|
|
Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
|
posted January 05, 2011 12:20 AM |
|
|
Censorship
I see politically correct folks have gotten hold of the classic "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and are editing out things they find offensive in the "new edition."
I don't think that classical works from days gone by should be "modernized" to be politically correct. How about you? Specifically I think Huck Finn was a great book and find the fact that it is being edited offensive.
Huck Finn gets some changes
____________
Revelation
|
|
blizzardboy
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Nerf Herder
|
|
posted January 05, 2011 12:29 AM |
|
|
You find it offensive? Why?
It's not like they're banning the original version of Huck Finn. A publishing company is releasing a version that edits out the racial slurs. It's no different than making a version of a book that edits out the 'F' word.
And of course the original Huck Finn is an awesome novel; good movie too. The 'N' and 'I' racial slurs add cultural accuracy to the book too. This new version won't come close to replacing the golden original. Chill brah.
____________
"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
|
|
blizzardboy
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Nerf Herder
|
|
posted January 05, 2011 12:41 AM |
|
|
It's not political censorship. An individual publishing company is making a version of the book that edits out the 'N' and 'I' racial slurs, presumably for little kids.
____________
"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
|
|
Jiriki9
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Altar Dweller
|
|
posted January 05, 2011 01:22 AM |
|
|
|
For INTELLIGENT adults (which are rare enough) it's VERY unnecessary, for kids it may be usefull...yet. It are only words and it'S teh way it was. Maybe an explanation at the beginning of the book would be better?! I agree in this case to bb, though, taht, if I udnerstood it right, it's not censorship. Censorship comes from outside.
|
|
xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted January 05, 2011 02:54 AM |
|
|
no!
most censorships are completly ridiculous
like look in the US
you can't say snow?
even adults cant say it since some of lady gagas non-radio songs are censored aswell (she can't say snow like she tries to do in like every single song)
ehm why?
I also believe this is the case on HC where its replaced with snow
I dont get how words can be censored. It was just some random guy who said "Yeah, the alternate word for sex is a bad word sooo... don't use it. I NEED NOT TO USE ANY ARGUMENTS!!!".
____________
Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
|
|
SwampLord
Supreme Hero
Lord of the Swamp
|
|
posted January 05, 2011 03:54 AM |
|
|
TV/radio censorship is overall pretty mild in the US, in the sense that it's usually just a few choice words that get edited out on mainstream radio/TV programs. This is fairly justifiable as it's something that a parent might logically be unable to prevent their kids from stumbling across. Furthermore, it's more so a censorship of words as opposed to ideas; swears and sexual themes are still transmitted quite well even when their outright expression is restricted.
That said, there are plenty of "exclusive" TV shows/radio stations which can show and say pretty much whatever they want; you pay for them above and beyond the normal stations. So it's more so just the really "mainstream" channels that are regulated.
____________
They can take my swamp, they can take my town, but they will never take my FREEDOM!
|
|
Binabik
Responsible
Legendary Hero
|
|
posted January 05, 2011 04:01 AM |
|
|
I'm somewhat of a Mark Twain fan and I've recently been working my way through his autobiography. I find his historical perspective really interesting. And I especially find his perspective about slavery and blacks interesting. I can say without a doubt that he was not racist. He was just the opposite, especially considering the time in which he wrote.
The words that he wrote were just words. They were the language of the time. He wrote about things from his own experience and perspective, not just in his biography, but in his novels and short stories as well. Most of his characters were based on people in his own life, including childhood friends and family.
Today we look at slavery from a modern perspective. At the time and place Twain wrote, slavery was normal, that's just the way it was.
He grew up in a slave state and his family had slaves. He found the cruel treatment of slaves in some of the southern plantations just as abhorrent as we do today. The slaves in his household were almost part of the family. He grew up with them, and they were his playmates. There was an old black slave who was one of the most respected and influential people in Twain's entire life. Even as Twain became an old man himself he still looked back with admiration at that old black guy.
Twain was not someone to let his life pass him by. He lived it fully. He was a highly respected author with the ability to write in a humorous manner, yet at the same time tell a story with meaning between the lines. He lived in the world and wrote about that world as a person who experienced it, not as a historian. His views are far more enlightening than some dry history book.
Personally I find his autobiography the best "history book" that I've ever read about that era. Yes, Twain used the word n!gger. So what? It's just a word, and it was a word used in historical perspective. To rewrite his books is to rewrite history. To change his words is a real loss.
|
|
Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
|
|
posted January 05, 2011 05:01 AM |
|
|
A wise reader is not automatically influenced by words and their multiple meanings, but a less wise one is. Times changed, behaviors changed, morals also got a burst in the right way.
I don't think that changing "n!gger" to "black" is a loss but a perspective and historical repositioning. How would you react if every page from Twain had "dirty jew" or similar in, and how you would explain it to your kids, talk about historical perspective at age of five?
We can handle those small "translations" -I don't consider them as "changing words"-, as long as they reflect properly the attitude Twain had. And everybody seems to agree that he was not racist, so where is the problem? It is only about two words, which today are considered very racist.
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted January 05, 2011 08:48 AM |
|
|
I agree completely with Elodin and Binabik.
For the rest of you, you should maybe read 1984 (again). It's simply a forging of history when language is changed - it's a changed FACT of history. People used words then as a matter of fact in everyday life that are considered a no-no today. It reflects different ethics - language is and will always be a reflection of societal facts, and changing historical language is changing history.
How can you explain to children the advances of civilization when their impression is, that things were always the way they are?
|
|
baklava
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Mostly harmless
|
|
posted January 05, 2011 12:41 PM |
|
Edited by baklava at 12:53, 05 Jan 2011.
|
Enough is enough!
I've had it with these monkey-biting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane!
Seriously now, political correctness was something to believe in once.
Now it grew fat, corrupt and pointless, it pushes people around, destroys things, takes freedoms away in the name of itself, and serves as a laughing stock for normal people all around the world.
Goes well with today's America [censored].
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
|
|
gnomes2169
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
|
|
posted January 07, 2011 05:56 AM |
|
|
I agree with Xerox, Joker, Binabik and the pie. (The pie more for my first point).
Censorship is getting completely out of hand. Plain and simple. Its original intent was to keep children from seeing things that would permanently scar them that they could escape (Live footage from a war in the middle of a battlefield, for example.) It has been bas%$&^ized to the point where you could literally be sued for swearing in front of an over-sensitive parent's 5 year old. And lose. Your house and job.
Binabic and Joker bring up another good point. Changing something said that was the norm for the time period because it might have your child swear when they are, God forbid, 12 instead of 13 for the first time infront of their parents is wrong. Also, changing parts of history is like saying that that part of history never happened. When taken to the extremes, it is the people saying that the Holocaust never happened because it was too terrible, and the sad part is that I'm not making that up. People are refusing to believe the Holocaust and other Genocides never happened because they were "Too horrible" for humans to have committed them.
So let me ask you, when does the censorship stop? When the past is identical to the present? When the world has forgotten the horrors that humans have committed? When slavery becomes a fiery tale and the Holocaust is just a myth? When?
|
|
|
|
