My favorite Tweet, from Sarah OâConnor
I wouldâve paid Pontins to put OâConnor on the list to save my mom dragging us to Brean Sands every. single. year.
Perhaps more to the point, from Beatty in the book:
Now letâs take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Donât step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere.
The bigger your market . . . the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic-books survive. And the three-dimensional sex-magazines, of course . . .
It didnât come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade-journals . . .
I have a child thatâs prime Seuss demographic age, and Iâve never heard of it either. Donât recall it being ever read to me, never heard it read in the 8 gazillion story times Iâve been to in the past few years, donât recall seeing it in stores. Stand by⌠going to childâs bookshelf⌠we own at least 6 Seuss books, so itâs not like weâve not been in the Dr. Seuss section. Looking through a google search for most popular dr. seuss books, itâs not on any of the first 5 links. I think youâre greatly overestimating how major this work is.
Same here, I raised two kids in a very D. Seuss friendly house and have never heard of these either.
Kevin Drum has pointed out while Fox News is screaming about this story by panning across pictures of Dr, Seuss books that have not been cancelled, theyâre very careful not to show the images that caused the books to be withdrawn. Hereâs one of those that the right-wing is demanding to preserve- I dunno, maybe they actually like it
Or perhaps they have noticed the censorious and authoritarian nature of the current left and recognize it is a fundamental threat to a free society.
So why wonât they show what they claim there is nothing wrong with?
Whatâs wrong with this?
Perhaps it is dishonest framing of the issue. Perhaps something else.
Time to reframe the debate in any case. A good place to start is here
The Dr. Seuss debacle is a case study in the right-wing grievance industry reframing normal, age-old processes as sinister suppression.
âCancel cultureâ serves mostly to gesture away from what actually happened in a given scenario â usually a normal, benign or unexceptional event that did not break in favor of conservative interests â and toward a generalized sense of right-wing grievance. âCancel culture comes for Dr. Seussâ has a far more sinister ring to it than âSeuss estate decides, after a long review and consultation process, to no longer publish six of his many books due to shockingly racist content.â
Dr. Seuss has not been deleted from bookstores or the public consciousness. The vast majority of his work will continue to be published, including those upon which his reputation as an inspiring and humane influence on children rests. Cancel culture is a tool for evading the real, tough argument the anti-canceling partisans would otherwise need to make here: not âWhy is such a beloved and wise childrenâs book author being senselessly canceled?â but âWhy should we continue publishing, and marketing to innocent kids, six specific books containing vile racist depictions?â Itâs a much more difficult case to make.
I doubt even the author believes that.
Please provide concrete examples of the threats to society from the âcurrent leftâ, with specifics.
Concrete example of a threat to society
With specifics:
The far left destroyed truth, and expertise, and then started calling everyone racist. The alternative in 2016 was this guy (who used tactics pioneered by the far left) or not voting at all. So the world got this guy, because of unreasonable people on the left.
extra credit: c.f.
Edit: and the pendulum swings both ways
You must be a Mises fan, he argued the same thing in the 30âs when he threw his support behind olâ you know who because the woke Stalinist communists were taking over, and shucks what else could you do?
Ask yourself: Do I want to sound like Mises?
Says the big Schopenhauer fan over there
I had to look up Mises, guess what I found in about 30 seconds http://www.vonmisesinstitute-europe.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/schopenhauer-definitive-version-2003.pdf
Consistency, credibility
#doyourreading
edit: taking a closer look at that article it actually doesnât prove my point very well. but someone would have to read and understand it to see that, and since that wasnât done then i guess a larger point is illustrated in the end
Youâve never heard of Mises before?
Or perhaps theyâre afraid to show the actual pictures because people could judge for themselves.
Cancel culture is the word people say to make themselves feel better when the free market makes decisions they donât like.
these are the illustrations his estate felt were racist.
Specifically the man using chopsticks while running.
Itâs their call. Whatever.
But my opinion is that all of the characters in that book are doing silly things. Nothing to get your knickers in a twist about.
lookâŚfrom the same bookâŚ
The world could be a much better place if we just all chill a bit and not be afraid to laughâŚeven at ourselves.