Dr. Seuss is in a noose!

It's cancel culture/ wokeness mentality. @We Are Borg vs. USS Crazy Horse had it right from the beginning that it should be used to educate children which I agreed with that initial statement. These people trying to erase the past is teaching kids the wrong lesson, IMO. You don't tear down Auschwitz because of what happened there, you turn it into a museum and a memorial for education purposes.

Not true, I buy a lot of shit, but I'm happy with it. I may technically be living below the poverty line, but I'm doing pretty good for myself and have a pretty nice apartment and I don't feel poor. It's really disappointing that you would make fun of someone for being poor.

I just googled "buy Dr Suess books" and was hit with thousands of options

So how is the past getting erased exactly?

And do you all of a sudden disagree with a private company's autonomy to make decisions because their decision may be related to a "cancel culture/woke mentality"?

I mean I'm really trying not to say you're the worst libertarian ever, but you're the worst libertarian ever

To be clear, I'm making fun of you for being ignorant.

Your first question: They are most certainly trying to erase the past. Whether or not they succeed is yet to be seen.

Your second question: I don't disagree with a private company's autonomy to make decisions, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with it or I'm not allowed to have an opinion about it.

As to your catchphrase, well I'm not a full on libertarian, I lean libertarian. I explained this some weeks ago.

Cool, we can be ignorant together then.

Yanno what? Buy up as many vintage Dr. Suess books as you can and hoard them. In a few years you can sell them on eBay for multiple times the cover price.

You can certainly voice your agreement or disagreement with a company's actions. But you have to understand that words and phrases have certain meanings. When you misuse a phrase, like cancel culture, especially in a sarcastic or condescending manner, you make yourself look foolish. And people take you less seriously as a result.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dr-seuss-books-deemed-offensive-will-be-delisted-from-ebay-11614884201
eBay is delisting these Dr. Seuss books now. Mein Kampf? Totally fine. Dr. Seuss’s depiction of Chinese men in traditional dress eating with chopsticks out of a bowl. Beyond the pale.

It's a business making a business decision. Like a Christian denying to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple. Or a doctor refusing to treat a six week old infant because her parents are lesbians. Or Denny's using the paper bag test to determine the order in which you'll get your order...if at all.



(But since the thread's now Godwin'd, yeah maybe we really should consider reserving Mein Kampf for solely academic purposes and not have that readily for sale either.)

That is a little annoying. How are we supposed to capitalize on all the right wing idiots buying up Dr. Seuss books and price gouge them in their moment of insanity if we cannot use ebay? Come on ebay, donald trump can suck these rubes dry, but we can't get in on a little of that action?

Seriously, I am still sitting on a house full of dirty panties I can't sell because ebay does not want me to make a buck.

Nice edit, there

Original post.

I stand by my earlier comments that I don't agree with the publisher's decision, although I understand it and support the overall intention.

eBay's decision is a bit more puzzling, given how much more offensive shit they allow to be sold.

But both are private businesses and -- here's the key point -- so long as they aren't violating any human rights code or actively discriminating against people, they can decide what they're going to sell and what they're not.

But it's not "cancel culture", fer crissakes.

Kind of like Twitter banning Trump, but the leadership in Iran who tweets about the destruction of Israel, totally fine.

because Iran is "punching up" at their Israeli oppressors!

Who's "we"? The government? The culture?

Yes.

Cool story, still a business decision.

Are they building new Auschwitzes?

So you're totally fine with eBay continuing to sell minstrel show memorabilia, because it's a business decision?

Fine with it? No. I wish they'd have better discretion but it's still a business and that's the right to do so.

Plus, I think you and I both know The Boy isn't coming in any good faith with his stupid whataboutism and I'm not gotta pretend it was anything else.

(And yes, kick the other dictators off too)

Wellllllllll........in china maybe?

Uh, no. This would be more like ... WAB writes a series of books about WF. Years later, though an unforeseen set of circumstances, you and WAB become friends. WAB dies. Out of respect for their father's friendship with you, they stop publishing the book that is offensive to you and your children.

Would that be wrong?

Your scenario is completely unrealistic, me and WAB would never be friends.

But ..., you do understand the premise, correct?

I understand it, I just don’t agree with it.

why not?

I just went and looked up some articles about authors who later ended up disliking some of their early books. It was an interesting read.

As you might expect, a lot of them are writers who just resented that a single creation of theirs, sometimes even one that they thought was kind of silly, came to dominate their reputation and even overwhelm the rest of their work. Example include A.A. Milne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Lewis Carroll.

But there are others who realized that their work had unintended consequences or didn't represent the values they held. Stanislaw Lem's The Astronauts extolled the virtues of communism; he himself was no fan of the Soviet regime. Stephen King, relatively early in his career, wrote a book about a school shooting that was eventually found to be in the collection of several school shooters, a few of whom showed evidence of having been directly inspired by it. He pushed his publisher to let it go out of print.

There is value in retaining works of literature in their original form for historical study. But there is also value, particularly when works are aimed at young readers, in adapting them to keep the good things, but stay in step with modern values.

Hergé and Tintin dans la/in the Congo is also a good example.