Posted by Jock on January 01, 2006 at 19:40:01 from 84.64.131.122 user Jock.
In Reply to: Re: Bowlderising AR (was Political Correctness was AR v HL) posted by Peter H on December 31, 2005 at 17:42:09:
Phrases such as 'political correctness', 'censorship' and 'bowdlerisation' have no place in this argument.
Peter asks us to progress this discussion without using the words 'political correctness', 'censorship' and 'bowdlerisation'. It's a good point, not because these words don't apply to the business of removing or altering words that one takes an objection to [follow the links for their Vickipedia entries], but because these names are perjorative and so using them prejudges the outcome of the debate.
So let's do it Peter's way. Take another look at what happens when others start tinkering about with the text. In Bowdlers' Family Shakespere the suicide of Ophelia is treated as an accidental death by drowning. Is this an appropriate change for younger readers or an unjustified distortion of an author's intention? N.b. suicides were once supposed to go straight to hell, but these days have returned to favour. [Try typing 'microbiologists suicide' into Google if you don't believe me.]
OK. Suicides are tricky. Let's try something less emotional.
How about J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone becoming Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in North America. Presumably somebody thought that young children could be corrupted if exposed to the concept of 'philosophy'. [Socrates received his death sentence for corrupting the young.] A harmless change? I don't think so! If only for the fact that alchemists beavered away for centuries trying to synthesise the Philosopher's stone. They didn't quite get there, but they do seem to have made some interesting discoveries along the way. American readers of Sorcerer's Stone will have no spur to look up 'Philosopher' or 'Philosopher's Stone' on Google or study Philosophy at university.
OK. But, removing the 'n' from BS is harmless, surely, merely the removal of a word which is guaranteed to give offence to a certain clearly-defined category of child reader.
First of all, I would argue that it's not the words themselves that cause the offence, it's the way they are used. It's the context that's important. At a time when young black people are beginning to reclaim 'n', we are insulting our young reader if we assume they don't know that.
Secondly AR was writining in Britain at the beginning of the 20th C. A time and place where the word lacked the destructive force that it gained during white opposition to the american civil right movement. This is an important fact do we really want to shield our child from learning that?
Thirdly, if a child comes across the word it might ask the question, What is this bad word doing there? A child discovering AR at the beginning of the 21st C has to climb a steep learning curve to make any sense of the books, Why don't they have their mum with them? Why don't they wear life jackets? Why don't they ask permission to camp on the island? We can tinker around with the books, (The BBC TV series put the children in lifejackets.) or we can add a few words of explanation.
Fourthly, there is a sweet irony (and some philosophical food for thought) about the D&Gs using 'n-s' about themselves when they look at Dick's negative. AR was a multi-culturist who had learnt by heart the Anansi stories of Jamaica and West Africa and there is a implication here (for at the time BS was written the word was derogatory, but not explosively so) that AR is telling us that racial prejudice is based on false premises.
Do we really want to sweep all these rich references away? If the presence of 'n' becomes a problem in America I'm sure the publishers will take steps to edit it out of the USA editions. In the meantime let's leave the text as it stands.
Finally, a link to Vikipedia's entry about 'n' which is very comprehensive.