# (no subject) *The Urth list — 5 messages, 4 voices, 18 Jan 2011* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Lee Berman *18 Jan 2011, 02:50* > Gwern Branwen: >> Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_ I love the book. I hate the racism. And I think > you can have it both ways in the realm of fiction and art. There's no contradiction there." Made me think of Huckleberry Finn and how there is a strong movement to require schools to carry a version which finds a less offensive term than "nigger" (the N-word) which is repeated over 100 times in the story. To me that move would suck the life out of the book. It was a book about slavery written in a time when slavery was a living memory for most people. Nothing hammers that home more than free and liberal use of the N-word which is exactly what Mark Twain intended. I guess I can't exactly hate racism..how can I hate what is an integral part of my own species? Or perhaps it is the broader human reflex of xenophobia which is the integral part. Either way, I think we will forever be..cursed?...with the tendency to divide into groups and fight. Heh, when I used to work in prison, the inmates managed to divide themselves not by race, not by gang affiliation but by home telephone area code and fight over that. Heck I've even known people to fight over fictional interpretations ;- ). --- ### Mo Holkar *18 Jan 2011, 09:44 · in reply to Lee Berman* > At 02:50 18/01/2011, Lee wrote: > I guess I can't exactly hate racism..how can I hate what is an > integral part of my own species? Hate the sin, love the sinner... Mo # ~ # ~ # WolfeWiki -- a wiki about Gene Wolfe http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/ --- ### Jeff Wilson *18 Jan 2011, 14:20 · in reply to Mo Holkar* > On 1/18/2011 3:44 AM, Mo Holkar wrote: > At 02:50 18/01/2011, Lee wrote: >> I guess I can't exactly hate racism..how can I hate what is an >> integral part of my own species? > Hate the sin, love the sinner... QFT; the instinctive tribalism in the human animal is not an excuse for the practice of racism, any more than instinctive elimination is an excuse for peeing on the wall when nature calls. ``` Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana < http://www.tamut.edu/CIL > ``` --- ### Gerry Quinn *18 Jan 2011, 21:14 · in reply to Lee Berman* > From: "Lee Berman" >> Gwern Branwen: >> Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_ I love the book. I hate >> the racism. And I think >> you can have it both ways in the realm of fiction and art. There's no >> contradiction there." > Made me think of Huckleberry Finn and how there is a strong movement to > require schools to carry a > version which finds a less offensive term than "nigger" (the N-word) which > is repeated over 100 times > in the story. To me that move would suck the life out of the book. It was > a book about slavery written > in a time when slavery was a living memory for most people. Nothing > hammers that home more than free > and liberal use of the N-word which is exactly what Mark Twain intended. I read about this recently. My biggest issue with it was the publisher's intention of replacing "nigger" with "slave" which is hardly synonymous. Replacing it with "African American" would sound wrong even to the most tin-eared PC warrior, but what's wrong with "Black"? - Gerry Quinn --- ### Jeff Wilson *19 Jan 2011, 05:32 · in reply to Gerry Quinn* > On 1/18/2011 3:14 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote: > > From: "Lee Berman" >>> Gwern Branwen: >> Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_ I love the book. I >>> hate the racism. And I think >>> you can have it both ways in the realm of fiction and art. There's no >>> contradiction there." >> Made me think of Huckleberry Finn and how there is a strong movement >> to require schools to carry a >> version which finds a less offensive term than "nigger" (the N-word) >> which is repeated over 100 times >> in the story. To me that move would suck the life out of the book. It >> was a book about slavery written >> in a time when slavery was a living memory for most people. Nothing >> hammers that home more than free >> and liberal use of the N-word which is exactly what Mark Twain intended. > I read about this recently. My biggest issue with it was the publisher's > intention of replacing "nigger" with "slave" which is hardly synonymous. > Replacing it with "African American" would sound wrong even to the most > tin-eared PC warrior, but what's wrong with "Black"? Doesn't have a diminutive or familiar suffix. ``` Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana < http://www.tamut.edu/CIL > ``` ---