2024-09-05T09:34:16Ztag:sursumcorda.salemsattic.com,2018:/isso/thread/post/hang-on-to-your-old-children-s-bookstag:sursumcorda.salemsattic.com,2018:/isso/1658/53342024-09-05T09:34:16ZStephan<p>I sort of understand where they are coming from, I think. They want their kids to enjoy their favorite books without all the messy bits. So they take out the messy bits.</p> <p>But I’d much prefer if the added a page of annotations or an introductory note or some other way of giving context to what now seems inappropriate than just artlessly trying to make as though it never was there. It’s not a dig on a book if it’s not perfect. And removing messy bits does not guarantee that the result is perfect, far from it! I suspect these versions, this wave, as it were, will get its own name, like Thomas Bowdler‘s works ushered in term “bowdlerize.” And in three decades the originals will be making a comeback, to the great satisfaction of the rights owners and printing presses.</p> <p>It’s not unlike the back-and-forth over confederate monuments. While I agree that in many cases, it is reasonable to remove them from positions of prominence, disappearing them altogether means we lose an opportunity for a conversation. Often they weren’t put up immediately following the Civil War, but much later. Why? Who, several decades after the Civil War, thought it would be good to commemorate the confederate side? Why was it at that time considered appropriate to put up confederate monuments? What purpose did they serve? What view of history (e.g. Lost Cause) was behind them? If the monuments are gone, it’s hard to ask those questions, so moving them to less conspicuous places and adding documentation for context seems like a useful compromise to me. Like the writer points out, deleting history means we learn nothing from it.</p>