Posted on 03/10/2021 3:45:01 AM PST by Kaslin
This week, Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced it would stop the sale and distribution of six classic volumes from the great children's author. Those volumes, said the company, violate its commitment to "messages of hope, inspiration, inclusion, and friendship." The books include portrayals of people "in ways that are hurtful and wrong."
Society has long held that activity that damages others ought to be curbed. John Stuart Mill posited the so-called harm principle -- the belief that activity that harms someone ought to be condemned or even barred -- in the mid-19th century. But Mill refused to conflate harm and offense: Being offended wasn't cause for sanction of another.
Broadly speaking, society agreed with this formulation. But in the past few years, this formulation has been completely turned on its head. Now offense is not only considered a harm; it is considered the chief harm in our society. Physical injury, after all, is merely physical. But mental or emotional injury -- that threatens our very sense of identity. Because we find our identity in our own sense of self-creation, any societal denial of that sense threatens our identity. As Carl Trueman writes in "The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self": "The era of psychological man therefore requires changes in the culture and its institutions, practice, and beliefs that affect everyone. They all need to adapt to reflect a therapeutic mentality that focuses on the psychological well-being of the individual."
When individual self-creation becomes the chief goal of a society, institutions must be torn down -- institutions, after all, foster a set of rules that may not be conducive to individual self-creation. Informational flow must be dammed -- after all, information may allow others to take a different, objectively based opinion about you than you take subjectively about yourself. Books must be burned -- after all, books carry with them implicit messages that may threaten your sense of yourself.
Iconoclasm becomes the order of the day.
Our societal turn from actual, measurable harm toward subjective, psychological harm places us on the road to complete devastation of our culture and our rights. Now anyone who offends -- or even has the potential to offend -- can be, and indeed ought to be, fired. Now any book -- no matter how old or how inoffensive -- can be, and indeed ought to be, banned. Now any kernel of information -- no matter how true -- can be discarded.
This formulation puts all power in the hands of those who are most easily offended -- or at least those who claim to be. The offense itself is the weapon. Legal torts require damages; societal torts merely require a claim of damages, without evidence. No one can explain just how a drawing in "If I Ran the Zoo" has contributed to actual racism; there are no recorded incidents of a single white supremacist citing "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street" as a formative source in his racist worldview. But any academic with a computer and a degree in postmodern nonsense can take those books off the shelves simply by claiming that offense is possible.
In the end, the only literature allowed will be the literature that adheres to the values of our postmodern world -- a world in which we are not expected to conform to societal rules but society is expected to conform to our own acts of self-definition. That means your child reading "I Am Jazz" but never -- never, Gaia forbid! -- the Bible. It means goodbye to cultural icons, large and small -- goodbye to all vestiges of the past, replete with their "bigoted" value systems.
It means that the purges have only just begun.
no reason needed at all “just because” is sufficient reason for the current tyrants of media.
its the exercise is power that they revel in
[I just posted this comment on the linked Townhall article.]
Welcome to the Woke Left USSA.
We are just in the early innings of our Cultural Revolution, this is nothing yet.
The USSR tried and failed to create a “New Soviet Man” for 75 years, with all the tools of a totalitarian police state under their control.
And they only tried to change human nature in the economic realm. The Soviets never attacked marriage, or told mentally ill boys that they could announce they were girls. They never attempted to force society at large to not only accept, but believe this insanity.
What our Woke Left is attempting in 2021 is far more ambitious, and dangerous: fundamentally changing human nature at its core, human sexuality.
2+2 will always be 4, never 5.
Men and women are different.
The USSA will fail over this insane experiment being rammed down our throats by the Woke Left Commissars.
https://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2021/03/10/why-dr-seuss-had-to-go-n2585974
The offense bust be taken for a view as extreme as possible. If a CONSERVATIVE viewpoint is offended it is simply converted to a crticism.
I find men kissing to be nauseating (this is a normal biological reaction and is involuntary), But my reaction is considered “hate speech” not being offended.
I always thought that Dr. Seuss books were stupid. And still do.
This is the revolution they have openly talked about for many decades and now that they have the power they're going full scorched earth and doing it.
In the name of justice, inclusion, safety, and equity, of course.
How long before they lapse into the public domain?
They tried it 50 years ago when they made a habit of carrying around Mao’s Little Red Book.
Ben’s smart, but it’s slightly annoying when he, like other writers, posit a question, gives the formula of what is occurring, but doesn’t answer specifically how it was applied, i.e., What were Dr. Seuss’ offenses?
The Cuomo fiasco is instructive. Poor policy which resulted in the deaths of thousands of nursing home residents, then criminal coverup of the deed - these resulted in a collective yawn from the media and woke public.
Five or six women made to feel uncomfortable, though - even though none was injured?
In the end, the only literature allowed will be the literature that adheres to the values of our postmodern world ... It means that the purges have only just begun.
The only books for kids to read in our future will be comic book versions of Marx, Mao, Hegal et al.
Meanwhile, in Russia and China the world’s great classics continue to be read.
Additionally, on the Sino-Russo lunar space station and colonies, high paying jobs are offered to all who can meet the qualification, except Americans who are too stupid to even apply and would fail in every measure, except reciting by heart Marx and others
This is just another nonsensical issue to divert our attention from the Chinese military buildup. Not only does their naval armada threaten Taiwan, it’s 350 plus carriers and battleships threaten the west coast of the U.S.
Dr. Seuss, He had to go
Why o why we do not know
But some say he was to slow
to grasp the woke
And divide the row
Into people black and blue and purple
Instead of one big maple surple!
Dr. Seuss he had to go.
He is not woke and in the know.
The whole “Cancel Parade” is what they want us to see, and helps to hide what they don’t want us to see. Maybe in a few years or so, we will know what that was.
The book burning has begun.
.....the only literature allowed will be that which adheres to leftie values.....a postmodern world in which we are not expected to conform to societal rules that make a nation strong.....but a suicidal conformist society bent on self-defined identities. That means the "judgemental" Bible is kaput and all vestiges of the past, replete with their "bigoted" value systems are ditched.
No need to read, as they'll be read TO.
(See above)
I remember a Tin-Tin that was banned for the same type depiction of Africans - ironically I got a cross-library loan copy because I wanted to see why it was banned in another place. I remember another Tin-Tin when they’re in Arab lands the Captain kicks a praying Muslim who then pulls a knife on him. They still haven’t really caught up with Tin-Tin yet!
ff
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