PARABLEMAN
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Podcast

Parableman

Some say I speak in parables. The reality is far more complex. Within these walls you may find musings on philosophy, theology, science fiction, fantasy, and anything else that catches my interest (without parables -- I'm a much more competent straight-talker than storyteller).
Notify Me

Lessons from the Dr. Seuss Cancelation

3/9/2021

0 Comments

 

Here is what I don't see a lot of people saying in response to the Dr. Seuss books that the publisher will no longer be making. Theodore Geisel was a very progressive, liberal-minded person, anti-racist in the most literal sense of that term. Yet he portrayed people in ways that we today recognize to be stereotypical and somewhat offensive. People have been calling him a racist for years, when his views were anything but. How could the author of the Sneetches, an explicitly anti-racist story in the literal sense of that term, be counted as a racist just because he had absorbed some of the stereotypical imagery of his day and brought it out in his depictions of people from around the world when wanting to expose children to multi-cultural stuff and to think more globally?

It nicely illustrates two competing conceptions of what counts as racism, and it also speaks to how there might actually be plenty of racially problematic things that aren't racist in the classic sense of the term. I intend to explore these different notions of what counts as racism in more depth in future posts, along with reasons to favor or reject some of those definitions. I think it's a more complex issue than many people recognize, but I also have a clear view.

I don't think we have good grounds for switching to the new definitions of racism as purely systemic or as power + prejudice. I have moral objections to those definitions. That's not the line I would draw, however, between what is reasonable and what is beyond the pale. The line I would insist on is that those who use those definitions need to make more careful distinctions than they often do. And those who don't use those conceptions need to recognize that sometimes stuff that isn't racist (on the classic definition) can still be racially problematic. Too many people on both sides of that dispute refuse to make such moves, though. The case of Dr. Seuss illustrates the moral importance of doing so.

0 Comments

    Author

    Jeremy Pierce is a philosophy professor, Uber/Lyft driver, and father of five.

    Archives

    March 2021
    February 2021
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    July 2018
    January 2018
    March 2017
    January 2017
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    October 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    August 2013
    January 2012
    November 2011
    September 2011
    April 2011
    February 2005
    October 2004
    September 2004
    August 2004
    June 2004
    May 2004
    April 2004
    March 2004
    February 2004
    January 2004
    March 2003
    February 2003
    November 2002
    October 2002

    Categories

    All
    Apologetics
    Bible
    Biblical Studies
    Comics/superheroes
    Disability
    Epistemology
    Ethics
    Fantasy
    Language
    Law
    Metaphysics
    Philosophy Of Language
    Philosophy Of Religion
    Politics
    Race
    Science Fiction
    Social Philosophy
    Teaching
    Theology
    Translation

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Podcast