The Source of Dr Seuss’ Lorax? | Hacker News Reader

The Source of Dr Seuss’ Lorax?

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59 pointsagronaut17 comments

That may seem like a set of curious but inconsequential similarities, but these authors argue that how we think of the Lorax determines how we think about his plight. Regarding the Lorax as an animal indigenous to the land of the Truffula trees “challenges traditional interpretations of the Lorax as an ecopoliceman asserting his authority.” In other words, the Lorax isn’t some tiresome scold, some shrill environmentalist who makes us want to throw up our hands and sigh, “Good-by, Thing. You sing too long.” No, the Lorax is a creature intimately dependent on the land that the Once-ler is destroying. That, the authors suggest, makes his story much more sympathetic.

I've never heard of such an un-sympathetic interpretation of The Lorax before. It seems odd to me, considering the overt moral of the story.

Those folks are certainly out there. If The Lorax doesn't fit in your worldview (e.g. "drill baby drill") you concoct some way to write it off.

I’ve read worse low and middlebrow dismissal of the book.

Always considered the Lorax as a resident of the area, not a nosy distant neighbor, though didn’t think about it deeply until now.

Color me unsurprised that this is (probably) based on some real life creature. I used to think that Dr. Seuss was incredibly "creative" and made up all kinds of stuff whole cloth that was just bizarre. Then, I lived in San Diego County for a while.

Dr. Seuss lived there. The zany architecture? It's exaggerated, but not entirely made up.

For example, there's Horton Plaza, a five story open air mall in downtown San Diego that is built like that because there's so little rain down there. It reminds me of the architecture in stories like Horton Hears A Who:

https://www.westfield.com/hortonplaza

The bizarre trees that looked like sticks with something puffy on top (in The Lorax story, actually)? You can see similar trees (with pink bark, no less) in La Jolla, where he lived for a time. (Not disputing that he drew inspiration from Kenyan trees for this story in specific. Just saying the vegetation in La Jolla is weird looking and not like what I grew up with or have seen in other parts of the US.)

Dr. Seuss was a political cartoonist during WW2. It's not surprising that a controversial political position is one of his favorite works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss

There's a statue of, iirc, him and the Cat in the Hat on campus in front of the Geisel library (his actual last name) at UCSD in La Jolla.

Wasn't Horton Plaza built in the 80s? Which would make it more likely that they were responding to Dr. Seuss when they built it, not inspiring his drawings decades before it was built.

It opened in 1985. But I'm pretty confident that the numerous restaurants with outdoor seating and similar quirks are in response to local weather conditions, not an ode to Dr. Seuss. If you visit the area, well, there are lots of architectural quirks that would not make sense in wetter weather or less temperate weather.

The mall is not named for the character in the Dr. Seuss book:

"Alonzo Erastus Horton (October 24, 1813 – January 7, 1909) was an American real estate developer in the nineteenth century. The Horton Plaza mall in downtown San Diego is named for him."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alonzo_Horton

I've seen over-application of machine learning in areas it doesn't belong, but this is ridiculous. I'm not saying it's a cool discovery of the match, but should I believe that they were the first to notice it and not almost every Kenyan child reading Dr. Seuss?

Next they'll determine which breed of cat was the basis of fact for the Cat in the Hat... and I really don't think that I could stand that.

Breaking news: Cat in the Hat breed discovered: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/1f/d9/18/1fd918c5fa38d794847cd5dc4...

It's a 'Tuxie'

Without the right usage of machine learning it's hard to be sure that there's no questions burning ablaze in the back of a layperson's mind... but I think, overall, that it'll be fine.

(I'm trying too hard and I'm gonna stop with the rhymes. Also: that's a darn cute cat, so thanks for filling me in!)

Stand that? Why would you? With all today's science? You'd have better luck with GDPR compliance

Well done, sir or madam, you meant it and you said it. Now, can you direct me to the Hacker News subreddit?

And all this time I thought he was an emperor tamarin.[1]

[1]https://secure.i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02140/mo...

Non-paywalled article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/science/lorax-dr-seuss-en...

Probably both based on the original article here (also not paywalled):

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0628-x

Funny how they needed to make the story serious by applying machine learning to determine exactly which type of monkey the Lorax was based on. One would think that just looking at them would be sufficient.

The Lorax living on that land does make him even more sympathetic but it's not like he was un-sympathetic before that. Funny that a popular children's story has the message "Capitalism will destroy the environment" at a time when the politics of that statement and environmental policy in general are so fraught.

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to get better. It's not."

  -  Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

I think that's the most important message of the book. It's not enough to sympathize with the Lorax, you have to do something about it if you want it to be any different.

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