The second are tired of hearing the first to say – and write – “Iel” (contraction of “il” and “she”), “all of” (contraction of “all” and “all”) and “spectators” (contraction of “spectators” and “spectators”) to include the feminine in a language where “the masculine prevails”, linguistic convention which would illustrate the notion of patriarch. The second describes the first of “wokists” who, themselves, would likely claim to be the “Woke” spirit, born in the United States in the wake of Black Lives Matter and demanding to remain “awake” to any form of social oppression.
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A debate brought up to date
Each listing the faults of each other, pointing to the possible (or fantasized) drifts that would give birth to their way of thinking. Hence the closing atmosphere that hangs over the time. These tightness are felt everywhere. In the field of ideas of course, but also at the table during family meetings which, by tradition, remain an all found arena for the confrontation between generations and political sensitivities. These tensions are also expressed in the field of literature where almost all texts are likely to be scanned in the light of today’s fights, and this can be instructive. Make a contemporary reading of the work of the Countess of Ségur is trying. Asking the questions that no one had thought as in the podcast of France Culture on the great classics of literature is daring but it is relevant. “Is Emma Bovary the silly character in literature?”, “The little prince is 80 years old: why all these praise when he is so gnangnan?”, “Why do we put dangerous links to all sauces?” … Is it a way of approaching and rereading the texts that have helped to forge our culture.
In this perspective, we can also track down the traces of racism, sexism or homophobia in the books past to posterity and that some, by good intention, would be tempted to rewrite. This debate on the rewriting of the classics is reactivated by the remarkable essay by Laure Murat – all the eras are disgusting. A title borrowed from Antonin Artaud to pass one of the major ideas of the author that we today produce texts which may be considered “issues” in fifty years, proving as well that no time is really virtuous in terms of politics. However, the basic question remains that of the meaning to be given to the temptation to “revision” texts.
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Preface
What is this debate on rewriting – and more generally on CURTURE CULTURE – says of our time? “He says a very important thing, answers Laure Murat: our desire to block racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. Our imagination is largely based on cultural representations. If these promote, for example, the culture of rape or racism, what does this mean? This effort of awareness is fundamental. It is nevertheless necessary to answer them in a coherent and methodical way. Caviring the texts, there is no longer a debate … This problem falls if you keep the integrity of the text, adding a preface, for example. ” Literature teacher, winner of the Medici Prize for the Essay in 2023 for Proust, a family novel, Laure Murat questions the effectiveness of the approach, preferring to bet on the contextualization of works in prefaces which would aim to remove the debate. This is what was done in 2023 to refocus the long controversy inspired by the different editions of Tintin in the Congo, 1931 album now sold with a warning replacing Hergé’s comic in its historical context. A text by Philippe Goddin which was not enough to calm passions, the preface being itself deemed unsatisfactory by certain activists and criticisms among which Laure Murat herself. But if the aim is often political, the rewriting of books is also, according to the author of all the eras are disgusting, justified by financial reasons, the beneficiaries of the texts seeking not to see the volume of their sales drop because of their reactionary hints …
Paradox and triple problem
Why do you want to remove the ten small negroes and go to they were ten when the edition of the precise pocket book, on the cover, “previously published under the title The Ten Little Negroes”? Doesn’t this hook summarize the absurdity of rewriting? This nonsense that Laure Murat explores and explains in her test, pointing to the perverse effects of politically correct impulses. She stages her demonstration by approaching the work of three authors – Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming and Roald Dahl, all summoned to the complaints office for their manias to pay in racism, sexism and grossophobia. But rewrite classics to match them to the standards of contemporary thinking can prove to be a counterproductive gesture. Isn’t that a way to hide what we should, on the contrary, denounce: racism, sexism, homophobia? “This is all the paradox, replies Murat. By wanting to delete what is angry, by removing insulting words here and there, you put the texts of the past in accordance with our requirements – legitimate – respect for minorities, but you end up a triple problem: you produce a historical lie, you deprive the oppressed of the memory of their oppression, and you buy a virginity Ideology is no longer denounced and analyzed but smoothed. “
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Making a book disappear is unfortunately also a way of rewrite history
Caviard the adventures of James Bond (which feed the culture of rape) or Charlie and the chocolate factory to blow up certain terms deemed offensive (the word “fat”, for example, in Charlie) and replace them with others, it is a practice that would like to upgrade the content of yesterday with today’s thoughts of thought. Even if it is good to remember that there are many other examples of attempted “revision” of texts. “There are countless, bounces Laure Murat. Take for example the moralized ovid, text of the Middle Ages produced to make the metamorphoses compatible with Christianity. But there are also the many interventions of publishers, in the 19th century, to” modernize “the texts – replace the horseshoe with the train, for example. That this tradition of cavilating exists has not always justified it in my eyes. that an unfortunate practice has persisted that it must be continued – and worsen it. “
More generally, and because the Cancel Culture works in both directions, to remove from the public field of books or references to certain cultures -as is the case in the United States where the Trump administration seems to establish a “Orwell 1984” effect -, is that not also a way of rewriting history? “Of course, concludes Laure Murat. What is happening in the United States is currently extremely worrying. We erase the archives, we draw up lists of prohibited words. This shows that” censorship “is a gesture emanating from the power of the state. And it is this gesture that you have to engage at all costs not to mimic, even by prevailing” good intentions “which we know that hell is paved.”
All times are disgusting
Laure murat, values, 76 p.
