Unreconstructed

[smokingboot]

There's a Spanish saying from I don't know when that goes like this:

The devil is wise for two reasons.
Because he is a devil
And because he is old

Here's my FB comment on the re-editing of Roald Dahl's stories:

These works are not manuals on how to be a decent human being, for society's value of what constitutes a decent person at any given time; they cover human experience in its vastness, and a lot of that is what we call evil. Dahl was a raging anti-semite, so if we are going to treat our reading matter as an issue of virtue, chuck his books in the bin. Thing is, if you keep doing that, you'll have libraries and galleries full of well meaning mediocrity. It is one of the great tragedies of human existence that talent does not equal goodness of heart, and sublime art can come from very tainted sources. Carravagio was a murderer, Shakespeare a sexist anti-semitic racist propagandist for an oppressive regime. Art is not about us being good people. It can show our aspirations but that is not its job. Dahl was subversive, and often quite cruel; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is, ironically, not sweet at all. He's taking a swipe at spoiled brats, horrible children with horrible parents. It's inventive and imaginative, but it's very harsh, and that's why people like it; because we've all stood next to that kid chewing repetitively, or screaming that they want [insert latest toy] and thought 'Jeez, what must your parents be like?' I daresay the new edition will bring new bucks and bounce the price of earlier editions up, but I see no other merit in it. The idea is not to pretend that Dahl was a nice man, or that his writing was nice, because neither are true. But context is king.

Context and nuance are the 21st century's villains.

Apparently foreign language publishers aren't interested in the new edits. They maintain that to change the language is to weaken it. I agree with them.

I can't be the only one sick of the enlightened trying to improve us. Lordy, it makes me want to get out there and take up smoking. The endless attempts to control what we read, what words we use, what ideas we dare think let alone express, the guilt tripping and thought tweaking, the prune-mouthed puritanism, the self-censorship and policing of others that people much younger than myself seem to consider appropriate. Isn't it supposed to be the other way round? Aren't the older generation meant to be believers in authority, rules of behaviour, propriety? How did we become guardians of rebellion and individual choice?

It can't all be down to bell bottoms and punk rock.