You would have to have been living under a basket to avoid the recent brouhaha over the re-editing of classic books by so-called sensitivity readers and editors. Here in the Colonies we’ve been through this with the books of Dr. Seuss and other popular children’s authors. Now, the UK has gone mad censoring works by Roald dahl and others.
McSweeney’s recently posted a pointed response to this nonsence in an article by Peter Wisniewski aptly titled “FUCK YOU, YOU FAT-HEADED ROALD DAHL-CENSORING FUCKERS.”
Dear Fat-Headed Roald Dahl-Censoring Fuckers,
You’re censors. You’re not editors, and you’re not readers. You’re censors. You are exactly what Orwell warned us about.
So fuck you.
Without the author’s consent, you are changing and omitting words that the author wrote. That makes you a censor. An agent of censorship. Only fascists censor books.
What you’re doing is crazy. See? We said it. Crazy. Crazy. Crazy.
You will not take words from the human race. You have no fucking right.
When you censor, you condescend. Fat people call themselves fat because they are not ashamed of themselves. But you are ashamed of us. You think being overweight is something to be ashamed of, so you erase this word, and you erase all fat people. Well, fuck you.
You will not take words from the human race. You have no fucking right.
The most telling example of your condescension is when you removed the word “cashier” from one of Dahl’s books. Apparently, you think the word “cashier” is offensive. Well, fuckers, hundreds of thousands of actual people are cashiers, and they don’t agree. They don’t think their mere existence is offensive.
You have no right to diminish their occupation or any other.
You have no right to take words from Dahl or any author.
If you were to get away with what you did—and rest assured, you fucknuts will not get away with it—then every book in human history could be subject to the same censorship. Every book ever published has something in it to offend someone. By the precedent you set, even the most carefully calibrated book written today, censored by censors like you, will be censored by someone else tomorrow.
The problem with censorship is that it has no end. Think of it: you censored Dahl’s books in the United States. What if the Germans wanted to censor them to suit their needs? And then the Chinese to suit theirs?
Get it? Once one group of censors gets to do their filthy work, then everyone will have their go.
If literature is to survive, we have two choices. Either:
a) No censorship, period, full stop, because it’s fascist and horrifying, or
b) Endless, unlimited censorship—a world where every craven group like yours has free reign to mangle every book ever written
No one wants your world.
No one supports what you did.
Roald Dahl would loathe you.
All enlightened readers loathe you.
The history of world literature is against you.
You are anti-art.
You are anti-freedom.
Art must be free. Art must be unsafe. Art must be controversial. Art must have dangerous words and ideas in it. Otherwise, it’s not fucking art.
At the moment, the right wing of the US is censoring books. They are fighting to keep non-white and LGBTQ+ narratives from kids. They are pulling books from shelves. They are villainizing teachers and librarians.
You are no better than these right-wing assholes.
Both you and these fascist fuckwads are afraid of books. Afraid of ideas. You condescend to everyone by thinking you should be the judge of what is said and read.
Who the fuck are you to decide this?
You have no fucking right.
If you don’t want censorship from the right, you can’t have it from the left.
Here’s how art is supposed to work: Someone writes a book. They write it with passion, with abandon, with honesty and lyricism and even a bit of recklessness. It is of their time, using the words of their time.
Readers respond to this recklessness, this abandon, this rawness, this timeliness. The only books that ever mattered to anyone are raw, are unbridled, are risky, and timely. Then, if a parent or teacher reads the book to a kid, and there’s a part that’s risky or controversial, discussions can be had. If the book is old, then the words and sentiments of that time can be taken into account.
It’s not hard.
That is how we fucking learn.
All art has context.
All art is born of its time. It reflects its time.
People who come to the art later can handle the context, the different words, the different attitudes. People can fucking handle it because we are complex creatures capable of complex thoughts.
Censors think everyone is stupid.
Fuck you, censors.
Censors think it is their job to dumb down every piece of art till it says nothing to anyone.
Fuck you, censors.
Fascists fear art because it frees minds.
Fuck you, fascists.
Left, right: all censors are the same. Period. End of story. Fuck you, censors.
Fuck you,
All the readers in the world who loathe you.
Travel Between The Pages 