The censoring of Roald Dahl

[Rubber Soul]

Do you know it was actually then VP Biden who convinced Obama to ultimately support gay marriage? Yes, maybe it was a populist move on Obama's part, but we got gay marriage nonetheless. Sometimes you have to hear the people truly speak before something is actually done.

[Trollheart]

As a non-Christian Rubber Soul's username offends me, as I do not believe, and never have done, in even the very concept, never mind the existence of rubber. Please change it. Thank you.

[Toy Revolver]

Do you know it was actually then VP Biden who convinced Obama to ultimately support gay marriage? Yes, maybe it was a populist move on Obama's part, but we got gay marriage nonetheless. Sometimes you have to hear the people truly speak before something is actually done.

so marriage equality was delayed for decades because biden was too cowardly to speak out while he was supporting ridiculous prison sentences for marijuana possession and refusing amnesty for people who wouldn't go to SE asia to murder people during the vietnam war - what a champ - so glad we waited

[Janszoon]

• SCD should have an environment that promotes friendship and trust between members
• SCD should be a community that's fun to engage with and that rewards participation
• SCD should be thriving and should attract new members
• SCD forums should be responsive, reliable and make for a good user experience

If threads like this continue to dominate the discussion here, they're going to be a major obstacle to this community's stated goals.

[Toy Revolver]

• SCD should have an environment that promotes friendship and trust between members
• SCD should be a community that's fun to engage with and that rewards participation
• SCD should be thriving and should attract new members
• SCD forums should be responsive, reliable and make for a good user experience

If threads like this continue to dominate the discussion here, they're going to be a major obstacle to this community's stated goals.

classic liberal play to silence anything that doesn't say hooray for our side

[Guybrush]

classic liberal play to silence anything that doesn't say hooray for our side

I share this concern and am not the only one as this has been discussed.

What I also want is for this forum to be a place where people can discuss their interests. But if that's gonna get in the way of our other goals, then we should do something about it.

The language and rhetoric used to discuss this seems rather charged. I already mentioned how this issue seems to be politicized and simplified into this right/left narrative. I already mentioned how there are forces in the US that would like to control your opinions and weaponise your rhetoric. The shape this discussion takes in the US (in particular) is very conflict oriented.

I wanted to point this out so you could reflect on that, hopefully shake loose from it and not bring that cultural war to these forums.

I like you, OH. You seem compassionate about the less fortunate and near militant in the face of injustice. But here we're in a thread with a very loaded title and you'd take away Jans' agency by labeling his opinion as typical libertarian. This labeling is just another example of the war language that gets dragged into this.

I still don't want to have to lock this up and for now will try one last appeal - to everyone and not just OH. Please try to discuss this in a respectful and civilized manner. If that doesn't work out from here on, I'll lock it up.

Edit:

One thing that doesn't seem right is the Roald Dahl discussion taking over the wokeness thread. This was a move by the Roald Dahl estate and a London publishing house and could have / should have been its own thread as it's not specifically about awareness to racial prejudice. Hence, I'll split it to its own topic.

[Janszoon]

To be clear about my previous comment, I wasn't posting the goals to say I thought this thread, or any other, should be locked. My point was, if the goals of this community include being friendly and attracting new members, we should all be focusing more on threads that aren't going to turn people off.

[Rubber Soul]

Actually, what OH said was liberal. There is a big difference between liberal and libertarian. Libertarianism is a conservative philosophy that believes in a very limited government while liberalism tends to believe more in an activist government that is meant to support the rights of the disadvantaged.

Anyway, the labeling of left or right as inherently evil doesn't get us very far. Thanks, Guybrush, for keeping an eye on us.

[Guybrush]

Thanks RS! Both for your kind words and for pointing out the right way to use these terms. I'm a little confused as you can probably tell

[Trollheart]

I just want to know when Rubber Soul will change his name. I choose not to recognise the existence of rubber, so surely this is a direct insult to me?

[jimmy jazz]

What does Paul McCartney do to help his wife's injured foot?

Rubber Soul.

[ribbons]

Paul went from rubber soles to barefoot.

Here he is walking across Abbey Roald.  What a Dahl. 

[Toy Revolver]

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/roald-dahl-censored-gbr-scli-intl

These revisions have been worked on by "sensitivity readers" from an organization called Inclusive Minds, which describes itself as "a collective for people who are passionate about inclusion, diversity, equality and accessibility in children's literature, and are committed to changing the face of children's books."

In a lengthy report published on Saturday, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph revealed that it had found hundreds of changes across the author's many children's books. Close analysis by its journalists revealed that language relating to gender, race, weight, mental health and violence had been cut or rewritten. This included removing words such as "fat" and "ugly," as well as descriptions using the colors black and white.

this is why this definitely belonged in the anti-woke thread - this kind of hypersensitivity to people's feelings at the expense of free expression is exactly the type of woke insanity that i'm talking about

who cares? salman rushdie cares

note this is cnn not fox news

and i mean "sensitivity readers"

it saddens me that so many people can't see how hostile that is to free expression

[Psy-Fi]

this is why this definitely belonged in the anti-woke thread - this kind of hypersensitivity to people's feelings at the expense of free expression is exactly the type of woke insanity that i'm talking about

who cares? salman rushdie cares

note this is cnn not fox news

and i mean "sensitivity readers"

it saddens me that so many people can't see how hostile that is to free expression

"Sensitivity Readers" from an organization called Inclusive Minds, sounds like something out of '1984' by George Orwell.

[Guybrush]

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/roald-dahl-censored-gbr-scli-intl

These revisions have been worked on by "sensitivity readers" from an organization called Inclusive Minds, which describes itself as "a collective for people who are passionate about inclusion, diversity, equality and accessibility in children's literature, and are committed to changing the face of children's books."

In a lengthy report published on Saturday, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph revealed that it had found hundreds of changes across the author's many children's books. Close analysis by its journalists revealed that language relating to gender, race, weight, mental health and violence had been cut or rewritten. This included removing words such as "fat" and "ugly," as well as descriptions using the colors black and white.

this is why this definitely belonged in the anti-woke thread - this kind of hypersensitivity to people's feelings at the expense of free expression is exactly the type of woke insanity that i'm talking about

who cares? salman rushdie cares

note this is cnn not fox news

and i mean "sensitivity readers"

it saddens me that so many people can't see how hostile that is to free expression

When I read that article, these are a couple of the things I see:

• It seems to have been an initiative started by the Dahl estate in cooperation with publisher which means it's not censoring forced upon them, but something they've decided to do themselves
• People asked, including Rushdie, the British prime minister, various unnamed authors, Suzanne Nossel - all criticize this editing decision

Hence, there's nothing 1984 about this.