Posted by Mike Dennis on July 31, 2009 at 16:06:37 user MTD.
In Reply to: Profound disagreement (was Thoughts on ) posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on July 31, 2009 at 15:35:20:
Point taken Andrew and apologies offered if it is felt they are needed.
Your comment does raise more complex questions. I suppose my first thought is where do you stop? I remember at University (a philosophy degree) one of the other mature students asked for an example of a moral absolute, and the tutor couldn't provide (or perhaps wouldn't) There is a similar difficulty with the written word. Yes such use of language is offensive, and more offensive to some than others for obvious reasons. But don't we have to take into consideration context and intention? Just to give an extreme example, anti-Semitic references in Mein Kampf have clear intentions but the book is a historical document that indicates the ideas that one man had that eventually led to the most horrendous war crime of the twentieth century. Despite its offensiveness it adds to our knowledge.
As far as we all know AR was not a racist and used the language of his day to describe an object etc. How far do we go in updating the books to bring them in line with present day sensibilities?
Another author with this problem is Enid Blyton, not just the obvious character in the Noddy books but in her adventure books for older children with the stereotyping of races etc is dubious to say the least, and has been implied that there were racist intentions behind them.
Censoring is dangerous in itself. I can see that the minor change that AR's works would require seem reasonable, and I appreciate why you would argue for it, but something bothers me still about a writer of quality being altered in this way - even though it may only be one word.
Please remember, this an 'instant' response to your post as it needed a response. I shall probably ponder this and end up disagreeing with myself!