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legitster

I think nearly every reasonable person agrees:

- Particular illustrations have not aged well

- The content itself nor Dr. Seuss can be accused of malice

- The offending content is not really a high risk of perpetrating future malice

- It's completely within the right of the publisher to not want to profit from these books anymore

But at no point did it seem like anyone made the point that you can't read or enjoy the book with your kids!

I think the mistake was the publisher should have just slapped a statement in the beginning, or better yet, just released them all into the public domain. Instead, it seems like they unwittingly triggered an unwritten social infrastructure we have created called "cancellation".

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1. I can’t read to my kids what I cannot buy (libraries are closed and my younger kid rips books)

2. Publications should automatically enter the public domain when the publisher looses interest in re-printing them.

I’ve thought of this for a long time when i had to fork out $200 for a thermo text long out of print that my professor preferred. Most research groups had a copy they’d pass onto the next batch of grad students, but I joined a new group.

This just reinforces my belief. (Also I despise Disney’s abusive copyright prolonging tactics)

I love reading the Zoo and McElligot's Pool to my kids. I'd love it even more without the offensive illustrations as they don't add anything to the stories. If they'd publish a version with some updated illustrations, I'd buy it immediately. Taking them off the market means I can either use the questionable version or none at all. Not sure this is the desired solution.

> - It's completely within the right of the publisher to not want to profit from these books anymore

So they just need to stop printing copies. They have absolutely zero rights to stop reselling of those copies already on market. And if they do, they should be punished by removal of all of their copyright rights.

> It's completely within the right of the publisher to not want to profit from these books anymore

I've seen a ton of people disagree with this in the last several hours.

The point is to taint Dr Seuss so that he's no longer acceptable as a common cultural reference point, so that ideologues can shoehorn in their own propaganda to children at the youngest possible age. Listen to the latest episode of the New Discoures podcast if you want a full explanation.

Keep in mind that Seuss's early career involved drawing racist WWII propaganda. While he largely reformed in later years, it would be inaccurate to say that some of the content has merely "not aged well"

> The offending content is not really a high risk of perpetrating future malice

I don't agree with this. Dr. Seuss's books are read by children when their minds are most malleable and least able to recognize context. Leaving these problematic images on library shelves for them to discover means that some of those children will grow up believing it's okay to think about other people that way. I know by my own experience how difficult it is to unlearn something I saw as a child. I wouldn't want to expose my children to the same things that will burden them with those stereotypes. Or worse, that they wouldn't think of the stereotypes as a burden.

Certainly we can't and shouldn't erase the past and these books are an important part of our history. But they should be left alone there, solely for historians and researchers and not for children.

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