@okdudeswow
It's weird our conversation about censorship lead into a conversation about Nazis, but here we go:
Bud I tottaly[sic] understand the poem,
As time will go on, it will become clear that you definitely don't, but don't let me get ahead of myself.
I just think it's completely missing the point to use a poem about systemic opression[sic] of minorities, when defending a book that is well, racist
First, to get the semantics out of the way, the word you're looking for is SYSTEMATIC, not SYSTEMIC. "Systemic" means that what results is an unintended byproduct of a system, whereas "systematic" means that the result is intentional. The Nazis did not accidentally commit the Holocaust.
But more to the point, "racism" requires the belief that one group is superior to another based on race, which these books were not promoting in the slightest, nor were they demonizing or even negatively portraying the groups in question. Instead they were just expressed somewhat stereotypically, but that does not mean Seuss thought that he was superior to them.
Aside from Seuss's political cartoons written during war time, (which were definitely a product of their time and were written in a completely different context) none of Seuss's work promotes the idea that one culture is superior or inferior really, especially not in his latter years. If you look at the depictions, they can be said to be, at most, stereotypical, but he does not say that the people in question are superior or inferior to any other group, meaning it's more emblematic of Seuss's general style of exaggerating features or expressions
Given his works later in his career also dropped this aspect such as with this cartoon or "The Sneetches" being one of his more famous satires of racism and antisemitism.
So no, I do not agree that the books in question are "racist," because I believe racism requires one to endorse the idea that one group is superior or inferior to another, and not simply depicting something in a stereotypical manner.
Hell, Sneetches was even given out in Bosnia in 1998 after it suffered a genocide in order to curtail any bigotry and educate kids on the horrors of racism. If NATO decided that Seuss's work would be the best at teaching kids not to be racist, I am afraid I cannnot condemn the man.
>inb4 "Racism is power + prejudice," therefore he is actually a racist
A youtuber called PSA Sitch actually did a deep dive into the academic origins of this, and it seems to be entirely bullshit and not based on any sociological studies or research, but was made by politically motivated individuals to spread their messages. It has no real backing in terms of empirical studies, and is essentially pseudoscience in its most literal sense. You can watch his two videos
here and
here.
When I talk about good faith
If this is how you talk to someone in good faith where you consistently misrepresent them and skirt around the cruxes of their arguments, I am afraid to see what a conversation in bad faith would be like.
I would recommend that you slow down, digest the posts you are responding to and consider the argument, and then do not make a rushed counterargument. Also, please spell check yourself.
I'm saying the people acting may THINK they're doing the right thing by delisting something that seems to promote stereotypes.
Yes, they may THINK they are doing so, but that does not mean they are ACTUALLY doing so, which leads us back to square one because I am saying what they are doing is much more morally wrong than simply depicting stereotypes.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, my friend, and so we must be cautious of using our sense of morals and our emotional reactions to things to guide us,
lest we end up hunting witch.
Would you pull out that poem again when someone censors Mein Kampf or the Turner Diaries?
Yes, because not only is knowing what Hitler believed or white supremacists believed means that people can use your emotional reaction to these stories to spew off nonsense. In fact, it's more important to understand what the beliefs of people who did great evil were, because then we can not only know their thought processes, but avoid it in the future.
Also, remember the first line of the poem, "first they came for the socialists." Meaning that first they went after a target everyone agreed were morally repugnant, and so they did not question going after their rights solely because of their political ideas. By then the horrors of the Holodomor and the human rights violations by the Soviets were well known, as well as the anarchist violence which occurred in places like the United States with the assassination of William McKinley. So, it seemed like it was moral to the people at the time to remove the socialists from society as "antisocial elements."
bud the poem is about the HOLOCAUST
trying to say it isn't about them is absurd
That's a surface level interpretation of the poem. In my time meeting Holocaust survivors and volunteering at Holocaust museums, the most common reason why the memory of the Holocaust is kept alive is not out of a vindictive hatred of the Germans for what they did, or to dwell on the past for it's own sake, but so nothing of it's caliber can happen again and to recognize the signs of ideology, collectivism, and of discrimination that lead to policies of extermination.
The idea is that first line can be used for ANY group that is seen to be villainous, warranted or not, as an excuse to slowly begin taking the rights away from more and more people, and no one speaks out out of both fear of the consequences of defending these people, and because they will result in the same effect, leading to the inevitable conclusion that once they come for you, no one is left to speak out against it. The poem's major device is literally parallelism, which is meant not just to show unity between the people being discriminated against, but that common echoes may repeat in our own history.
That first line doesn't have to be socialists. It can be anyone of any group.
I like how you completely ignored the whole Nazi textbook example even though that was most relevant to that famous poem.
It really is only tangentially related, and debating about textbooks isn't the main crux of the argument being had
I'm trying to keep us on the point.
What do you think the closest thing to a "textbook" children have?
Textbooks. I had school textbooks in first grade and upwards. Even then, this does not refute the argument that textbooks are meant to merely convey information impartially, whereas storybooks are meant to teach lessons in terms of morality and have themes and ideas expressed in their books, meaning that they are pieces of art and are not meant to be continuously updated and taught as fact in the same way an AP book would be.
Textbooks aren't meant to be literature. You keep conflating it, when it's a bad analogy.
You can defend the status quo all you want,
Excuse me BUT WHAT THE FUCK?
I am NOT defending the status quo. For starters, I believe very little if anything should be censored if it is meant to be consumed by consenting adults aside from Child Pornography, because it is inherently exploitative by nature of those who cannot consent. Censorship is always used to preserve either a status quo narrative, an orthodoxy, or to maintain power and control by a select few.
I, however, believe that we SHOULD offend people and that we SHOULD challenge ourselves and our worldviews in order to make sure we do not get too set in our ways, but rather that we should consistently re-evaluate ourselves, our morals, and our principles to see if they are worth keep or preserving.
Art is uniquely able to capture the human experience and challenge ideas in a memetic way, as well as exploring ideas that may be offensive or controversial, and it is for that reason we must be ever vigilant for people who want to censor it or to change the art of the past to suite modern ideals, because that destructive tendency in man only ends in ruin and the lost of both culture and information for future generations.
By your logic, you could justify ISIS blowing up Assyrian and Babylonian statues and history because they do not represent the country's modern values. I believe they should be preserved because of their cultural significance and because of their worth as an artistic medium. Now you have to defend by what principles you have that they should not be destroyed.
The status quo right now seems to be censorship left and right. Try to paint me however I like but I know my principles, and where I stand. This is yet another example of you misunderstanding me, and trying to paint me in with socially conservative people just because I don't like the way certain things are going.
but it doesn't change that the current state of the education system is poor.
Where the fuck did this come from? When did we talk about the education system at all?
It's like a constant gish-gallop to hit all the talking points in order to ignore the point about censorship because it's uncomfortable.
Had to kick another anti-masker out of the store yesterday, and he started yelling racist shit at everyone (even though I'm white lol). For the record, I'm damn glad Trump isn't tweeting to make it worse. I've been physically attacked by these idiots.
If I assume what you are saying is true-which I don't because at this point I have enough reason to doubt your interpretation of events-it seems that you are against the right because of your personal experiences, but that does not mean speak to the truth value of their claims. Instead, it seems like you're having an emotional reaction to anything vaguely associated with the right, which you seek to discredit immediately because of it.
Also, what does this have to do with censorship? Are you just trolling at this point?
And yes, sometimes small political groups push political change contrary to the moderate majority. Soemtimes[sic] its good, sometimes its bad.
No, it is ALWAYS bad, because you are MEANT to rule with the CONSENT of the governed. If the governed do not consent to your actions, or what you are doing, even if it has good effects, then it's a moment where the means do not justify the ends. The only exception is that the majority cannot oppress the minority by infringing on their rights, because these rights are not dictated by the state, but instead are unalienable from man due to his reason and intellect, meaning that any oppression of these rights is depriving someone of what they are entitled to by thinking creatures.
"both sides have crazies" yes but one doesn't believe in basic facts because of misinformation, and calls to violence.
Can we get an "F" in chat boys?
Also you canât use a poem about how Nazis are bad to DEFEND Nazis. That misses the entire point.
The point is that you don't dehumanize ANYONE for their political beliefs or beliefs in general, and that INCLUDES Nazis. They have rights just as anyone else, no matter how vile or repugnant their beliefs are. The moment you start to persecute people for their beliefs, it is incredibly difficult to make people stop as the purity spiral continues.
What you want to do is not to persecute or attack them, but to deconvert them and convince them not to be so extreme. If you treat them with hostility and vitriol, they'll only entrench themselves more and close themselves off further and further.
The socialists the Nazis killed were definitely not Nazis my dude. Top fucking kek
Yes they killed socialists, Nazis are fascists and the poem does not directly refer to the Nacht, but also doesnât change the fact that Nazis arenât socialists, theyâre fascists
Fascism and Socialism are not mutually exclusive, and it is very easy to argue that Nazism rose out of socialist philosophy. (See: Their name, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterparte or the National Socialist German's Works Party)
Granted, they are not marxists nor communists, but that does not mean they are not included under the umbrella term "socialist," which seeks collective ownership of property and incorporation of it either through the state or through the people generally. If I were to explain it another way, the German form of socialism that lead to Nazism was right-wing in nature, but was based in things such as some of Bismarck's policies of State Socialism and later War Socialism, which sought the reallocation of resources by the state and collective bargaining by the state and worker's unions.
The fascist economic philosophy is that everything within the state, including corporations, businesses, and even the people themselves, were to directly serve the state and, whilst they didn't interfere with ALL business, if the business went against state interests, it would be reapproriated by the state. Why should you go through the effort of reapproriating every business for the state if you own and regulate every person who works at that business and keep them in line with your government politically? That is what makes fascism so insidious, because not only is it based on a desire to expand and conquer foreign territories, but that everything MUST serve the state or be reincorporated WITHIN the state so nothing can go AGAINST it.
Also note that not all forms of Fascism are the same, just as not all forms of socialism are the same, as the Nazi ideology was uniquely racially charged compared to Franco's fascism or Mussolini's fascism given it arose from the German cultural circumstances and economic conditions. In that sense, I would say that not all fascists are socialists or right-wing socialists, but German fascism and Nazism definitely arose from Marx just as Marx arose from the Enlightenment, even if their values contradict the source.
