Worse, Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming’s books being republished in alternate versions is an example of censorship coming from the left how exactly???
I confess I’m still confused, because:
- It seems pretty common to me for trans folk not to go for surgery, and literally (before now) unheard of to me for other trans folk to call them a traitor for forgoing surgery; and
- I’ve also never ever heard anyone refer to “forgoing surgery” as “detransitioning,” when someone still identifies as the gender they were not assigned at birth.
Are you sure you have the story right?
If you do, that sounds like a pretty niche group of trans friends, unless I’m super out of touch, who would tell a dude he’s detransitioning and also that detransitioning isn’t a thing, just because he doesn’t get a mastectomy.
But sure, I can posit that this way-out-there group exists. I certainly admit that there are trans folk who are assholes, just like there are other humans who are assholes, of every shape color creed and identity.
But the problem comes when there’s an association made: assholes exist in this identity, therefore we should talk about the identity, or posit some social movement associated with the identity and declare it taboo.
Nope. That’s super gross.
And, what that story has to do with woke is beyond me. Taking the story at face value, it doesn’t seem very woke to shun a transman because he doesn’t want surgery.
So he was viewed as a “traitor” for not taking specific surgical interventions? As a transmasc person?
Sorry, but I don’t buy that at all. This guy wasn’t telling you the whole story.
A lot of people don’t. Bottom surgery is very involved, complicated, and we don’t have the technology to do a very good job of it.
But, not getting bottom surgery isn’t the same thing as de-transitioning, which is what you were saying. And he didn’t detransition at all, in fact, so whatever happened between him and his group had nothing to do with it.
I’m really confused on your anecdote, and the story keeps changing. Either he was telling stories, or you are badly misremembering and filling in the gaps. Either way, it really sounds like it’s not really useful for any purpose. Well, except for confirming the prejudices of TERFs and other anti-trans hate groups.
So, it’s purely an aesthetic choice on your part. You don’t like that copyright holders make changes to their properties, just the same as those copyright holders don’t like how some of those properties come across contemporarily.
So, when you said
It was just random words, not meaning anything at all? You were not implying that the Left was rewriting books?
I guess that it is 100% on me that I read your words and assumed you meant to write them.
Ah, is this another example of you misusing words? You admit that you were using the word detransition incorrectly. I assume now you will admit that you are using the word censorship incorrectly?
Misusing words seems to be a habit of yours.
“Replied in my name”? I don’t think I understand what you mean by that. You claim it to be a “habit”, but I don’t have any idea what it is that you are talking about.
Apparently, this is something that offends you, so could you please explain it so that I do not do this again?
…can you explain to us, precisely, what it is that you think a sensitivity reader does?
Because what you’ve described here doesn’t remotely match the job description of a sensitivity reader. Citations would be helpful.
I suppose one of the myriad things folded into the weaponized term “woke” is a supposed aggressively-enforced dogma that the trans experience must be only ever celebrated never questioned or regretted or given second thoughts and Og help you if you even hint otherwise. Which is a distortion of what support and affirmation are about.
It appears the controversy here stems from a confusion between the terms “rewriting” and “editing”.
Also, note that an author who felt that strongly about it could easily specify in their will that no posthumous editing would be permitted. Oddly, almost all of them make the choice calculated to keep their books in print and their descendants solvent.
Complaining about stuff being “woke” is simply a performance from people so privileged that the mere suggestion of accommodating others, in even the smallest manner, triggers a persecution complex.
I’m not going to side with anyone here, but just offer another opinion. As far as “sensitivity reader” goes, there’s a description here:
It is, unsurprisingly, controversial, and has been widely criticized. In some cases the reaction to criticism was to publish the originals in parallel with the edited versions. I was surprised to see that the entire James Bond series was edited to remove references to race judged to be offensive.
My own view on this is that much depends on the age group of the book’s intended audience. Books intended for young readers whose minds are very much in the impressionable formative stages need to have their contents curated much more carefully than books for adults who are unlikely to change their world-view because of what some character does in a work of fiction.
As as example, when I was a kid I read many of the Hardy Boys books. The originals dated way back to 1927 and the years thereafter, and were substantially revised circa 1960s. Partly this was to modernize them, but also to remove racial and other undesirable characterizations. I never read the originals, but it turns out that Applewood Books specializes in publishing replicas of historically interesting books like these. I bought maybe half a dozen of them a few years ago solely out of curiosity about the originals.
Reading these old kids’ books was fun. I concluded that this was an example of well-justified revision, mainly because of the age of the target audience. It wasn’t just racial attitudes that needed to be excised, either. In the originals, the Bayport police chief and his sidekick detective were both pompous and incompetent and considered themselves in competition with the invariably more successful Hardy Boys. This is not an image of law enforcement that one wants to drill into impressionable young minds. In the rewrites, Chief Collig became eminently respectable and his relationship with the boys was friendly and collaborative. And of course, racial stereotypes disappeared. It was all to the good, for a young target audience.
What, drilling in fantasy flattering views of law enforcement is better? In this day and age? Naah, “pompous and incompetent” didn’t go far enough.
Did you think he was asking for a definition of “sensitivity reader” because he didn’t know what one was?
No, I do not, nor do I understand the basis of this seemingly hostile interpretation of my post. I was trying to make a constructive contribution by providing an objective reference point, and just using the quote (and a cite for the general audience) as an introduction.
…but everything “woke” gets criticized. Which is why here, in the “defining woke” thread here in Great Debates, it’s been criticized, and why there has been an edit war over on the edit page, all over the last couple of months.
The controversy section on wiki isn’t really about sensitivity readers at all. They were about decisions made by the publishers of the book. It wasn’t “(self-proclaimed ?) experts judging what can and what cannot be said and rewriting novels.” It was (in the first instance) a company that was commissioned to do so, and we don’t know the circumstances around the latter.
You are free to “teach critical reading of texts” if you want too. And if you are the publisher or the copyright holder or the author of a book, you are also allowed to consult a sensitivity reader if you so wish.
And doing so isn’t “mutilating works of art.”
My intial immediate response to this was going to be along the lines of “all joking aside, we need to teach our kids respect for our institutions, and if our institutions don’t live up to those ideals, then it’s the institutions we need to change, not what the kids are taught”.
But then I thought about the powerful book Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates:
My first instinct was, in a sense, ultimately true, but we’re still very much in a transition period that prevents it from being universally true.
No. We need to raise realists, not fantasists.
By all means talk to kids about ideals, or even better, real-world examples of how things are done better elsewhere - places with better policing, or health care, or political systems, or whatever.
But respecting an institution because of what it could be? Nope, that’s a recipe for disaster. Especially, but not only, for POCs and other minorities. It’s the kind of trap that leads to a bullet in your head or a knee in your throat.
And this isn’t a “transition period”. White supremacy and its uniformed goons aren’t going anywhere in a hurry.
Sorry, I won’t have the time, or the energy, to reply to all the posts above. Just a few points.
I regret bringing up the trans anecdote I had. I thought it was relevant to the thread, but as some of you have pointed out, I only got to hear one side of the story. Plus, as I knew, it was just a data point that relied on me having perfectly understood him and you taking my word for it.
As for examples of attempts at imposing bans coming from the left, there’s this.
Most importantly, since this thread is about defining “woke” and several posters have criticized me for not doing so, I’ll venture an attempt.
Woke is to liberalism as the extreme-right is to conservatism.
Liberalism is about not only affirming, but striving to achieve equality between members of society, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, diet, creed, wealth, etc. It is rooted in facts and reason, critical thinking, peaceful coexistence, inclusivity and ultimately compassion and love for all humans. Its main tools are education and free access to information.
Wokeness seems to me to be about imposing minority views to the rest of society. It is based on “feelings” and passion, blind adherence to a strict with-us-or-against-us worldview, conflict, exclusion and ultimately hatred for the Other. Its main tools are banning, rewriting and hiding.
…can you explain exactly what it is you take issue with here, and what that has to do with “woke?”
I mean, this is what woke means.
“aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)”
“having or marked by an active awareness of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those involving the treatment of ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities:”
aware, especially of social problems such as racism and inequality:
Its pretty consistent across the board. Woke means awareness of social problems. It ws born out of AAVE. Its been used for decades.
Where did your definition come from? How did you decide it was about “imposing minority views to the rest of society?” Why would you think that its main tools are “banning, rewriting and hiding?”
Did you just make that definition up?
…and just further to this: aren’t you “rewriting” the definition of woke? Don’t you hold a minority view and are trying to impose your definition on the rest of us here on the society of the Straight Dope?
Are you, by the definition you have used here, woke?
How do you know the political leanings of Mondondo or Enright ?
Well, I’m not a liberal, so is it OK for me to stay woke?
Also, what’s wrong with feelings and passion? And what was the purpose of sneer-quoting “feelings”? Do you think woke people don’t have real feelings?