This might be something useful here to say beyond the book - perhaps about the importance of fostering a critical consumption of knowledge - something which this thread demonstrates is wonderfully alive and well, here, which is great. But it’s not alive everywhere.

Also, small children aren’t critical consumers of knowledge - I’m not an early years specialist, but I suspect the ones I know would argue that children are natural consumers of knowledge but not particularly critical ones. And if there’s a parent out there moderating, then that’s maybe okay. But what if there isn’t? What if you’re a child from a family which thinks cultural stereotyping/racism is acceptable? What if you’re a child from a Pan-Asian background who is in a nursery which has this book on its shelves?

I don’t have a perspective on this particular book, or enough knowledge to comment on the particular. I guess I just don’t care enough about this book or the author to challenge what appears to be a fairly standard business-decision type decision to withdraw certain volumes. What might be important in terms of any argument about banning is that they remain in archives etc, and I suspect that these books have not been removed from these. Which means that people can access the text, even if they can’t buy them in the local bookshop.

I dunno, too, but I always look at who I am when I think about things like this. I’m a white Englishwoman. I don’t end up in the back line of the privilege walk (and yes, I know that that is a flawed measure) but I don’t end up at the front, either. But in many ways, I just am not able to comment, because I’m not going to be hurt by those images - others’ might be, though, so it’s about taking that into account, too, for me, maybe.

Taking our self-reflexive positions into account. And trying to see where they sit in a wider continuum rather than how they sit with our preconceptions of ourselves?

But anyway, for me it's so, so good to read a critical conversation about this, and I hope you don't mind my joining in, to some extent.

Sarah-Jane

I guess ultimately it depends on how offensive (or not) you consider the withdrawn titles to be. I suspect you wouldn't be troubled at all by their withdrawal if they were unambiguously loaded to the gills with overt racist content, complete with use of the n-word and other assorted offenses. Under those circumstances, I suspect, you wouldn't be blaming societal pressure for forcing the Seuss people to do something they wouldn't have done on their own, but you'd be applauding their decision. On the other hand, if you find nothing at all offensive in the Seuss titles, then I can see the issue from the other perspective. The problem is, these books are somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. And while you may feel their offenses are minor enough to overlook, shouldn't that be a decision left to the Seuss people themselves, both as a matter of conscience and a matter of how they feel best to preserve, protect and promote the Seuss name and body of work?

No worries, Mark--I'm not angry or frustrated with you, and we're still on speaking terms. I just wasn't responding to your comments because you said you needed a break from this topic.

All of us will be having awkward, emotionally exhausting conversations on this subject for the rest of our lives, so I don't have a problem honoring anyone's request to catch their breath a bit now and then.

I did want to say something about what you'd said earlier about judging other people's priorities (in terms of what things get them more upset than others), but it can wait. And it can probably be said better in a poem than in a discussion thread, anyway.

Rogerbob, you certainly recall a different version of Browning's Pied Piper of Hamelin than I do.

Julie, I'm glad. For years I said over and over that I was going to stop drinking and then one day I woke up and said it again and it felt different. That was three years ago. Today feels a bit like that. I joined this site because I fell in love with poetry. I don't think I even looked at GT for about 6 months. There's a lot of noise in the world and this morning I realised that all I'm doing here is adding to it and achieving nothing.

Life is complicated, so be kind. That's my final word.

So, to General Talk I say...

So long
Farewell
Auf Wiedersehen
Adeiu

Mark

I have very much enjoyed the arguments between you and Julie (and others). There is usually loads to think about from both of you. Don't seethe in silence.

Joe

Julie, in Browning's telling, the moment the mayor says that he will not pay him the thousand gilders, the Pied Piper steps out onto the street and leads all the children in the town (except the lame child) into a portal in the mountain, never to be heard from again. That's a rather extreme reaction, I think. If you owed me money and refused to pay, I think you might call me a homocidal maniac if, instead of contacting a lawyer, I were to murder your children.

Thanks Joe. But damn it, you brought me back! Only to make it clear, I'm really not seething, honestly. I feel great. It's nothing to do with this particular thread. I just realised this morning I've said more or less everything I have to say about these culture war issues in the last four years. I've really enjoyed debating with Julie and others. But then I enjoyed drinking too, hence the analogy. And like drinking, while it's fun at the time it often left me feeling a bit grubby and emotionally exhausted, analysing what I'd said or done, wondering why I was the only one lying under the table and with a "here I go again" sense of going round in circles.

Poetry doesn't make me feel like that. It's a cool glass of water. Maybe a spicy fruit tea, occasionally.

Cheerio folks. It's been fun! I'll see you on the poetry boards.

There's a lot of humor to be had from taking well-known tales and viewing them through a modern, realistic lens.

In a country in which people daily express their grievances with guns, your version supplies a relevant lesson, Roger, but it ain't the original tale's lesson. If you were to murder Julie's children we'd call you a homicidal maniac, but if you took out your pipe and led them into a magical portal in a mountain, we'd have to take more nuanced view.

You're right, Max. I might only be a homicidal kidnapper.

But it's always struck me that the moral of the story, at least as Browning lays it out (and he's really my only source, since I've read it to my son countless times over the years), is that you should always pay your bills and keep your promises. He never says that the reason you should do this is that the person you cheat may be a psycho. It's always as if he is endorsing the completely understandable and justifiable reaction of the sane and decent person who has been mistreated in business.

Quoth Browning:

Still heartbreaking for the parents and children who never saw or heard from each other again. And probably no picnic for kids having to fend for themselves in a strange country where they did not speak the language and presumably had no resources. But not homicide.

(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transylvanian_Saxons)

Not that that excuses this disproportional response against the town authorities' swindle by targeting parents and children who'd had nothing to do with it, of course. Just wanted to get the facts (as presented by Browning, anyway) straight.

Mark, I shall try not to pipe you anywhere you don't want to go.