Because my art is mine, and not subject to your control

[delphipsmith]

Apparently the 60th anniversary edition of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, which I don't own but clearly need to possess, includes a new coda by the author. It is a masterpiece of literate laceration, in which he excoriates the obsession with political correctness which, taken to its extreme, leads to everything sounding just like everything else

Comments

[mimimanderly]

I, for one, am anti-PC. I like to call a long-handled device for earth removal a spade. These days, while our everyday language seems to be dumbing down, words referring to groups of people have been expanded syllabically yet are less descriptive than ever. Dwarves and midgets are now "little people". Makes them sound like leprechauns or fairies to me. Black people are now "African-American". The retarded are now "differently abled", and retarded is considered pejorative. No -- it simply means that they are less advanced physically, mentally, or emotionally than is usual for their age. It is simply descriptive. But PCness seems to be more about obfuscating things that we'd rather not deal with than describing them. A person isn't "dead"... they "passed away", or worse yet, "went home to be with the Lord". A person isn't "old", they are a "senior citizen". I refuse to beat around the bush in this fashion.

[mundungus42]

I agree with his general point that people who tell authors to change things and/or try to edit their previously published work for them are presumptuous idiots who have no right to do that, and he's 100% right to tell them to write their own stuff

[nocturnus33]

I love the text. I feel that there is something wrong with the stiff way in which political correction is assumed by some people. I'm not against the values that express but the way it is done.