Thursday, March 04, 2021

So, I broke my own rule again, and tweeted about politics.  
I couldn't help myself.  This fake Dr. Seuss controversy is just so emblematic of how broken our political discourse is.  (Blame the media, blame social media, blame the grifters who make their living preaching about the cultural war.)

I was set off by a bunch of dumb articles I've been seeing all day, but specifically this one: 
CPAC blasts cancel culture – could the attacks on Dr. Seuss be the tipping point?
...which contained this line:

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/cpac-cancel-culture-attacks-dr-seuss-liz-peek

...which prompted me too tweet:
"Vote for me and..." 
...and what?  I promise that no publisher will ever be able to cease publication of any book ever, even if it becomes unprofitable for them?
Don't get me wrong.  I'm not happy that these books aren't being published anymore.  I love everything Dr Seuss, even his lesser known books.  But you can't possibly make a political issue out of this, can you?  It's not the Democrats' fault.
The real problem is that corporations are in charge of our cultural heritage.  The corporations own the rights to these books, and if they want to withdraw them from circulation, there's nothing you can do about it.  But it's not a left vs. right issue.
How about passing this law:  If a corporation decides to stop publishing a book (or movie, or whatever), they automatically lose the rights to it and it becomes public domain.  Then anyone who wants to can publish it.  There, I just solved the cancel culture problem.
The attempt by conservatives to channel this outrage into electoral victories is really dishonest.  What specific legislative reforms are you proposing that will prevent a corporation from ceasing the publication of a certain book?




Actually a brief addendum to these tweets:
Taking a closer look at the article I linked to, she's actually not talking about the publisher's decision to stop publishing those 6 books specifically, but Loudoun County Schools.  So my point perhaps doesn't apply very well to this article, but I think it still applies to a lot of the conservative talking points that have been circulating in the last 24 hours--i.e. a lot of other conservatives have been complaining about the publisher's decision.

Second Addendum (March 5, 2021):
As long as I'm talking about so-called cancel culture, I should link to Whisky's post on the Gina Carano controversy: Retreating from the sands of Iwo Jima
As Whisky implies in his post, this may be less about "The Left" and more just about how The Mouse does business:
Carano on the other hand is a fighter first, and an actor ... well, being an actor is somewhat further down her list of priorities. Indications point to her spoiling for a fight with the Mouse. And the Mouse don’t fight — the Mouse makes situations disappear.

Yours truly chimed in in the comments to point out that this is nothing new--The Mouse has always moved quick to get rid of any actors actors who could potentially be controversial.  See the biographies of former Disney golden boys Tommy Kirk or Bobby Driscoll.

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7 comments:

  1. Whisky PrajerMarch 5, 2021 at 7:09 AM

    Deep breath. Sigh.

    Two personal frustrations with this whole scene: 1) Geisel's temperament was to bend with the times -- he seemed fond of hippie kids -- so it doesn't require hard contemplatin' to come around to the notion he would probably amend his own work, were he still around and vigorous of mind and body; 2) this half-witted tub-thumping on the Right WORKS! "Let the Left spend a year sorting out pronouns -- we're gonna roll up our sleeves and do what needs to be done." It's all very vexing.

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  2. Joel SwagmanMarch 5, 2021 at 11:02 AM

    As to point number 1):
    I hadn't thought of this before, but you're no doubt right. His Wikipedia bio indicates that he evolved on a number of issues over his lifetime (treatment of the Japanese being the main one.) And we're he still alive today, I suspect you're absolutely right, he'd be totally trying to adjust his legacy.

    Point 2): Agreed, this "culture war" grift thing is working wonders for the right. A number of newly elected congressmen and women on the right got elected solely because of this grift. Not to mention a number of pundits make their living out of it. That's why it's so frustrating.
    And what's particularly frustrating for me is that they've managed to con the game so that every time a corporation censors something (or somebody) the Left gets the blame for it.
    That being said... some people on the Left are guilty of taking the bait, and arguing the pro-censorship position. Like these knuckleheads here: https://youtu.be/UKQ3iBVvIao who say that Dr Seuss was racist, anti-black, and sympathetic to the Nazis. (They sort of correct themselves halfway through the video, but imagine having an audience of thousands of people, and you just go off and call someone pro-nazi without double-checking it first.)

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  3. Whisky PrajerMarch 5, 2021 at 4:51 PM

    Oof. I will regret watching that video for some time to come, I am sure, if only because YouTube will now bombard me with right-wing hooey before every guitar instructional I click on. This huffy sort of decrial ... well, there's no need to comment any further, is there?

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  4. Whisky PrajerMarch 5, 2021 at 5:08 PM

    Although: "the Left gets the blame for it." Which, technically, they should, no? The Right doesn't care about the occasional "Oriental" caricature in a relatively obscure Seuss title -- but the Left does, otherwise the publishers wouldn't be having heated conversations in the boardroom about whether or not to keep printing this stuff. With this particular "culture war" there is no reaching across the aisle. And the Left stands nothing to gain in this. The Right keeps steadily accruing support from ethnic groups that should be pummelling it. And I suspect these gains come largely from people scratching their heads over a fracas like this and wondering why this is a thing when they're working three shit jobs just trying to pay the month's bills.

    BTW, I recently bought some rice munchies at a bulk food outfit and was astonished to see the sign above the bin: "Oriental Rice Snack."

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  5. Whisky PrajerMarch 6, 2021 at 7:15 AM

    The author of Was The Cat In The Hat Black? has some thoughts.

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  6. Joel SwagmanMarch 6, 2021 at 11:07 AM

    As to whether or not the Left should get the blame for it:
    Yes, you're right. And I was guilty of speaking in generalizations and without precision.

    It's difficult to talk in general about cancel culture because every case is different. But in at least some of these cases, I don't think it's solely the left's fault.
    Sometimes, it's a corporation that just wants to avoid controversy of any sort, and censors controversial voices on the Left just as quickly as it does controversial voices on the right. (I think a lot of television networks, Twitter, Youtube, and Disney censoring falls into this category.)

    Other times its a corporation pre-emptively trying to avoid controversy. Was there really that much of a grassroots campaign on the Left to get Gina Carano fired, or Dr Seuss books withdrawn. I may well have missed something, mind you, but I didn't observe it.

    At least some of this racially insensitive stuff has the potential to offend apolitical or middle of the road people. So I'm not sure the corporations are always trying to appease The Left. I mean, a lot of these pro-censorship people on The Left are just a tiny irrelevant percentage of the population who are in their own little self-important bubble.

    At any rate, it's stupid for the Republicans to campaign on this, because Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden and the Democrats in congress certainly have nothing to do with Dr Seuss books being taken out of circulation.

    That being said, let me admit that in the past couple days I've seen plenty of lefists on twitter and Facebook defending the decision to take these books out of circulation. So, yes, I guess the Left is playing right into the cancel culture narrative.

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  7. Joel SwagmanMarch 6, 2021 at 11:10 AM

    Hmmm. I read the article, and I clicked on the link in that article to the Amazon page for the book. I'm not sure I like that Philip Nel guy, but that's just an initial first impression. I'd have to spend more time with his arguments to make up my mind. But he seems determined to view Dr. Seuss through the most uncharitable lens he can find.

    Thanks for the link though. I always appreciate you throwing this stuff my way.

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