Thanks Steve for doing a response video, so glad you did. Enjoyed your extensive experience and insights…especially around your examples around Cicero, Howard, Rowling and Asimov. As always, great stuff sir!
Great video Steve. I started watching convinced that there was nothing else I could learn about this specific topic (about which I have written multiple essays), but I find myself not only assenting or disagreeing with your points but also surprised by the turns and examples. My only objection as someone in the middle, is that “it is my job” or “everyone is horrible people” (which it is only partially true), are not arguments that justify ignoring the action of living+profiting individuals/institutions that are directly benefiting by that ignorance. Not being able to change our attitude towards all the horrible unknowns around us, does not mean we cannot do anything about what we do know. But I think you already with me, otherwise you would not have a plant based diet.
Those with large populated platforms shouldn’t try to turn their admirers into a cult by means of persuasion or bad example. They have their right to opinions, but they shouldn’t be missionaries trying to indoctrinate others. 😺✌️
Great video, Steve! I too have always thought about future attitudes toward our present failings, and I'm surprised it seems so little discussed. You did a great job of it here! Aloha, Pohaku Nezami
Yes, I can and do separate the art from the artist. I’m always a bit surprised by those who can’t or don’t, as I can’t imagine wanting to limit my own experience of the world.
James DeFeo and I covered this recently on our Right Brain Café podcast. It's available on RUclips. I enjoyed hearing your thoughts on this topic, Steve.
When it comes to spending my hard earned money, it's an ethical question and not an literary one, and I prefer to spend my money ethically. When it comes to evaluating or experiencing a book, my default position is to separate the art and the artist. However, there is no one size fits all. There was a period in France where post-may-68 "intelectuals" were writing very despicable stuff in their fiction works, and also advocate for them publically in the media. The perfect example for this is Gabriel Matzneff if someone wants to know what's I'm talking about.
Well said! Just like none of us are the same person now as we were at 4, 10, 17, or 25 years old, the pop-social cultural moral norms for any given society can and do change-and sometimes dramatically-over the course of a single decade. A single event can establish a paradigm shift in thinking (9/11/01 comes to mind as a more recent example). Not only that, but every society-and every sub-society-has its own moral and ethical proclivities. So whose shall we make the gold standard? Good luck trying to figure THAT out, lol…and the person who says “mine” self-defeats and undermines the whole attempt.
I mostly stand where you do. Occasionally on Goodreads I'll come across people so hysterical that they want to denounce authors because the tone or politics of their FICTION isn't right - I have no time for that kind of po-faced moralising. I suppose the exception for me is when the controversy feels particularly significant, e.g trendy Western journalists pumping out anti-Ukraine articles infused with Russian propaganda; English historians who have publicly referred to the Scots and Irish as intellectually inferior; writers who knowingly pervert historical fact to further a political agenda. In such cases, I don't want to support - no matter in how minor a way - writers who I feel are actively involved in making the world a worse place to live. But this is almost exclusively linked to non-fiction (or work presented as non-fiction, at least).
I’m pretty close to your way of thinking. Lonesome Dove will be a canceled book of the future because it features a cattle drive. Sensitivity Readers will have to comb through old novels for characters eating hamburgers and change it to veggie burgers. This topic is tentatively going to be the theme for my live show 10/14/24.
Hey Greg, please note that cattle are an invasive species in the Americas, and no, they do not affect the prairies “just like the buffalo did.” They are also raised off prairies, in unsustainable conditions, causing desertification in low rainfall areas, contributing to climate change. Thanks! 😺✌️
I largely agree, although I'll freely admit you lost me on the whole "we're enslaving the AI on our phones" thing...Wait a minute--Alexa is telling me that SkyNet is on call waiting...😮
JK has issues it's not just about not changing sex or more accurately gender and it wasn't just the backlash. Some people including a lovely trans woman Jessie Gender tried to politely point out why she was wrong and got textual abuse back for their pains. Even Elon Musk who disowned his own trans kid told her maybe don't tweet so much transphobic stuff. She's an SA survivor and she's stubborn but most of us as we get older get there are two phrases that we sometimes have to say - I was wrong - and I don't know. It's why we love Darcy because he's a rare example of a privileged man who was able to accept the first one and apply it. I'm feeling a little smug here I'm a vegetarian (although the dairy industry is part of it and i can't do veganism) and i have boycotted Starbucks because they support Israeli genocide. Also you didn't touch on how messed up the clothing trade is and how built on exploiting workers in the global south often including children. I'm a middle position person but i havent bought a book in years. I know someone part of the community JK viciously targets and they used to be a fan of hers so to me not putting money in their pocket is about the principle of the thing.
@@AarontheBookBaron-i2f I see where she's coming from. I don't 💯 agree but it's grounded on stuff. She's not blaming victims she's blaming the foreign policy in the place they lived.
When I hear people ask that question - how do we separate the art from the artist? - I say: you just do. Not sure how this has ever become a point of contention. Thanks for the streak of common sense, Steve.
The horrors of the meat industry and the systematic ethnic cleansing in Palestine will definitely be looked upon by future generations with disgust - they'll undoubtedly do so whilst ignoring the travesties of their own time! The cruelty of the past is a lot easier to call out than the cruelty of the present, I suppose. As far as the art/artist question, I've always taken a gut feeling approach, though I acknowledge I'm making no material impact, it's much more a case of "Am I able to look past the author's faults and focus on the work?" - and I think the length of time that's passed since the work was written plays a big part in that. I'll still happily listen to David Bowie despite some of the awful stuff he did, but I can't bring myself to listen to Morrissey anymore; but that one might be down to the quality of the art! Hope you're well.
For me if you can separate the artist from the person it’s fine… eg in the case of Lovecraft, even in stories where his racism comes through I get the feeling he had no idea, and it wasn’t his intent with the story to promote his racism, so it doesn’t quite bother me, it’s more something that “literary” critics can mull over and I can ignore… It does get thornier with someone like Gaiman, because I’m not sure I could separate the person from the artist, he was very much identified with his work from the beginning, maybe not as obviously as eg Harlan Ellison being on the cover of most of his own books, but similar kind of thing… if that makes sense?
Lovecraft was a terrible person and it was on the page but yet me and all my right thinking friends consume Cthulu mythos stuff but he's dead that's a difference.
All extremes are false, and I don’t think that the opinion you hold was the extreme. That would be to not only read any book by any author, but to force others to act in the same way. That view is rather the other side of the moderate opinion, either of which I agree with, but strictly within your own ethics, not the moral norms of the day and not necessarily for the economical reason many have.
I was into Simone de Beauvoir when I was young until I have found out about her political views and finally the allegations of misconduct toward young girls killed it for me. I try to separate art from artist but I can't forgive Simone and could never finish reading her book "The second sex".
I disagree about the palestine and to avoid a headache wouldn't want that conversation but I'm not going to cancel/deprive myself of one of the best booktuber monologists just because i disagree with some of what he says.
I think an older book is safer, I hate "woke" arguments in a book, but am aware that one person's awoke nonsense is another's creed. However, although I love an author biography or autobiography, I'm aware that there are few saints, and I definitely am not one. I do not judge a book by its author. In fact despite airing my views on here, I make an effort to be non- judgemental in real life, however a few times I have dumped a friend because of their actions, eg a hippy friend that stayed the night, and stole my rent money for drugs, my patience with her was exhausted. Hardy, Dickens, Wagner, would be off my list of favourite writers and composers otherwise. I know three of four local published writers, including historians, I don't know that they are anything other than good fathers and husbands, but if they weren't I may not want to see them, but dump their books, not on your life.
I can see some examples where you don't want to keep supporting a current author, but it feels like a fruitless exercise the more you keep expanding it. So if you object to what JK Rowling has said, are you going to research every author you read to make sure they don't think the same thing? How many authors on your shelf from previous generations do you think feel any differently on that topic?
I think you meant Neil Gaiman Steve 😂. I have just spent the last 5 minutes looking up Neil Diamond for an abuse story I missed. I have never ever been put off by an author who has political views I disagree with. If anything It would be quite interesting if Terry Pratchett say, was a rabid Stalinist or if Brandon Sanderson was a far right extreamist. It would make their books even more interesting. If the author has done something heinous like Gaiman seems to had done, that still doesn't put me off. It just doesn't trigger an emotional reaction. I don't hero worship authors, however It might just be that no author I have really taken inspiration from has been outed in a scandel. I have been defending J K Rowling but for half a decade, when I informed myself on the Trans Issue. My respect for her has definatly been raised. I am not on twitter. My friend told me "I can't tell you how many writers have disapointed me by their braindead, boring political opinions". I think I dodged the social media bullet. I always enjoy hearing people talk about this topic but I am 100% on Steve's side.
@@charlieroberts5961 Bless my soul you are right. I have just listened to it again and he is saying Guy-men. I have always heard it pronounced Gay-men. It also doesn't help that I listen to audio at 2x speed these days.
I'm tired, and when I'm tired, I create essays. I'm sorry. I think that the "woke" people are on more of a spectrum than you are saying. I don't think everyone who is liberal goes out and attacks everyone else. I do think that books and authors exist within a context. They don't exist in a vacuum, or on a sterile examination table. That doesn't mean that I go looking for five years of tweets to see if an author said anything I don't like. You know how in the book review instruction video you made, you said to place the book in the context of similar works? Sometimes the book exists within the context of an author's life, and publishing trends, and all sorts of other things too. I think for people with channels, there's the issue of whether to promote an author's work if they do or say something offensive or abusive. I've seen people explain why they're no longer going to promote a particular author's work without coming off as extreme. Just because an author exists doesn't mean they have a right to take up space on your channel. As for the issue of dead authors, I understand that people who grew up with different mores probably said or did things we wouldn't approve of today without thinking about their implications. I can still learn things from them, and I think that if they could time travel, they'd have things to learn from future people too. When a living author is actively trying to cause harm to individuals or inciting hatred towards groups of people, that's where I have an issue. There's behavior that is standard for your time, and then there's behavior that should be obviously wrong in your time. There's a difference. Can you apply that to say that a historical author was deeply flawed because they did things that were obviously wrong in their time? Sure. Can you study their work? Sure. If you discuss them on your channel, just make sure to discuss that context if you know about it.
Very well written. I also believe it’s against our self-interest for publishers to expurgate or re-edit pre-modern titles to make them more palatable for current readers. Removing racial or anti-LGBTQ+ content from Agatha Christie, Disney stories, etc also removes valuable teachable moments for modern readers, especially children and students, about modern attitudes. Still, I think JK Rowling goes out of her way to belittle and try to humiliate transgender people. She can’t hurt them, of course, they’re been through much worse just living their lives. Thank you for contributing to this discussion. 😺✌️
I'm glad Gaiman's been exposed. I've never read his books but I always felt there was something off with him (and that's partly why), though I never imagined what's reported. As someone from the UK like him I can finger him as creep and a fraud from a mile away. But if others still enjoy his reading his books I suppose that's nothing to me.
Have you seen anyone do this? It's possible. I guess I just tend to watch fairly liberal channels. Their attitude towards dead authors seems to be that they exist in a context. You talk about that context, and analyze it. I've only seen one guy get frustrated with a dead author who was more than usually sexist for his time. He didn't try to get that author banned or anything.
@@Tolstoy111 I guess I was thinking about actual Booktubers as opposed to the general media. Changing Dahl's work was considered ridiculous even by pretty liberal teachers I knew. That was extreme. Usually when I hear people talk about "grappling," they're teachers and they mean "Let's talk about context, but without making excuses for this person's behavior." The media can then take teacher's conversations and sensationalize them.
I don't understand how do you think Israel is supposed to fight enemy hiding in cities behind civilians. So Israel either have to leave Hamas intact or to accept high civilian casualties. It's like telling Russians in 1945 not to bomb and storm Berlin because there were civilians in the city . War is ugly and military goal is to destroy enemy, not to bring democracy, goodwill or diversity. I think Israel's goal is not just to destroy Hamas, but to show the future generations of Palestinians the consequences of what will happen if they'll try to repeat October 7th attack. Could somebody explain to me where I'm wrong, cause I don't understand how my support of Israel makes me immoral
I don't want to start an internet feud, just genuinely taking up your offer to "explain to you where you're wrong." I do not think your support of Israel makes you immoral, btw, I also support Israel's right to existence. One way it's different is that there is no functional state representing Palestine and thus no conventional military. Hamas is not a state, it is a terrorist organization, and almost categorically must be treated differently than the Nazi Regime (as terroristic as the Nazis were.) Yes, war is ugly, but we can still judge states for engaging in it with varying degrees of criminality/cruel intent. Israel has killed tens of thousands of civilians (noncombatants) with very little progress to show for it in their "war" on Hamas. "Storming Berlin" makes very little sense in this context, because unlike the German Army, Hamas will just go underground and force Israel to play whack-a-mole.
Mosad agents would be much more effective. The US fought a twenty year war to kill one person, but the movement hasn’t died; it’s stronger than ever. The Middle East has been at war for thousands of years. Does anyone sincerely believe this one is anything other than retribution, which, according to the Old Testament, is at God’s discretion, not man’s? 😺✌️
Israel has killed 42,000 Palestinians, only 14,000 of whom were believed to be Hamas. 16,500 were children (yes, that’s right, this “war” has killed more innocent children than terrorists). 92,000 Palestinians have been injured, and 2.3 million have been displaced, literally bombed out of their homes. Compare that to 1,148 Israeli deaths, 1,139 of which were killed on October 7th. Only a couple hundred Israelis, the vast majority of which were IDF soldiers, have died since October 7th. When the numbers are that skewed, it’s not a war. It’s a state-funded genocide of a group of people. If you’re an American, your tax money has directly funded every bomb and bullet that Israel has launched at innocent people. If your reaction to that info is “well, Israel is just protecting itself,” you’re delusional and immoral, and you’re contributing to the worst crime against humanity in our lifetimes. Plain and simple.
I have written two very long responses to your comment explaining why you are, in fact, immoral, and BOTH have been inexplicably deleted by RUclips after I posted them. That should be all the evidence you need that Israel is committing a state-funded genocide, the truth of which is shielded by online censorship. To keep it short - 42,000 versus 1,148 killed. 28,000 innocents, including 16,500 children, compared to 900 innocents. It’s not a war.
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Thanks Steve for doing a response video, so glad you did. Enjoyed your extensive experience and insights…especially around your examples around Cicero, Howard, Rowling and Asimov. As always, great stuff sir!
Geez Kevin, don’t give him a big head. He already thinks he’s always right! 🤣
😺✌️
If it's good, it's good.
Great video Steve. I started watching convinced that there was nothing else I could learn about this specific topic (about which I have written multiple essays), but I find myself not only assenting or disagreeing with your points but also surprised by the turns and examples. My only objection as someone in the middle, is that “it is my job” or “everyone is horrible people” (which it is only partially true), are not arguments that justify ignoring the action of living+profiting individuals/institutions that are directly benefiting by that ignorance. Not being able to change our attitude towards all the horrible unknowns around us, does not mean we cannot do anything about what we do know. But I think you already with me, otherwise you would not have a plant based diet.
Those with large populated platforms shouldn’t try to turn their admirers into a cult by means of persuasion or bad example.
They have their right to opinions, but they shouldn’t be missionaries trying to indoctrinate others.
😺✌️
Great video, Steve! I too have always thought about future attitudes toward our present failings, and I'm surprised it seems so little discussed. You did a great job of it here! Aloha, Pohaku Nezami
Yes, I can and do separate the art from the artist. I’m always a bit surprised by those who can’t or don’t, as I can’t imagine wanting to limit my own experience of the world.
James DeFeo and I covered this recently on our Right Brain Café podcast. It's available on RUclips. I enjoyed hearing your thoughts on this topic, Steve.
When it comes to spending my hard earned money, it's an ethical question and not an literary one, and I prefer to spend my money ethically. When it comes to evaluating or experiencing a book, my default position is to separate the art and the artist. However, there is no one size fits all. There was a period in France where post-may-68 "intelectuals" were writing very despicable stuff in their fiction works, and also advocate for them publically in the media. The perfect example for this is Gabriel Matzneff if someone wants to know what's I'm talking about.
Well said! Just like none of us are the same person now as we were at 4, 10, 17, or 25 years old, the pop-social cultural moral norms for any given society can and do change-and sometimes dramatically-over the course of a single decade. A single event can establish a paradigm shift in thinking (9/11/01 comes to mind as a more recent example). Not only that, but every society-and every sub-society-has its own moral and ethical proclivities. So whose shall we make the gold standard? Good luck trying to figure THAT out, lol…and the person who says “mine” self-defeats and undermines the whole attempt.
I feel sad when it happens but I don't stop reading the author, I just stop supporting his ideals. Thank you for the vídeo
I wonder if I should take this more seriously than I currently do.
I mostly stand where you do. Occasionally on Goodreads I'll come across people so hysterical that they want to denounce authors because the tone or politics of their FICTION isn't right - I have no time for that kind of po-faced moralising.
I suppose the exception for me is when the controversy feels particularly significant, e.g trendy Western journalists pumping out anti-Ukraine articles infused with Russian propaganda; English historians who have publicly referred to the Scots and Irish as intellectually inferior; writers who knowingly pervert historical fact to further a political agenda. In such cases, I don't want to support - no matter in how minor a way - writers who I feel are actively involved in making the world a worse place to live. But this is almost exclusively linked to non-fiction (or work presented as non-fiction, at least).
I’m pretty close to your way of thinking. Lonesome Dove will be a canceled book of the future because it features a cattle drive. Sensitivity Readers will have to comb through old novels for characters eating hamburgers and change it to veggie burgers.
This topic is tentatively going to be the theme for my live show 10/14/24.
Hey Greg, please note that cattle are an invasive species in the Americas, and no, they do not affect the prairies “just like the buffalo did.” They are also raised off prairies, in unsustainable conditions, causing desertification in low rainfall areas, contributing to climate change.
Thanks!
😺✌️
I largely agree, although I'll freely admit you lost me on the whole "we're enslaving the AI on our phones" thing...Wait a minute--Alexa is telling me that SkyNet is on call waiting...😮
JK has issues it's not just about not changing sex or more accurately gender and it wasn't just the backlash. Some people including a lovely trans woman Jessie Gender tried to politely point out why she was wrong and got textual abuse back for their pains. Even Elon Musk who disowned his own trans kid told her maybe don't tweet so much transphobic stuff. She's an SA survivor and she's stubborn but most of us as we get older get there are two phrases that we sometimes have to say - I was wrong - and I don't know. It's why we love Darcy because he's a rare example of a privileged man who was able to accept the first one and apply it.
I'm feeling a little smug here I'm a vegetarian (although the dairy industry is part of it and i can't do veganism) and i have boycotted Starbucks because they support Israeli genocide. Also you didn't touch on how messed up the clothing trade is and how built on exploiting workers in the global south often including children.
I'm a middle position person but i havent bought a book in years. I know someone part of the community JK viciously targets and they used to be a fan of hers so to me not putting money in their pocket is about the principle of the thing.
When I read of Mary Beard's horrific 911 comments, I considered giving my copy of SPQR away to charity...
@@AarontheBookBaron-i2f I see where she's coming from. I don't 💯 agree but it's grounded on stuff. She's not blaming victims she's blaming the foreign policy in the place they lived.
Even as an American, I didn't find her comments horrific! I disagreed with them, but I certainly didn't consider them damning -
Well said, Steve.
When I hear people ask that question - how do we separate the art from the artist? - I say: you just do. Not sure how this has ever become a point of contention. Thanks for the streak of common sense, Steve.
The horrors of the meat industry and the systematic ethnic cleansing in Palestine will definitely be looked upon by future generations with disgust - they'll undoubtedly do so whilst ignoring the travesties of their own time! The cruelty of the past is a lot easier to call out than the cruelty of the present, I suppose.
As far as the art/artist question, I've always taken a gut feeling approach, though I acknowledge I'm making no material impact, it's much more a case of "Am I able to look past the author's faults and focus on the work?" - and I think the length of time that's passed since the work was written plays a big part in that.
I'll still happily listen to David Bowie despite some of the awful stuff he did, but I can't bring myself to listen to Morrissey anymore; but that one might be down to the quality of the art!
Hope you're well.
For me if you can separate the artist from the person it’s fine… eg in the case of Lovecraft, even in stories where his racism comes through I get the feeling he had no idea, and it wasn’t his intent with the story to promote his racism, so it doesn’t quite bother me, it’s more something that “literary” critics can mull over and I can ignore…
It does get thornier with someone like Gaiman, because I’m not sure I could separate the person from the artist, he was very much identified with his work from the beginning, maybe not as obviously as eg Harlan Ellison being on the cover of most of his own books, but similar kind of thing… if that makes sense?
Lovecraft was a terrible person and it was on the page but yet me and all my right thinking friends consume Cthulu mythos stuff but he's dead that's a difference.
All extremes are false, and I don’t think that the opinion you hold was the extreme. That would be to not only read any book by any author, but to force others to act in the same way. That view is rather the other side of the moderate opinion, either of which I agree with, but strictly within your own ethics, not the moral norms of the day and not necessarily for the economical reason many have.
I was into Simone de Beauvoir when I was young until I have found out about her political views and finally the allegations of misconduct toward young girls killed it for me. I try to separate art from artist but I can't forgive Simone and could never finish reading her book "The second sex".
Loved the video! Keep it up
Gaiman has become a woke scold himself, so I can’t help but feel a little schadenfreude.
I disagree about the palestine and to avoid a headache wouldn't want that conversation but I'm not going to cancel/deprive myself of one of the best booktuber monologists just because i disagree with some of what he says.
good questions
I think an older book is safer, I hate "woke" arguments in a book, but am aware that one person's awoke nonsense is another's creed. However, although I love an author biography or autobiography, I'm aware that there are few saints, and I definitely am not one. I do not judge a book by its author. In fact despite airing my views on here, I make an effort to be non- judgemental in real life, however a few times I have dumped a friend because of their actions, eg a hippy friend that stayed the night, and stole my rent money for drugs, my patience with her was exhausted. Hardy, Dickens, Wagner, would be off my list of favourite writers and composers otherwise. I know three of four local published writers, including historians, I don't know that they are anything other than good fathers and husbands, but if they weren't I may not want to see them, but dump their books, not on your life.
tricky one
I can see some examples where you don't want to keep supporting a current author, but it feels like a fruitless exercise the more you keep expanding it. So if you object to what JK Rowling has said, are you going to research every author you read to make sure they don't think the same thing? How many authors on your shelf from previous generations do you think feel any differently on that topic?
Ignorance is bliss.
😺✌️
I think you meant Neil Gaiman Steve 😂. I have just spent the last 5 minutes looking up Neil Diamond for an abuse story I missed. I have never ever been put off by an author who has political views I disagree with. If anything It would be quite interesting if Terry Pratchett say, was a rabid Stalinist or if Brandon Sanderson was a far right extreamist. It would make their books even more interesting.
If the author has done something heinous like Gaiman seems to had done, that still doesn't put me off. It just doesn't trigger an emotional reaction. I don't hero worship authors, however It might just be that no author I have really taken inspiration from has been outed in a scandel. I have been defending J K Rowling but for half a decade, when I informed myself on the Trans Issue. My respect for her has definatly been raised.
I am not on twitter. My friend told me "I can't tell you how many writers have disapointed me by their braindead, boring political opinions". I think I dodged the social media bullet. I always enjoy hearing people talk about this topic but I am 100% on Steve's side.
Ahaha Neil Diamond😂 he said Neil Gaiman but pronounced it Neil Guy-man (sorry if you were joking)
I thought he said Diamond too 🙃@@charlieroberts5961
@@charlieroberts5961 Bless my soul you are right. I have just listened to it again and he is saying Guy-men. I have always heard it pronounced Gay-men. It also doesn't help that I listen to audio at 2x speed these days.
Well I'm not listening to any more Neil Diamond just in case.
@Alan-wd7wv I heard Neil Diamond too. I didn't know he wrote books, LOL.
I don't care
Harold Bloom thought much like you do and paid for it, unfortunately.
I thought he died some other way.
I'm tired, and when I'm tired, I create essays. I'm sorry. I think that the "woke" people are on more of a spectrum than you are saying. I don't think everyone who is liberal goes out and attacks everyone else. I do think that books and authors exist within a context. They don't exist in a vacuum, or on a sterile examination table. That doesn't mean that I go looking for five years of tweets to see if an author said anything I don't like. You know how in the book review instruction video you made, you said to place the book in the context of similar works? Sometimes the book exists within the context of an author's life, and publishing trends, and all sorts of other things too. I think for people with channels, there's the issue of whether to promote an author's work if they do or say something offensive or abusive. I've seen people explain why they're no longer going to promote a particular author's work without coming off as extreme. Just because an author exists doesn't mean they have a right to take up space on your channel. As for the issue of dead authors, I understand that people who grew up with different mores probably said or did things we wouldn't approve of today without thinking about their implications. I can still learn things from them, and I think that if they could time travel, they'd have things to learn from future people too. When a living author is actively trying to cause harm to individuals or inciting hatred towards groups of people, that's where I have an issue. There's behavior that is standard for your time, and then there's behavior that should be obviously wrong in your time. There's a difference. Can you apply that to say that a historical author was deeply flawed because they did things that were obviously wrong in their time? Sure. Can you study their work? Sure. If you discuss them on your channel, just make sure to discuss that context if you know about it.
Very well written.
I also believe it’s against our self-interest for publishers to expurgate or re-edit pre-modern titles to make them more palatable for current readers. Removing racial or anti-LGBTQ+ content from Agatha Christie, Disney stories, etc also removes valuable teachable moments for modern readers, especially children and students, about modern attitudes.
Still, I think JK Rowling goes out of her way to belittle and try to humiliate transgender people. She can’t hurt them, of course, they’re been through much worse just living their lives.
Thank you for contributing to this discussion.
😺✌️
@@Unpotted Thank you. Yeah. Editing dead authors is ridiculous.
I'm glad Gaiman's been exposed. I've never read his books but I always felt there was something off with him (and that's partly why), though I never imagined what's reported. As someone from the UK like him I can finger him as creep and a fraud from a mile away. But if others still enjoy his reading his books I suppose that's nothing to me.
I’m on your extreme. But the other extreme is people who extend their protons and activism to dead authors.
Have you seen anyone do this? It's possible. I guess I just tend to watch fairly liberal channels. Their attitude towards dead authors seems to be that they exist in a context. You talk about that context, and analyze it. I've only seen one guy get frustrated with a dead author who was more than usually sexist for his time. He didn't try to get that author banned or anything.
@@TimeTravelReads Did you miss the recent mania of “grappling” with this or that “problematic” writer? Changing Dahl’s work was a glaring example.
@@Tolstoy111 I guess I was thinking about actual Booktubers as opposed to the general media. Changing Dahl's work was considered ridiculous even by pretty liberal teachers I knew. That was extreme. Usually when I hear people talk about "grappling," they're teachers and they mean "Let's talk about context, but without making excuses for this person's behavior." The media can then take teacher's conversations and sensationalize them.
I don't understand how do you think Israel is supposed to fight enemy hiding in cities behind civilians. So Israel either have to leave Hamas intact or to accept high civilian casualties. It's like telling Russians in 1945 not to bomb and storm Berlin because there were civilians in the city . War is ugly and military goal is to destroy enemy, not to bring democracy, goodwill or diversity. I think Israel's goal is not just to destroy Hamas, but to show the future generations of Palestinians the consequences of what will happen if they'll try to repeat October 7th attack. Could somebody explain to me where I'm wrong, cause I don't understand how my support of Israel makes me immoral
I don't want to start an internet feud, just genuinely taking up your offer to "explain to you where you're wrong." I do not think your support of Israel makes you immoral, btw, I also support Israel's right to existence.
One way it's different is that there is no functional state representing Palestine and thus no conventional military. Hamas is not a state, it is a terrorist organization, and almost categorically must be treated differently than the Nazi Regime (as terroristic as the Nazis were.)
Yes, war is ugly, but we can still judge states for engaging in it with varying degrees of criminality/cruel intent. Israel has killed tens of thousands of civilians (noncombatants) with very little progress to show for it in their "war" on Hamas. "Storming Berlin" makes very little sense in this context, because unlike the German Army, Hamas will just go underground and force Israel to play whack-a-mole.
Mosad agents would be much more effective.
The US fought a twenty year war to kill one person, but the movement hasn’t died; it’s stronger than ever.
The Middle East has been at war for thousands of years. Does anyone sincerely believe this one is anything other than retribution, which, according to the Old Testament, is at God’s discretion, not man’s?
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Israel has killed 42,000 Palestinians, only 14,000 of whom were believed to be Hamas. 16,500 were children (yes, that’s right, this “war” has killed more innocent children than terrorists). 92,000 Palestinians have been injured, and 2.3 million have been displaced, literally bombed out of their homes. Compare that to 1,148 Israeli deaths, 1,139 of which were killed on October 7th. Only a couple hundred Israelis, the vast majority of which were IDF soldiers, have died since October 7th. When the numbers are that skewed, it’s not a war. It’s a state-funded genocide of a group of people. If you’re an American, your tax money has directly funded every bomb and bullet that Israel has launched at innocent people. If your reaction to that info is “well, Israel is just protecting itself,” you’re delusional and immoral, and you’re contributing to the worst crime against humanity in our lifetimes. Plain and simple.
I have written two very long responses to your comment explaining why you are, in fact, immoral, and BOTH have been inexplicably deleted by RUclips after I posted them. That should be all the evidence you need that Israel is committing a state-funded genocide, the truth of which is shielded by online censorship. To keep it short - 42,000 versus 1,148 killed. 28,000 innocents, including 16,500 children, compared to 900 innocents. It’s not a war.