{"id":5592,"date":"2023-03-29T11:47:39","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T16:47:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/?p=5592"},"modified":"2023-03-29T11:47:39","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T16:47:39","slug":"cultivating-virtue-respecting-liberty-remembering-history-author-j-daniel-sawyer-on-the-new-censorship-and-bowdlerization-of-roald-dahl-and-james-bond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/cultivating-virtue-respecting-liberty-remembering-history-author-j-daniel-sawyer-on-the-new-censorship-and-bowdlerization-of-roald-dahl-and-james-bond\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultivating virtue, respecting liberty & remembering history: Author J. Daniel Sawyer on the \u201cnew censorship\u201d and bowdlerization of Roald Dahl and James Bond"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Michael Grossberg<\/a><\/p>\n

Censorship, suppression of literature and \u201cbowdlerization\u201d of our culture has a long, harmful and shameful history – and is anathema to libertarians, who favor full freedom of expression and artistic liberty.<\/p>\n

The Prometheus blog has posted several articles recently about the disturbing recent spate of efforts to suppress or change the original wording and author\u2019s intent of Roald Dahl in his children\u2019s fantasy classics.
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Similar suppression sadly has been reported about efforts to shove down the Orwellian memory hole some wording in the original editions of Ian Fleming\u2019s James Bond novels.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s even extended to the Goosebumps<\/em> children\u2019s horror-comedy series, many books of which were changed by the publisher without the knowledge or consent of the series\u2019 still-living author R.L. Stine.<\/p>\n

This is a troubling time for libertarians, classical liberals and all lovers of liberty and art \u2013 which is why it\u2019s important to seek out, read and digest the best insights about the roots of this anti-authoritarian trend and how we might strive to better support both liberty and literature that reflects the intent of its creators.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most illuminating, historically aware and wisest commentary I\u2019ve come across about this disturbing modern recurrence of bowdlerization was written recently by J. Daniel Sawyer as a guest post on the Substack blog of Holly Math Nerd<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sawyer, who ends his must-read essay<\/a> with apt references to two Prometheus Hall of Fame winners \u2013 Tolkien\u2019s The Lord of the Rings<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and Orwell\u2019s Nineteen Eighty-Four<\/a> \u2013 <\/em>is a prolific and published author of both non-fiction and science fiction, fantasy and mystery.<\/p>\n

THE HISTORY OF CULTURAL SUPPRESSION
\n<\/strong>His profoundly enlightening essay \u2013 whose title \u201c(In)sensitivity Readers\u201d falls far short of suggesting its many treasures – provides crucial historical context and wisdom for our troubled times.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis turn towards rewriting the past to bring it into accord with the moral tastes of the moment is less sudden than it might seem,\u201d Sawyer writes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 19th<\/sup>\u00a0century saw a wave of such retroactive censorship directed at everything from fairy tales to Shakespeare to works of history to the Bible. This movement was pioneered by Thomas Bowdler, a reputable man of letters who wished to \u201cpreserve\u201d the great tradition of English literature while making it \u201csuitable\u201d for the tender, easily corrupted minds of women and children. His bowdlerized (a term named for him)\u00a0The Family Shakespeare<\/em>\u00a0was published in 1806, establishing the market for sanitized literature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sawyer writes insightfully about the recurring justifications for such suppression. More often than not, censorship and suppression are done in the name of the children:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all cases, such censorship is justified with the purported need to protect the tender minds of the vulnerable from dangerous and upsetting ideas and themes. And, in all such cases, the logic underlying the justification holds that we, today, are more enlightened and clear-sighted about the nature of good and evil, right and wrong, and the way things oughta be than were the poor benighted fools that, by sheer luck, managed \u2014 in their ignorance and wickedness \u2014 to muddle through long enough to give birth to those who, generations or centuries later, would finally apprehend the secret to human flourishing and liberation.<\/p>\n

\u201cBowdler\u2019s contemporary heirs in the publishing world are called \u201csensitivity readers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c…Unfortunately, the logic of Bowdlerization is deeply flawed.\u00a0Our era is not one in which we have cracked the moral nut. It has its pet sins,\u00a0and they are doubtless as terrible as those of days gone by.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

THE VIRTUES OF HUMANITY…
\n…AND OUR DARK SIDE
\n<\/strong>Perhaps the deepest insight that Sawyer offers, evokes the wisdom of the Great Books stretching back to ancient Greece and Rome, and the perennial human struggle for virtue – one of many crucial prerequisites to sustaining a humane and free civilization in which rights are respected and individuals can flourish.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis sounds obvious, as those assholes on the other side of the political or ideological divide are always advocating for plainly immoral transformations to law, culture, society \u2014 transformations that would hurt children, or working people, or the downtrodden. If only the right people were in power, the proper movements ascendant, and if only persons of conscience and character were\u00a0to get their act together and seize control, we could finally,\u00a0finally<\/em>, get things right and ensure an excellent future for our progeny…<\/p>\n

“But, of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Our era\u2019s pet sins\u00a0do not merely rest on the far side of the political or ideological divide from you or me.\u00a0They are everywhere, and they are as invisible to us as were the pet sins of those previous eras were to the people who lived back then, for a very troubling reason.<\/p>\n

“Think of some of the great virtues of humanity:
\nFortitude, constancy, courage, survival, ambition, honesty, tolerance, temperance, love, loyalty, justice, the capacity for joy and beauty, ingenuity, forgiveness, discernment, mercy, humility, and adaptability.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsider also some of our greatest\u00a0vices:<\/p>\n

\u201cStubbornness,\u00a0stagnation,\u00a0arrogance,\u00a0greed,\u00a0the appetite for arbitrary power,\u00a0cruelty,\u00a0self-righteousness,\u00a0puritanism, hatred, tribalism, vengeance,\u00a0decadence, recklessness, self-vicitimization, judgmentalism, enablement, weakness, and equivocation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you compare those two lists, you may notice that each vice is simply an unchecked version of the respective virtue. As Aristotle first observed, to say \u201cI love you\u201d is, necessarily, to say \u201cI hate those who threaten you,\u201d otherwise the professed love is meaningless. Further, looking solely at the list of virtues, you will notice that each one is checked or limited by another item on the list.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

WHAT GOOD IS FICTION?<\/strong>
\nSawyer concludes his essay by asking a question especially relevant to fans of the Prometheus Awards and members of the Libertarian Futurist Society: \u201cWhat good is fiction, anyway?\u201d<\/p>\n

His answer is thoughtful and compelling \u2013 and filled with a wisdom that is appallingly absent from most of today\u2019s leading magazines, newspapers and bestselling books.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmong the purposes of fiction, the most important and lasting is the exploration of the nature of virtue, and of the tensions between virtues. The most basic and ancient form of drama \u2014 tragedy \u2014 is itself premised upon the setting of one good against another in such a way that one of the two goods\u00a0must lose<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo return to the issue of Fleming and Dahl, both men wrote fiction that explored, explicitly, the tension between virtues with a stark, honest view of the horrific ways that such virtues might play out.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cJames Bond is an instrument of the state, a miserable figure always dancing on the edge of death for the protection of his country, who finds his only meaning in the everyday pleasures of life (food, art, sex, tobacco, alcohol, power).<\/p>\n

\u201cDahl\u2019s child-heroes navigate a world full of predatory adults and frightening complexity they can barely comprehend.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThese two authors are the definition of \u201cproblematic\u201d by modern standards. Both were hedonistic, often mean, culturally conceited ethnocentrists with more than a touch of racism, and each possessed an edge of nastiness and cruelty that permeated their writing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Author Roald Dahl (Creative Commons license)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They came of age in an era of intense interstate warfare, of economic devastation, of great treachery and moral fervor. Such an age makes hedonism, pettiness, and ethnocentrism\u00a0virtuous<\/em>, because it is these qualities that allow a person to survive privation, invasion, and stand up to the potential destruction of one\u2019s culture and people, even at the risk of one\u2019s own life (which both of these men did during World War Two).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Author Ian Fleming (Creative Commons license)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThese morally dubious men\u00a0wrote glorious stories that captured \u2014 and continue to capture \u2014 the imaginations of millions of people across the English-speaking world,\u00a0and the greatness of their prose is entirely dependent upon those \u201cproblematic\u201d parts of their personalities.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can no more remove these men\u2019s difficult thought patterns from their books than you can remove Tolkien\u2019s Catholic thought-forms from Lord of the Rings<\/em>\u00a0or Orwell\u2019s socialist worldview from 1984<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>“These books are what they are, and bowdlerizing them isn\u2019t just a crime against aesthetic greatness (though surely it is), it is something worse.<\/p>\n

“It is a\u00a0lie<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Note: J. Daniel Sawyer hosts The Every Day Novelist podcast, blogs on geopolitics and history at Unfolding the World. For more information, visit his website.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE:
\n<\/strong>
\n<\/u><\/strong>* Prometheus winners:\u00a0<\/strong>For the full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees \u2013 for the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the enhanced\u00a0Prometheus Awards page\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to the full set of published appreciation-reviews of past winners.<\/p>\n

* Read\u00a0\u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0an essay in the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/em>\u00a0that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0Watch\u00a0 <\/strong>videos <\/strong>of the 2022 Prometheus ceremony with Wil McCarthy, and past Prometheus Awards ceremonies, Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog\u2019s\u00a0Video page.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>*\u00a0Join us<\/strong>! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards,\u00a0join\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans.<\/p>\n

Libertarian futurists believe that culture matters! We understand that the arts and literature can be vital, and in some ways even more powerful than politics in the long run, by sparking innovation, better ideas, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other\u2019s rights and differences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael Grossberg Censorship, suppression of literature and \u201cbowdlerization\u201d of our culture has a long, harmful and shameful history – and is anathema to libertarians, who favor full freedom of expression and artistic liberty. The Prometheus blog has posted several articles recently about the disturbing recent spate of efforts to suppress or change the original … Continue reading Cultivating virtue, respecting liberty & remembering history: Author J. Daniel Sawyer on the \u201cnew censorship\u201d and bowdlerization of Roald Dahl and James Bond<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,1585],"tags":[59,1896,1899,1898,1895,1754,1606,1349,268,1897,976,1900],"class_list":["post-5592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essay","category-fiction-in-the-news","tag-george-orwell","tag-goosebumps","tag-holly-math-nerd","tag-ian-fleming","tag-j-daniel-sawyer","tag-james-bond","tag-jrr-tolkien","tag-lord-of-the-rings","tag-prometheus-hall-of-fame","tag-r-l-stine","tag-roald-dahl","tag-thomas-bowdler"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-1sc","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5592"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5692,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5592\/revisions\/5692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}