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Notes -
Next They Came for the Dead White Authors
Apparently, Ian Fleming is next on the list for posthumous editing by sensitivity readers.
I've read a bunch of Bond novels. They are hilariously and unironically racist and sexist. Much moreso than the movies, which were already notorious for being un-PC even in an un-PC era (remember Octopussy?).
The Bond novels are fun but schlocky; Fleming's output was wildly erratic in quality. Casino Royale was actually pretty good (the Daniel Craig remake was the most accurate-to-the-book Bond movie ever made), while Dr. No was just hilariously bad (and bore almost no resemblance to the movie).
I guess I don't need to say much that hasn't already been said or that most people here won't agree with.
I will point out that editing children's books to be more acceptable to modern readers is much older than Roald Dahl. For example, I read the original, unedited Dr. Doolittle by Hugh Lofting a few years ago. I was actually unaware of just how racist it was. Modern editions have removed the "niggers" and other slurs, and the plot about the little African prince who wants Dr. Doolittle to turn him white. I don't actually object to this, so long as the original is still around. In itself, this isn't some new practice that only started happening in the woke era.
But it appears increasingly that it will no longer be acceptable to acknowledge that attitudes in the past were different; a warning label won't be enough. I expect the march will continue with Gone With the Wind. Margaret Mitchell's novel is a magnificent epic and a glorious, unapologetic paean to the Old South, and should be preserved in its entirety both for its literary merit and for being such a cringeworthy time capsule of Lost Cause mythology. The movie was actually toned down a lot even in 1939 (they removed the part where Rhett Butler literally joins the KKK, for example), but I would not be surprised if it's next on the block for expurgation.
Here is a good news/bad news thought for you to ponder: I think sensitivity readers will soon be out of a job. Why? Because scrubbing "problematic" texts out of old books seems like a really easy job for the next generation of ChatGPT.
I'd be interested to see PolitiChatGPT have a go at something like the Turner Diaries. It'd also be interesting to see what the inverted version could do. If you can make a story less racist and problematic, surely you could make it more problematic?
Or could we make it quantify how problematic a book is? I imagine there'd be demand for a system to remove culpability over school libraries accepting or banning books, remove any individual human who has to make a choice. There's already plenty of demand for getting the AI to self-censor. Roahl Dahl might get a 167, Fleming might be 800 or 900, Mein Kampf would be 3000 +, Pierce's works would be over 9000. The sky's the limit when it comes to this tech, there'll be endless controversy.
Looking forward to "Abraham Lincoln,
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