Among its other noxious downsides, the scourge of wokeness has spawned in the younger generation a new morality centered on what The Coddling of the American Mind authors Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt call Safetyism: a belief system in which one’s emotional safety is considered a sacred value. Safetyism is at the core of such childish concepts as “microaggressions,” “safe spaces,” and “trigger warnings”; the irrational argument that “words are violence”; and the notion that free speech is fascist. While the ostensible motivation behind Safetyism is to protect the so-called “marginalized” elements of society from psychological and physical harm, in fact what it does is empower its adherents to marginalize those in the mainstream by demonizing them as oppressive, and controlling their behavior and language.
The latest example of wokeness’ insidious effects: a UK Telegraph report has identified hundreds of editorial changes to the stories of the late, beloved children’s author Roald Dahl, in the service of sanitizing his books for woke snowflakes who are perpetually on the lookout for something by which to be offended. Dahl, whose many books such as The Witches, James and the Giant Peach, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are characterized by a pre-woke sensibility and a streak of dark humor, is, as the Telegraph says, “a prominent example of a growing trend in children’s publishing for content that nobody can find offensive.”
The publisher behind the new editions is Puffin Books, an imprint of Penguin Books and one of the largest publishers of children’s books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world. A disclaimer at the bottom of the copyright page of Puffin’s latest editions of Dahl’s books reads, “Words matter. The wonderful words of Roald Dahl can transport you to different worlds and introduce you to the most marvellous characters. This book was written many years ago, and so we regularly review the language to ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today.”
What that means is that “[l]anguage related to weight, mental health, violence, gender and race has been cut and rewritten,” The Telegraph writes. “Remember the Cloud-Men in James and the Giant Peach? They are now the Cloud-People. The Small Foxes in Fantastic Mr Fox are now female. In Matilda, a mention of Rudyard Kipling has been cut and Jane Austen added” – because white males are out, and women – even white ones like Jane Austen – are in.
The word “queer,” as you would expect, has been changed to “strange,” because “queer” today signifies a “gender identity” to be celebrated unreservedly (or else) and can no longer be associated with its former reference to something odd or different. In The Witches, a line which originally read, “Even if she is working as a cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman” has been updated to read, “Even if she is working as a top scientist or running a business” – because to suggest that women could ever be less than leaders of science and industry is unacceptable.
Fat-shaming today is a no-no too, of course, so references to portliness have been, well, trimmed down. “Fat little brown mouse” becomes “little brown mouse.” “‘Here’s your little boy,’ she said. ‘He needs to go on a diet,’” is edited to simply, “Here’s your little boy.”
Skin color is naturally a major concern of the sensitivity police at Puffin. Instead of “turning white,” for example, a character turns “quite pale” – because whiteness, as we are all reminded constantly, is the gravest of original sins. Similarly, in James and the Giant Peach, Miss Spider’s head is no longer “black” and the Earthworm no longer has “lovely pink” skin but “lovely smooth skin.” In Fantastic Mr Fox a description of two tractors as being “black” has been cut. In The Twits, a “weird African language” is no longer weird.
“We want to ensure Roald Dahl’s wonderful stories and characters continue to be enjoyed by all children today,” said a spokesperson for the Roald Dahl Story Company. And thus Puffin and the Roald Dahl Story Company made the new changes in consultation with Inclusive Minds, described by a spokesperson as “a collective for people who are passionate about inclusion and accessibility in children’s literature, and are committed to changing the face of children’s books.”
Translation: Inclusive Minds is a platoon of social justice warriors whose mission is to enforce the corrosive trinity of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as literary imperatives. Alexandra Strick, a co-founder of Inclusive Minds, says they “aim to ensure authentic representation, by working closely with the book world and with those who have lived experience of any facet of diversity.”
The UK Telegraph notes that the revisions of Dahl’s work are “part of a general trend for ‘sensitivity readings,’ where books are screened before publication for material that might be upsetting. The practice began in children’s books, where it remains most pronounced.” Naturally it’s most pronounced in children’s literature – because the woke Left understands that the key to long-term success proselytizing wokeness lies in targeting the impressionable minds of the next generations.
“It just feels wrong to be told what to write by an outside party, no matter how well-meaning,” bestselling author Anthony Horowitz wrote in The Spectator. Horowitz himself has fallen afoul of sensitivity censorship over a Native American character attacking someone with a scalpel. Addressing the Hay Festival of Literature & Arts in Wales last year, he stated that “children’s book publishers are more scared [of cancel culture] than anybody.”
Dahl biographer Matthew Dennison says Dahl was passionate and tireless about crafting the language of his novels: “His relationships with his editors included marked fractiousness on Dahl’s part.” When it came to children’s books, Dennison says Dahl didn’t care what adults thought as long as his target readers were happy. “‘I don’t give a b—-r what grown-ups think,’ was a characteristic statement,” Dennison says. “And I’m almost certain that he would have recognized that alterations to his novels prompted by the political climate were driven by adults rather than children, and this always inspired derision, if not contempt, in Dahl…
“Dahl wrote stories intended to kindle in children a lifelong love of reading and to remind them of the childhood wonderlands of magic and enchantment, aims in which he succeeded triumphantly,” Dennison adds. “Adult anxieties about political niceties didn’t register in this outlook.” That’s because Dahl properly prioritized the art of language and storytelling over political messaging, while today’s sensitivity police prioritize political messaging over everything.
The Telegraph concludes by wondering, “When does harmless tweaking become over-meddling?” But the hundreds of changes to Dahl’s books are not “harmless tweaking,” nor are they the work of, as Anthony Horowitz generously but naively put it, “well-meaning” people who are just trying to encourage “inclusivity.” They constitute politically-driven desecration and indoctrination, and it won’t end with Roald Dahl and other children’s authors. If publishers have no qualms about policing and rewriting children’s literature, why would they draw the line at literature for adults?
The proper approach to teaching “problematic” language in classic literature – whether it’s archaic or strikes us as insensitive or whatever the issue might be – is not to reshape it behind the scenes to accord with modern tastes and political acceptability, but to use it as an opportunity for class discussion about historical differences, about changing mores, and hopefully about rethinking our own cultural arrogance. The kind of behind-the-scenes scrubbing and revision being carried out by Puffin and Inclusive Minds is not an act of embracing and learning from our incredible cultural legacy in the West, but one of rejecting and forgetting.
How much editing, censorship, and book burning did Judeo-Christianity impose on the West and America? The secular Left is following in the footsteps of Judeo-Christianity. Leftism is Leftism, that’s why Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are fundamentally on the Left with their tyranny over the mind of man, not on the Right with freedom and liberty of thought.
Go to an Amish home or an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish home they won’t even allow anyone to read a science book, because science contradicts the dogma.
None, unless you count smut like Larry Flint – which still gets published & finds it’s way to your bathroom.
The porn trafficked in our 1st grade libraries should be removed & sent to the Clinton Library where it’ll be read ad nausium
The atheistic left succeeds in removing Animal Farm, Tom Sawyer, 1984, Dr. Suess, etc.
The Socialist Nazis (atheists) did quite a bit of censorship, as they studied & adopted much from the Roosevelt era DNC (including eugenics).
Woke Amazon removes books that tell the truth about the irreversible damage this transgender bullshlt inflicts on adolescents, so there is that.
Woke publishing Houses frequently refuse to allow conservative books go to print, so there is that.
As for the Amish, they stock their bookshelves with whatever they choose. They shun some books the way you shun scripture & all thing Christian. That’s your choice.
It’s worth noting, that by the eighth grade, their kids can command reading, writing, and arithmetic skills that public educated kids can’t even do after graduation.
No record of the Amish trying to ban what others read; just what they themselves read. The left, however . . .
Sure. You are the very same people the article talks about. Funny how you guys expose yourselves.
“Harry Tutlle..”
That’s weak.
I’m starting to think you suffer from extreme Narcissistic Personality Disorder. “People with the disorder can have an exaggerated sense of self-importance. Have a sense of entitlement and require constant, excessive admiration. Expect to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it.” The Mayo Clinic
Once again the article has nothing to do with Judeo-Christianity, book burning, Objectivism and most of all you and your crackpot theories about the Secular left. I guess the Amish and the Orthodox Jews are now on your menu for elimination. Can we call you Herr ReichsFuhrer?
Given how the woke left has now taken over science in the wake of the plandemic why would anyone want to read a science book?
Good point.
And as for Amish & orthodox Jews, they don’t seek removing books from other people’s bookshelves.
They just choose not to stock their bookshelves with Ann Rand, the same way THX chooses not to stock his with the King James version.
Nor do they lecture us on how to live our lives the way THX always pushes Objectivism on everyone. He has a lot of problems.
This is a comment section on a website that is open to comments of different perspectives. If you don’t like my comments all you have to do is not read them.
I would never ban the Bible, Koran, or Bhagavad Gita from my home. I would never tell my children those books are not to be read, they’re dangerous.
I would tell them read those books and use your reasoning mind and decide for your self if what those books claim is true or false, rational or irrational, based on reality or a fantasy. Absurd and irrational claims, whether secular or religious, are harmless unless you take them seriously.
I guess that is why no one takes your Objectivist claims seriously.
I doubt you have children. If you do and they buy into your insanity and narcissism your costs for psychiatric counseling must be enormous.
And what would you do if your imaginary kids actually decided that you and your religion are F.O.S.
“This is a comment section on a website that is open to comments of different perspectives. If you don’t like my comments all you have to do is not read them.”
Maybe you could try sticking to the point of the article instead of endlessly lecturing us about your whacko Objectivist ideas.
Don’t be silly. My husband is a very distinguished computer scientist (PhD from Carnegie-Mellon) and our eldest son holds a PhD in quantum chemistry from the University of Chicago. I myself hold only a measly BS in computer science from a no-name university but constantly read and upgrade my knowledge in various sciences and technologies. We didn’t get this way by being “ultra-Orthodox” Jews who don’t allow anyone to read a science book in our home.
I’m glad you and yours have entered the 21st century in spite of, not because of, Judaism.
Gee, you make it seem as if no Jews from the 20th C. had a brain. It’s also pretty presumptuous to assume that simply because one is a Jew or a Christian that there is no way they could be in secular profession.
You are a self-indulgent narcissistic moron
What? If it weren’t for Judeo-Christian values we wouldn’t be here!
Words? Okay.
Perhaps if East Palestine, OH changes it’s name to Flint, MI, that moron playing Transportation Secretary will actually take a genuine interest in the serious damage that just occurred there..
Although, one must consider that the inept AWOL little prlck taking an interest would only result in inflicting more harm.
Tell the perverted weasel to take MORE time off. His incompetence can only make things worse anyway.
The name change that would get the administration’s attention would be We$t China.
Outrageous! This should not be a publisher’s prerogative. If Puffin Books won’t publish what Roald Dahl wrote as he wrote or approved it, then the company should not be able to sell it as his work and profit from the use of his name.
During WWII Dahl was a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, a British spy organization that included Ian Fleming. Their job was to keep track of the Communists that had infiltrated the Roosevelt administration and report back to William Stephenson at British Security Co-ordination (BSC) in New York who directed the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), MI5, Special Operations Executive (SOE).
I know nothing of his children’s books and really don’t care other than the Woke Left is now sanitizing them. Apparently he also had a problem with Israel’s existence after 1967.
Rewrites to reflect official (Woke) state policy is just as fascistic as book burning, but as usual the ruling caste preens in its self-awarded moral superiority.
Stock up on personal copies of all the literature (in its original version) you can think of before it’s too late. Time is short. There are already versions of the Bible that have been rewritten to expunge anything the left might regard as “gender non-inclusive”. There are projects to rid the Gospels of anything miraculous or supernatural; Jesus was just a nice jewish boy who preached tolerance: “Commit random act of kindness and senseless beauty.” Mark Twain’s works have bee either rewritten or banned for “racism” despite there being not a trace of racism in any of them. Quite the reverse, Huck Finn in particular is an elegant criticism of all things racist in Twain’s time. This is part of a war on the English language that is but one theater in the left’s war on civilization itself. Other aspects of this war are a war on the family, especially children (abortion and sexual mutilation) a war on entertainment (film, humor, even sports). Education at the earliest levels has been reduced to political (socialist) indoctrination. Parents no longer have any rights with their own children; “everything in the state, nothing outside the state”.
Leftist socialism has become the greatest most widespread form of evil ever endured by the human race. Rewriting children’s books is a small battle in a very large war.
Those who seek to offend no one only succeed in offending everyone.
Complaining about it on websites accomplish nothing while the totalitarians advance by leaps and bounds. A real solution is to track down the individuals responsible and teach them how to brush their teeth with a brick.
Rewetting kids classic books to appease the little snowflakes The Big Bad Pig and the Three Little Wolves but maybe someone should look up Politicly Correct Bedtime Stories to show up these bunch of screwballs
This is total nonsense. Books should be printed exactly as the author intended. If one thinks they should be different, perhaps one could put one’s ideas in a preface or notes in an annotated edition. What would we do in English literature studies, if we only had expurgated, editions prepared by someone who thought they should be different. What if the Bible were rewritten to fit contemporary versions of right and proper religious writing? It would be a problem for scholars who wanted to know what the original writers actually thought.
I recall someone rewrote Huckelberry Finn by adding a lot of things that he thought Twain did not say because of Victorian prudery, but the characters might have said or done. That might be ok, if one labeled it as a changed version not approved by Mark Twain. Otherwise it seems wrong. One can easily write one’s own book and say whatever one wants.
They have all ready taken classic kids bools like Cat in the Hat and Peter Rabbit and made them into perfectly awful movies and here are other book to screen adaptations that have Bombed in the Box Office
Rewriting books,children’s books or Classics,is sort of like re-writing history,in that you have to ask, “who benefits?”
Now, as in the case of the Girl Guides “Brownies” level,if the name “Brownies” acted as a barrier for young non-White girls,then maybe,just maybe,here,innocence and vulnerability,as in this particularly young peer group,takes precedence over “wokeness”.,And,in the case of Dahl’s books,the targeted peer group are young girls and boys.So,I won’t rule out a “pass” in this,or these,cases.
I think a lot different from a case in my Region where a Drag Queen performance for children was recently canceled due to online harassment,and maybe hate speech.While I condemn such abuse on Social Media,I don’t condone the LGBT community to forward their narrative and agenda at the “expense” of children. If the LGBT+ community want to change minds,why don’t they peddle their “wares” at the local football or basketball match. Just sayin’.
“…aim to ensure authentic representation…” – Alexandra Strick of Inclusive Minds.
“Authentic representation” would be the book as written by the author. Nobody’s more exclusive than the ‘inclusive’ people.
“We want to ensure Roald Dahl’s wonderful stories and characters continue to be enjoyed by all children today,” – How would they know what all children enjoy? It’s not like any of them has ever written a best seller for children.