantic arguments), with the reason pivoting as soon as you realize that nobody's buying the bullshit you're trying to sell in the evident hope that they'll get so caught up in the new argument that they'll forget the criticism directed at you. And I have no patience for that. Few things short of open bigotry or criminality will get you on my shit list faster than dishonest argumentation or pretentiousness, both of which you have been employing. So either grow up or shut up, because you're quickly wearing down my last nerve.

Nope, you just will grab onto anything that says I'm wrong without looking at it objectively. Look at the Dunning-Kruger data, that's literally what it says, the whole line of what people thought they did was basically a straight line in average territory. Dunning-Kruger was debunked a long ass time ago. Same thing with masks not working (latest Cochrane review) or vaccine mandates being completely pointless (there was literally never any data at any point validating them). You'll just believe what you want vs actually looking at the data.