Should books with outdated views be re-written ?

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I remember yesterday a friend of mine kicked up a fuss about someone calling for 40 years of these space marines role-playing novels (to be written because women were not included even though female character figures had been created and had no problem with it but he did object to female characters in armour that that look like bikinis. I find it does irritate me when there are calls for books to be re-written or banned just because the characters said racist things or characters on racist stereotypes from decades when people's attitudes were different 50, 80 or 100 years ago. I mean, for example, the American horror writter HP Lovecraft was xenophobic and racist about immigrants and based some of his characters or creatures on his prejudices and I haven't heard of anyone calling for his books to be taken off the shelves and banned or even re-written. Even films such as Disney have been targeted such as Dumbo because the singing black crows were being sung by black singers. I just seem to think that things just can't be re-written no matter how shocked or appalled I am to hear that my favourite film or book character may have had some racist aspects added to the character by the author. Surely people have the freedom not read the books if they don't like them. It does even make my blood boil now when some religious people in the Western world in the 21st century ban books such as Harry Potter or Darwin's Origin of Species especially in some schools as though we are still in the Middle Ages. Luckily I went to schools where we occasionally went to Church and there were lots of books about fantasy and fairy stories, dinosaurs and evolution etc and none of them were banned by the teachers and we even read some of them in class with the teachers.

No, books with outdated views shouldn't be re-written.

History is progress. We've progressed over the past 40 years. We have to document the views of people in the past so we can learn from them, and learn how we evolved from them.

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 03 Mar 2021, 11:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

[opinion=mine]

Yes, books with bigoted views (i.e., ableism, genderism, racism, sexism, et cetera) should be re-written, but only (1) to eliminate those views if expressed by the protagonists, and (2a) if the current copyright-holder agrees, or (2b) if the book is in the public domain.

[/opinion]

If we don't know what "Mein Kampf" said, we will never know the extent of Hitler's nuttiness.....

I don't believe in censorship, rewriting, or banning books.

It's important to teach critical thinking, but not to rewrite history.



Check this link for Banned Books Week ideas. It's an annual occurrence:

https://www.communizine.com/banned-books-week/

If we erase the evidence for the Holocaust, nobody will believe that what actually occurred during the Holocaust is plausible. They wouldn't believe that such depravity could be possible. People would believe it's "Jewish propaganda."

Not to make light of it----but the Holocaust was "stranger than fiction."

[opinion=addendum]

(3) If the book is of no interest to teachers and students of history.

[/opinion]

Yes, you are both right.  I was thinking only of children's books, and not the ravings of the insane.

Honestly, you'd have to rewrite the whole Bible for it to be somewhat accurate.

But that's modifying copyright or banning\censoring.
Though the benefit for censoring books for children to read could be proactive. For my brain has been raped by awful stories and shocking events.
Then again, who decides what to censor? Will they be reliable? The ones deciding what kids should read are the issue currently. Id fear if they would decide what to censor

Trump is strange. Just because history is available to read doesn't mean people don't support him.

At the same time I can't oppose allowing history to be read. And to be forgotten. It sometimes helps, but it doesn't mean without it an education can't be built.

No. Definately not. They should not be re-written.
Should todays books be re-written because something alters in the future? Of corse not because one would jot be able to understand the characters of the day in their contexts. To re-write them mean that no one will have the information to read to understand. It is a crazy idea to try to eraze history without knowing the facts of how people lived and why they lived in that way at whatever date it was.
We already see history taught in schools from a very one sided perspective and history even been turned upsidown and back to front with films about the Crusades etc.
We need the whole perspective and we can never get that if we alter things to comply with our todays politically correct communistic laws.

These books are out of print, and hard to find. It's not like young children will be picking up racist or objectionable material from their library picture books.

Effective parenting, role models, and teachers of critical thinking will do more good for future generations than restricting freedom of speech, or freedom of thought.

Yes, Rexi and 'Bella, you are both correct.

I just wish there was some guaranteed way to immunize children against bigotry.

History is ABSOLUTELY INDISPENSABLE. One cannot form a basis for anything without it.

If we don't have history, we don't have wisdom to look back on. We don't have our common law. We don't have ethics and morality.

No.....outlawing religion is not the way to go. There are certain people who absolutely require it to remain sane. They tried it in Communist countries----nope....it didn't work.

[opinion=mine]

Sadly, if you teach history to a roomful of kids, some will memorize just enough to earn a passing grade, some will be horrified at the atrocities, and the remainder will think to themselves, "Hmm ... that tyrant did not go far enough ... he should have wiped them all out while he had the chance ... I could do better ...".

[/opinion]

Yup. Unfortunately, that's inevitable in a society that values freedom of thought.

It's important to teach critical thinking, empathy, and perspective, rather than history without context. Admittedly some kids will fall through the cracks, but people who are so inclined to be misanthropic would have the same base character -- with or without exposure to the truth.