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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 1:14:15 PM   
PyrotheClown


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quote:

ORIGINAL: servantforuse

The 'N' word is used every day on the north side of Milwaukee, and it's not white folks using it. Kids call other kids the 'N' word and parents call their own kids the 'N' word.

it's all bout context
same as I can tell my friends jokingly "Fuck you asshole" but I would never great a police officer like that

some areas(like the south) still bare the scars, and as important as it is that they remember that(so as to never do it agian), I can see why it'd be awkward for them.Imagine being a young black kid in a predominantly white Mississippi school and listening to all your peers say nigger nigger nigger over and over again.

as hypersensitive as it is(it is just a word after all), I can see a point.

It's difficult to remember that we are still only a few generations away from when the hanging of black people was a public spectacle

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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 1:39:18 PM   
hertz


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quote:

ORIGINAL: TheHeretic

It seems to me that if we are going to have fits over a word, we ought to at least have the stones to look it in the eye.

This article does that

I hope this edition finds it's way into the dumpbins, straight from the presses.


An absolute disgrace. Huckleberry Finn is a literary great and Mark Twain is one of the greatest Americans.. The people hacking at it should be fucking hung.

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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 2:14:28 PM   
kdsub


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Status: offline 		If it is so dear to your heart why did you not protest the Disney version?..If a movie can be made why not an abridged book?...But don't get me wrong I do agree with you when it come to a parents duty...but do you really think your children act at all times around you as they do around their peers?

I think the uproar over removing inappropriate words is the real stupidity of this thread…it is done all the time. Hell our Constitution has removed inappropriate words.

Butch

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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 2:22:50 PM   
GreedyTop


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Status: offline 		wait.. Disney did a movie of Huckleberry Finn?

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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 2:27:17 PM   
kdsub


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Status: offline 		Somebody did...lol


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Mark Twain:

I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing

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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 2:30:27 PM   
PyrotheClown


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quote:

ORIGINAL: GreedyTop

wait.. Disney did a movie of Huckleberry Finn?



a few actually, an old motion picture then a made for tv mini series

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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 2:48:25 PM   
hertz


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Status: offline 		Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?... Has it ever occurred to your, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?... The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

Many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet (you know the title certainly, Montag; it is probably only a faint rumor of a title to you, Mrs. Montag) whose sole knowledge, as I say, of Hamlet was a one-page digest in a book that claimed: 'now at least you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbors.' Do you see? Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there's your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more.

It's the thin end of the wedge. One of the Popes knocked the penises off of all the male statues in the Vatican. We chop words we don't like from literature.

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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 3:17:54 PM   
Elisabella


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

OK… if the books are banned from schools because of the word nigger now why not print a clearly marked children’s version so at least they can enjoy one of our great authors.

It does seem to me however just switching the word with slave would make many instances of the word out of context.

I would be interested to know at what school age the unabridged version would be allowed in most states.

Butch


If an author is considered "great", his words shouldn't be bowdlerized like this.

I don't think this book should be required reading in schools, because I dislike the thought of young black children being forced to read epithets against their race. But I think the original work should stand, and be published for anyone who wants to read it.

This revision is terrible, in so many ways.

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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 3:52:50 PM   
AlwaysLisa


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quote:

If it is so dear to your heart why did you not protest the Disney version?..If a movie can be made why not an abridged book?...But don't get me wrong I do agree with you when it come to a parents duty...but do you really think your children act at all times around you as they do around their peers?

I think the uproar over removing inappropriate words is the real stupidity of this thread…it is done all the time. Hell our Constitution has removed inappropriate words.


And, because it is done all the time, we are supposed to sit by like sheeple and accept the fact that it does happen?    Twain is just one example.  "Historians" have rewritten books pertaining to the Alamo and Pearl Harbor, because it was felt too graphic and violent for school children.  

As for the racist comments, they happened.   They are still happening in some places.  Removing the words from Twains original text and replacing them with sunflowers won't change this.  Educating young people of the meaning, and why the words are offensive, would be a better approach. 

You may want your children to never know of our past, but if we don't enlighten them to the mistakes and ugliness, how can we ever show them how wrong it was?   

I'm not sure how you can equate a Disney movie with Twains writing,  don't get me wrong, I am a devoted Disney fan...but he is no Twain.   Disney made a movie that "loosely" followed a story, he wasn't attempting to rewrite Twains original work.




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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 4:05:28 PM   
PyrotheClown


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quote:

ORIGINAL: AlwaysLisa

You may want your children to never know of our past, but if we don't enlighten them to the mistakes and ugliness, how can we ever show them how wrong it was?   

Something weee(usa) do alot, we think if we shelter our children from every single "bad thing" in the world, that some how bad things will stop happening


quote:

I'm not sure how you can equate a Disney movie with Twains writing,  don't get me wrong, I am a devoted Disney fan...but he is no Twain.   Disney made a movie that "loosely" followed a story, he wasn't attempting to rewrite Twains original work.




what story didn't disney take liberties with?

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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 4:37:32 PM   
blacksword404


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I listening to a radio show discuss this and someone made the point that at that time if twain had just made an anti-slavery book it would never have seen the light of day.

I am not a fan of people whitewashing books to fit the current times. The author picked certain words to give certain meanings. Kids need to be exposed to how times were then and how people treated each other, and why. It gives the teacher a chance to discuss things. A chance to talk with the kids about uncomfortable things is being missed.

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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 4:40:32 PM   
GreedyTop


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Status: offline 		THANK YOU, Blacksword!!



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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 5:47:02 PM   
PeonForHer


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quote:

ORIGINAL: hertz

The people hacking at it should be fucking hung.



I don't agree.  The people who made it seem necessary to hack it should be hung.  The book wasn't being used in schools because it contained offensive words.  This seemed a waste, so the lesser evil appeared obviously to be to cut out the offensive words.   Would Mark Twain have agreed?  Pretty good chance, I'd have thought.  I can imagine his publisher saying, "Millions more schoolkids will read Huck Finn if you swap 'n . . . .r' for 'slave'.  Are you OK with our changing that?"  Well, if I were Mr Clemens, I'd have said, 'Hell, yes.'  It's not ideal, but it's a lot better than those kids never reading the book at all.

What is taught in schools is inherently the result of educators gingerly trying to fall in line with what everyone wants.  Educators of children aren't a powerful political group and they're frequently and easily made out to be the cause of all our children's failings - by parents and governments (who'd rather blame educators than their voters) alike.  Correctly, educators figure, 'Why stick our necks out, given what we're paid?  Who needs the stress?' 

The people to be blamed are those who support the way all this works.  That is, most people. 



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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 5:49:44 PM   
blacksword404


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quote:

ORIGINAL: GreedyTop

THANK YOU, Blacksword!!




You're welcome.

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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 5:55:13 PM   
RapierFugue


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quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
I don't agree.  The people who made it seem necessary to hack it should be hung.  The book wasn't being used in schools because it contained offensive words.  This seemed a waste, so the lesser evil appeared obviously to be to cut out the offensive words.   Would Mark Twain have agreed?  Pretty good chance, I'd have thought. 

Unlikely. Twain was famously anti-edit. Apoplectically so, at times.

A book is what it is. This book was, and still is, a work that decries racism by pointing up the abhorrence of it. If you remove the abhorrent wording you lose the reasons behind what the book was making a statement about in the first place.

If the wording is no longer "acceptable" then fine, don't set it as a school book. But be 100%, absolutely, totally sure that your society (whichever one is considering using it as a school work) is already evolved enough that such abhorrent language and attitudes are a thing of the past.

I have a sneaky suspicion that most countries wouldn't pass that test, most of the time.

As it stands, this action is page 5 of "Thought Police 101", and as such needs to be shown up for the pile of unmitigated crap it is. Orwell would be very smug.

Well, he would be until they started editing his stuff ;)

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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 5:56:46 PM   
RapierFugue


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quote:

ORIGINAL: PyrotheClown
what story didn't disney take liberties with?

"Adolf Hitler And My Admiration For Him"?

;)

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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 6:00:05 PM   
kdsub


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Joined: 8/16/2007
Status: offline 		I do too Elisabella...I just don't see a big reason why there cannot be a children's version...I am not saying outlaw the original.

Butch

_____________________________

Mark Twain:

I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing

(in reply to Elisabella)
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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 6:07:12 PM   
RapierFugue


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub
I do too Elisabella...I just don't see a big reason why there cannot be a children's version

Because an edited or censored version of something is not a "version" or "alternative", it's a travesty, and a betrayal of the author and his/her thought, care and talent. If a child (or indeed an adult) can't deal with the full-fat, leaded version of a written work then there's plenty for them to read while they gain the wisdom and intelligence to be able to appreciate it in context.

Step down the "let's just cut this tiny little bit out and ..." road and before you know where you are it's "Harry Potter And The Not Very Nice People In White Capes Who Burn Crosses".

I originally added another sentence, but it was a typo/social faux pas (admittedly unintended) of such staggering wrongness that I had to remove it the moment I realised. Which was, thankfully, a second before I posted it, not a second after. Phew. Close call at second.

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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 6:09:58 PM   
BigDaddy723


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Status: offline 		Yes Thank You blacksword, I agree with you whole-heartedly. I have one problem with the whole thing Huck Finn isn't a Childrens book. It is a book for young adults. No one under the age of 14 should be reading it because there are things in it that they won't understand. I also saw someone mention Uncle Tom's cabin Also another American classic that should be taughs in schools. I think to see the word used as it was for so long in the country would open the eyes of every kid who uses it. Yes sometimes things are offensive, tough, get used to it. You can't and shouldn't sugarcoat the Real things that happend in this counrty. If we dumb things down for everyone. The greatest achevement anyonefrom this country will get is High Score on some video game. Yes the word nigger has some very bad history behind it. But we will never truely heal as a country until we confront the issue as bluntly as Twain...
just my 2 cents and Sorry if it isn't coherrent, blame it on Nyquil and Burbon

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RE: The Cleansing of Huckleberry Finn - 1/6/2011 6:15:53 PM   
kdsub


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Status: offline 		I do wonder who owns the rights to the book... It would be up to them I would think... not your or my personal views.

And don't get carried away thinking you know the wishes of the author...by the way have you read it? If you have tell me truthfully would changing those words really change the meaning and focus of the book? Is slave any less powerful a word than nigger?

Would not changing those words so younger children could read it not be better then not reading it at all?

This is all much to do about nothing.

Butch

_____________________________

Mark Twain:

I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing

(in reply to RapierFugue)
Profile   Post #: 60
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