kids, old literature, & political correctness

[Larix]

Re: kids, old literature, & political correctness

If I have the original story then that is what I would read without changing anything. I personally think it wrong to correct things to make them politically correct today when those ethics, morality, and word usage didn't apply to the time frame the things were written. We encourage critical thinking but then remove the items through pc police which I think removes the notion of critical thinking regardless of age.

Sad part is its not just stories that are changed. I've seen historical speeches changed because modern society doesn't like what is omitted or implied. Yet the speech then becomes not the historical speech that changed a period of time. One recently I saw was Patrick Henry's speech about "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their (Party) country!" that was changed to make it all good people. When I retired there was another Chief who retired and our Executive Officer changed his plaque as the speech he wanted read didn't meet her ethics so she changed a historical speech to make it politically correct. I know it pissed him off because the speech meant a lot to him and for her to change it because she didn't like it was wrong. She didn't like it because it was a Kennedy speech that referred to men only and she though that wrong for the then current military.

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As an added though would you stop a classic movie or play your watching because it has politically incorrect things? Consider Shakespeare for instance, there is a lot that is politically incorrect today. The Wizard of Oz has a lot of non-pc stuff today but would you change the classic or forbid your children from watching or hearing it?

All this reminds me of Orwell's "1984"

You know, when history got changed all the time according to the whim of those dictators.

Political correctnes has become a simular dictatorship.

[anunitu]

Re: kids, old literature, & political correctness

One large problem with "non pc" story line,that at times gets a book banned,is these attitudes did exist when a lot of older books were written. One big problem is that banning a book for its reflection of the times is,we take away a collective memory of how things used to be,and try to whitewash our past to fit our present. I think we need to remember these things,no matter how painful they might seem,or for many shameful...

[thalassa]

Re: kids, old literature, & political correctness

All this reminds me of Orwell's "1984"

You know, when history got changed all the time according to the whim of those dictators.

Political correctnes has become a simular dictatorship.

All history is changed according to the perspective of those that write it.

One large problem with "non pc" story line,that at times gets a book banned,is these attitudes did exist when a lot of older books were written. One big problem is that banning a book for its reflection of the times is,we take away a collective memory of how things used to be,and try to whitewash our past to fit our present. I think we need to remember these things,no matter how painful they might seem,or for many shameful...

Actually, a number of books on the ALA's Banned Book List have been banned or challenged from schools because they ARE politically correct, in that they value diversity and plurality over WASPy monoculture. I can't even tell you how many books get nixed because of the sexuality or religion or whatnot of a carachter these days...when I was a kid, there was a school in Oregon that banned The Lorax (by Dr Seuss) because the school was located in a logging town where most of the people worked for the logging industry.

[thalassa]

Re: kids, old literature, & political correctness

I'm working on a list of books (or maybe I'll stick with my mom's parenting technique of requiring my kids to read a book a week off the ALA Banned Book List every summer) to buy for the kids to read, and I came across this fabulous WSJ piece by author Sherman Alexie (written in resonse to this bozo):

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/...tten-in-blood/

[B. de Corbin]

Re: kids, old literature, & political correctness

Thalassa, you are an outstanding parent. I want to meet your kids in 20 years, and see what they have become - it will be something marvelous, I bet...

G.K Chesterton, maybe, expressed this idea best:

Tremendous Trifles (1909)

The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.
Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear.

[kalynraye]

Re: kids, old literature, & political correctness

I would love to just hug that man.