Literary News

I fear that people like Rushdie who condemn this affair on the basis of the link between censorship and totalitarianism still underplay how big of a problem it is.

Totalitarianism is to be avoided if we can help it, but there are other outcomes that are to be avoided at all costs, such as the eradication of human civilization.

But of course it is difficult to convince even intelligent and well-meaning people that what is at stake here is the existence of human civilization.

The statement that encapsulates this entire pitiful affair is the following:

0. An imprint of a major publisher worked with sensitivity readers to rework the published work of a beloved, yet very dead, writer of children's literature in the English language, and churned out bowdlerised rubbish in the process.

This might appear to be a problem that ranges from trivial to somewhat nontrivial for the majority of living people. I think the reason the majority of people are inclined to think this way is because the number of actors involved in this play appears to be trivial, therefore the problem itself is perceived to be trivial.

[by contrast, no one thinks that the fact that a trivial amount of human beings can decide to initiative nuclear war makes the issue of potentially having to deal with a nuclear war trivial]

Now, consider the following two statements:

1. In 2029, almost all major publishers work with sensitivity readers to rework problematic parts of all books considered to be accessible by children and

2. In 2036, all publishers work with sensitivity readers to re-edit and republish every book ever written.

Now, the first statement seems slightly less nontrivial than the Dahl affair and the second statement seems very nontrivial, yet they are both the inevitable outcomes of believing that statement zero encapsulates either a. a trivial problem or b. a jolly good idea.

(well, don't take the dates very seriously, I was trying to make a point before making the point...)

Thinking that statement zero describes either a trivial problem or a jolly good idea will necessarily lead to statement 1 down the road because a. whatever trivial problem or jolly good idea attaches itself to literature written for children also attaches itself to literature read by children, even if it is not produced specifically for them and b. whatever a major publisher does as regards books written for and read by children that is accepted, applauded or generally tolerated while also not incurring negative reputational or financial outcomes in general will be picked up and emulated by other major publishers for reasons that should be obvious.

So now we are in the situation as described by statement one and yet, though we might think that we are now faced with a problem that is less nontrivial and not obviously a jolly good idea we find ourselves on the road necessarily leading to statement two because a. what all major publishers do if they think it is a jolly good idea is what all publishers will do, as long as it is not connected to negative reputational or financial outcomes (and is also unconnected to any such issues pertaining specifically to the scale and operation of smaller publishers) and b. there is no good reason at this point to not expand this operation to include all books ever written, even ones not meant to be read by children, even those that have not been read by a single child in history, and even those that no child would want or will be able to read from now until the end of our race.

(on top of the reasons you can think of for that final iteration of our current insanity consider that there will be either a profoundly more expanded market for sensitivity readers by that point, or that an AI will be doing this work and based on how likely it is that it was not perfectly aligned with the actual intentions of its programmers, the AI will rewrite everything and destroy every piece of original writing if it assigns a nonzero probability to any child that lives or will ever live reading anything in any book that could potentially offend her)

And we finally arrive at the destruction of human civilization because there is no reason that only books and not every other type of encoding human culture from architecture to music to painting to spoken languages would not have to go to this Procrustean Bed, in order to emerge pure and nonthreatening to any actual or potential child, to any actual or potential human being, to any actual or potential digital mind...

Apologies for the ridiculous length of this post. I don't wish to sound like I am threatening you, but I might revisit this to examine any number of other problems it gives rise to, for instance some sort of post-mortem right of authors to not have work originally written by them and published with their approval in their lifetime being phucked six ways to Sunday decades after they die and STILL be published, advertised, and read as their work; or the notion of books or cultural artefacts in general having no permanence as regards their content though we still insist in considering their original identity intact.

I am also sure that somewhere out there, there is a great Borgesian story written or waiting to be written about any of this....
 
It's funny/sad [insert whatever adjective you find appropriate] how much of the current debate has been anticipated by Ray Bradbury:

“Now let’s take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don’t 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, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor 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. There you have it, Montag. It didn’t 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.”
Click to expand...
 
Sensitivity readers will almost certainly be replaced by AI. In fact, it wouldn’t take many inputs to effectively mimic them. It’s easy enough just to satirise them.
 
I wonder what The Sensitivity Bureau will do to Huckleberry Finn? (The most humane book that I have ever read).
 
Sadly the blog author known as Esoterx has passed away at age 50.

This happened back in January, but I just now became aware of it. (Apologies if this news was already posted here.)

A major loss for anyone who appreciated the author's dry wit, obscure and forgotten literary allusions, and penetrating insight into liminality, the paranormal and occult folk history shown in years of posts.

His wife announced that they intend to maintain the site for new and old readers; worth checking out even now.

EsoterX t Exist, Why Are They Out To Get Me?
 
So US publishers are slowly turning to China's authoritarian censorship on their own, without central planning, without coercion? The future is so much worse than one can ever predict. They removed a bunch of sentences from "The Witches" too.

[TABLE="3:4"]The Witches
2001 2022
Even if she is working as a cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman Even if she is working as a top scientist or running a business
I do not wish to speak badly about women. Most women are lovely Removed
We could round them all up and put them in the meat-grinder Removed
There was something indecent about a bald woman Removed
“How horrid!” “Disgusting,” my grandmother said Removed
You can’t go round pulling the hair of every lady you meet, even if she is wearing gloves. Just you try it and see what happens Besides, there are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that
When an actress wears a wig, or if you or I were to wear a wig, we would be putting it on over our own hair, but a witch has to put it straight on to her naked scalp Removed
Witches have slightly larger nose-holes than ordinary people Witches have slightly larger nose-holes
Queer Strange
Perhaps he had been forced to jam her thumb down the spout of a boiling kettle until it was steamed away Removed
The gums were like raw meat Removed
Fat and jolly Jolly lady
Chambermaid Cleaner
Great flock of ladies Great group of ladies
Adorable dress Lovely dress
It nearly killed Ashton as well. Half the skin came away from his scalp It didn’t do Ashton much good
The sheer horror of this woman’s features Removed
Revolting they were, as though the toes had been sliced away As though the toes had been sliced away
I simply cannot tell you how awful they were, and somehow the whole sight was made more grotesque because underneath those frightful scabby bald heads, the bodies were dressed in fashionable and rather pretty clothes. It was monstrous. It was unnatural Removed
Foul bald-headed females Foul females
A boy it vill be for a certainty because girls are not keeping pet mice Removed
These females They
Him Them
Handbags Bags
His Its
Rather pretty young lady Removed
Bunch of dangerous females Bunch of dangerous witches
Filthy old cow Monster
Maid Cleaner
That awful maid The cleaner
That seemed to calm her down a bit Removed
Bald pimply heads Bald heads
Their feet had no toes Their feet were square at the end
Monster Awful woman
Hotel maid Hotel cleaner
Evil woman Evil person
Immensely fat Removed
This woman’s mad This woman’s clearly not in her right mind
Mad woman Woman
Fat little brown mouse Little brown mouse
Fit and frisky Fit
People will think I’m dotty and talking to myself People will think I’m talking to myself
Flood of females Flood of people
Old hag Old crow
Old hag Old crow
Plenty of families with a husband, a wife and several children Plenty of families
English father English parent
You must be mad, woman! You must be out of your mind!
Mrs Jenkins will go crazy Mrs Jenkins will be furious
Skinny little woman Skinny woman
Women were screaming and strong men were turning white in the face and shouting, “It’s crazy! This can’t happen!” All over the dining room people were screaming, looking panicky and shouting, ‘This can’t be happening!”
Laughing like mad Laughing wildly
Not very crazy Not a big fan
Mrs Jenkins’ shrill voice Mrs Jenkins yelling
“Herbert, get me out of here!” “Help!” she was shouting. “Get me out of here!”
He needs to go on a diet Removed
I was crazy Removed
“But what about the rest of the world?’ I cried. “What about America and France and Holland and Germany?” “But what about the rest of the world?” I cried
“There’s no way an English policeman is going to believe that you are the Head of the Norwegian Police.” “I am very good at imitating a man’s voice,” she said. “Of course he believed me.” “There’s no way a Chief of Police is going to believe that you are the Head of the Norwegian Police.” “I am very good at persuading people,” she said. “Of course they believed me.”[/TABLE]
 
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