Is editing the classics ethical?

[Lily]

smsbookreviews.blogspot.com/2011/05/guest-post-editing-classics-is-it.html

www.wbaltv.com/news/26385264/detail.html

[charlotte]

It isn't exactly new - Shakespeare has always had his schools version - a lot more people read Shakespeare because he can be taught in schools without the mucky bits.

I personally would rather someone updated my work than it be forgotten - if in 200 years time this happened not exactly going to be a big deal to me - I'll be dead.

Plus wonder how many more people have read Mark Twain as a result of the furore caused.

[Lily]

To me, editing the classics is like someone adding snatches of a pop tune to a great old concerto. It would strike a jarring note that could not be ignored. It's also an attempt to deny and whitewash history. (pun not intended) In other words, it's dishonest. Political correctness does not work! What it does do is draw more attention to whatever it is they're trying to expurgate, and infuriate those who value freedom of speech.

As for the "N" word, it's been exagerrated out of all proportion. Heck, we've all been called things we don't like, from slurs based on our gender to our race. But we didn't moan and wail about it, and try to get everything changed just to suit us. Besides, the "N" word did not start life as any kind of slur at all. It was merely the way Southerners -- and man, I love that Southern drawl -- said Negro. Now you can't get more innocuous than that.

[charlotte]

It isn't exactly new - Enid Blyton has been subjected to it for years. I am just glad to get my hands on her books even if Fanny is now Fran. Quite frankly given the current UK usage of the words it wouldn't be able to be read in class with original words.

I don't think a black child should be subjected to sitting in class hearing a word that has become offenseive to them repeated over 200 times - I highly doubt Mark Twain would want that either. I see nothing wrong like with Shakespeare and having different editions for different things, Twain is certainly no more special or talented. When I was older I read the full versions complete with the mucky bits and bawdy.

I'm not into this kids are cruel business my kids know if they are they will have Mum to deal with and I have good reason to be proud of the way they stand up to be counted if someone is bullying and won't allow it to continue. Most of my friends feel the same way. My children would not use n**ger, gollywog etc because it does hurt and wound - even if I personally fid the words innocuous. I personally do not take people calling me names in anything except close friend/family teasing.

[Lily]

In its zeal to sanitize everything deemed "offensive," political correctness has created a climate of deep resentment, and the backlash when it can no longer be contained -- and that's happening right now -- is going to be very ugly indeed.

I believe, and uphold, freedom of speech. It is, after all, why we fought all those long and bloody wars. If I immigrated to Africa, I would not expect them to expurgate their classics because my child might feel slighted because of whatever names white people were being called. (And believe me, there is a long list of very nasty ones. Check out the Racial Slurs Database.) Their country. Their ways. Their right.

[Lily]

What tends to be forgotten (conveniently) by the politically correct, is that it wasn't only blacks who were enslaved. Whites were too, and on a much larger scale. Ever hear of "indentured servants?" And what about the little kids (yes they were white) slaving away in mills, factories and mines? They were treated much worse, in many instances, than black slaves on Southern plantations.

And although the conditions of some black slaves on some Southern plantations were deplorable, they were nevertheless, better off there than back in their home villages in Africa, where almost certain starvation, or an early demise in battles with neighbouring tribes was their lot. Remember too, that it was their own people who had sold them into slavery in the first place.

I really get very tired of all this "whitey" is bad bs, and the ridiculously unfair guilt trip that's been dumped on us by the politically correct revisionists. We were just as much a victim as the blacks, but we don't dwell in the past, and scream it from the rooftops in "freedom" marches, etc. or turn it into a profit making industry, so it's not as widely known.

www.revisionisthistory.org/forgottenslaves.html

[charlotte]

For me this has nothing to do with slavery - I don't live in the American South it is a non issue where I am from. It is about how the word is perceived now - I would not want my child to read a book in school that degraded them over 200 times so I don't see why anyone else's child should be subjected to it. I happen to think Mark Twain is worth reading though and ig changing one word increases those who now feel able to read the book that for me is a good thing. In my country racism can't be aimed at a white person either. I also don't give a monkies what happens in Africa - there is a reason I don't live there.

Personally I uphold a freedom of speech but also a freedom to listen (people often forget that goes hand in hand) I see no reason why people shouldn't have a CHOICE as to which edition they read. I don't have to listen to people who abuse me and don't see why anyone else should have to either.

Do you have issues with school editions that take out the sex and reduce violence as well? As a child I read a young persons edition of Jane Eyre before the original etc

[Lily]

Sept 3, 2011 3:03:12 GMT -5 charlotte said:

For me this has nothing to do with slavery

Slavery cannot be ignored. It is at the root of all the furore over the "N" word.

Sept 3, 2011 3:03:12 GMT -5 charlotte said:

In my country racism can't be aimed at a white person either.

Yes it can. In fact it happens all the time. I went through some of it myself as an English child attending a Scottish school. And if you don't believe me just ask the Irish. I was called a "Sassenach." The Irish are called much worse. ;D

Sept 3, 2011 3:03:12 GMT -5 charlotte said:

I also don't give a monkies what happens in Africa - there is a reason I don't live there.

It is important because it lends balance and perspective to this issue by demonstrating that white people are the targets of "racism" too. We have to take into account the whole situation, not just a small piece of it.

Sept 3, 2011 3:03:12 GMT -5 charlotte said:

Do you have issues with school editions that take out the sex and reduce violence as well?

Sex and violence, just like racial slurs, are a part of life. If we shield kids from them too much they are in for one heck of a shock later on.

[Lily]

It wasn't only Southern whites who owned black slaves. Blacks did too. Yes, there were wealthy and prosperous blacks living right in good old Dixie. Hmmm...kinda flies in the face of all the current hype, doesn't it. You know, the evil white "racist" Southerners, and the good, sweet victimised blacks. ;D


"Black slaveholders

Some slaveholders were black or had some black ancestry. In 1830 there were 3,775 such slaveholders in the South, with 80% of them located in Louisiana, South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. There were economic differences between free blacks of the Upper South and Deep South, with the latter fewer in number, but wealthier and typically of mixed race. Half of the black slaveholders lived in cities rather than the countryside, with most in New Orleans and Charleston. Especially New Orleans had a large, relatively wealthy free black population (gens de couleur) composed of people of mixed race, who had become a third class between whites and enslaved blacks under French and Spanish rule. Relatively few slaveholders were “substantial planters.” Of those who were, most were of mixed race, often endowed by white fathers with some property and social capital.[122] Historians John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger wrote:

A large majority of profit-oriented free black slaveholders resided in the Lower South. For the most part, they were persons of mixed racial origin, often women who cohabited or were mistresses of white men, or mulatto men ... . Provided land and slaves by whites, they owned farms and plantations, worked their hands in the rice, cotton, and sugar fields, and like their white contemporaries were troubled with runaways.[123]

Historian Ira Berlin wrote:

In slave societies, nearly everyone – free and slave – aspired to enter the slaveholding class, and upon occasion some former slaves rose into slaveholders’ ranks. Their acceptance was grudging, as they carried the stigma of bondage in their lineage and, in the case of American slavery, color in their skin.[124]

Free blacks were perceived “as a continual symbolic threat to slaveholders, challenging the idea that ‘black’ and ‘slave’ were synonymous.” Free blacks were seen as potential allies of fugitive slaves and “slaveholders bore witness to their fear and loathing of free blacks in no uncertain terms."[125] For free blacks, who had only a precarious hold on freedom, “slave ownership was not simply an economic convenience but indispensable evidence of the free blacks” determination to break with their slave past and their silent acceptance – if not approval – of slavery.”[126]

Historian James Oakes notes that, “The evidence is overwhelming that the vast majority of black slaveholders were free men who purchased members of their families or who acted out of benevolence.”[127] After 1810 southern states made it increasingly difficult for any slaveholders to free slaves. Often the purchasers of family members were left with no choice but to maintain, on paper, the owner-slave relationship. In the 1850s “there were increasing efforts to restrict the right to hold bondsmen on the grounds that slaves should be kept ‘as far as possible under the control of white men only.”[128]

In his 1985 statewide study of black slaveholders in South Carolina, Larry Koger challenged this benevolent view. He found that the majority of black slaveholders appeared to hold slaves as a commercial decision. For instance, he noted that in 1850 more than 80% of black slaveholders were of mixed race, but nearly 90% of their slaves were classified as black.[129] He also noted the number of small artisans in Charleston who held slaves to help with their businesses."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States#Black_slaveholders

elliotlakenews.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/blacks-owning-black-slaves/

[dervish]

Thanks for these great links. Lets hope it opens the eyes of the PC brainwashed. Fat chance tho.

[raemorgan]

Always a thorny subject. It reeks too much of the "thought police" for comfort.