Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

NewSouth Books and Professor Alan Gribben are editing Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  They are replacing the n-word with "slave" to protect the sensitivities of young readers. [For the record, they're also replacing "Injun" - because little boys from the deep South should never speak in dialect.]

I don't even know where to start with this ridiculous decision. My first inclination is, "Did anyone ask Mark?" Well, ok, he's dead, but he's already said how he feels:
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and lightning bug. (Mark Twain)

Is "slave" even an accurate replacement of the n-word? Off the top of my head, I can think of three, four, even five connotations the n-word bears that have nothing to do with slavery.

Is changing literature like this a good idea? What kind of precedent does it set for those after us? It tells them that we can just over-write the bits of history we find distasteful: apply a little white-out, pick a different word, and ta-da! Same, but different. No one's found offense with the slavery and abuse in ancient Greek plays (not to mention the incest, murder, mutilation, and rape). But Twain hits closer to home because he's more recently dead? I don't see how that's relevant. He wrote about his time period as he saw it in the language that was common then. It's not our place to edit the past!

In a Publisher's Weekly article announcing the new version, Gribben says he heard teachers across America complaining that they couldn't teach Huck Finn anymore because of the "hurtful" language. I ask: What good is a teacher who can't adequately set up the context for a historical piece of literature? who can't encourage and then manage a healthy discussion of the changes in language between an insensitive little white boy 150 years ago and (overly?) PC little children in America today?

As a writer, a scholar, a reader, and an English degree-holder, this debate gets under my skin. The fact that Gribben is a Twain scholar and an English professor is even more frustrating. Thomas Wortham, a UCLA Twain scholar, told Publisher's Weekly that "a book like Professor Gribben has imagined doesn't challenge children [and their teachers] to ask, 'Why would a child like Huck use such reprehensible language?'" Thanks, Gribben - as if we didn't have enough empty, cracker-like classes as it is.

It's lunch time. I can't stomach any more idiocy right now.

We must learn to welcome and not fear the voices of dissent. (Fulbright)

Malcolm Gladwell is speaking at UTC tomorrow evening here in Chattanooga.  I'm excited! I first heard of him four years ago - the speaker at our graduation ceremony quoted some ideas from Gladwell's book, Blink. Since then, I have read Tipping Point and have the other two on my list (Outliers is the third).

The way I understand him, Gladwell is an economist who studies trends. Only he doesn't study economic trends (he touches on them), but I would categorize his as "social" trends.  So naturally social media came up this week in an article he wrote for The New Yorker.  Summed up, he says:
Facebook is an emotional support because it's easy and removed, but people are reluctant to do more than "thumbs up" a cause or group.


Social media has no hierarchy, no controlling structure; it's herd mentality at best. How much long-term success can a stampede of information bring about?


Gladwell concludes:
"It makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact. The instruments of social media are well suited to making the existing social order more efficient. They are not a natural enemy of the status quo. If you are of the opinion that all the world needs is a little buffing around the edges, this should not trouble you. But if you think that there are still lunch counters out there that need integrating it ought to give you pause."

Read more at The New Yorker.com.


I'm looking forward to hearing Gladwell speak.  It's refreshing to hear a logical, no-nonsense approach to trending ideas these days.