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Comment by perching_aix | Hacker News Reader

> George Orwell’s estate has been accused of attempting to censor 1984 by adding a “trigger warning” preface to a US edition of the dystopian novel.

> The new introductory essay describes the novel’s protagonist Winston Smith as “problematic” and warns modern readers may find his views on women “despicable”.

How is this different to something like the PEGI or ESRB labels? Because to the extent that I can tell, nohow, apart from being more verbose, although I wasn't able to find the actual text.

And how is an additive change censorship? Like that's a new one, even for me.

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Readers of this book are not first graders or elementary school kids. Why does this need a trigger warning?

Are they going to place trigger warnings on erotic novels for adults too, now?

Why not? I expect they're already categorised to some extent - after all, how many straight men would want to read the ones where gay men are fucking each other and sucking each other's cocks and whatnot? - and this would just be an extended version of that.

(EDIT: after stepping away from the keyboard, I was struck by the question of how many men of any orientation would want to read erotic novels anyway! - when they could just load up private browsing mode and watch more videos of people doing their favourite nasty shit than they'd ever be able to muster the urge to view to completion. But my view is that the question was dumb enough as posed already without needing to think about it any more. But maybe there's more to unpack here, if anybody is so inclined, which I'm not - though I'll admit that I've instinctively taken a male perspective here, even though that was never specified. Apologies.)

If the erotic novel you were reading suddenly included a whole bunch of the wrong type of erotica for your sexual preferences, you might be somewhat upset that you weren't warned in advance (which should be obvious: story tags have been a thing since Usenet).

Well if you don't like it you can just... Stop reading?

Sounds like a great experience.

I dunno man, I think if I went through a bout of suicidal thoughts for a few years, even attempted a few times, I might want to skip on media that features suicide for example. And the only way to do that is if you're given a heads up about it ahead of time.

This trigger warning stuff in my view is literally just content labels with some political coating on top. Reminds me to folks rediscovering vending machines in the form of overly complicated and brittle AI robotized fast food restaurants.

You'd think you'd speak for people, too. But you'd be wrong on that point, as well.

Am I speaking for people when I want to filter the content that reaches me? How does that work?

It's pretty pathetic to include a scolding essay at the beginning of the book. Their sanctimonious drivel stands in total contrast to the work of a brilliant author that they feel the need to mar with the inclusion of their commentary. Nobody would ever read it if they didn't include it in a book that people actually care about.

Orwell was not a good writer. 1984 in particular is a slog. His work was mostly popular because it conformed to anti soviet narratives, so schools naturally added them to the curriculum to stamp out any communist sympathies. Now that the soviets are no longer a threat, it's not surprising that his work has gradually fallen out of fashion. Yet every pseudo rebellious edgelord thinks the ideological order of 1984 is being enacted because of progressive college kids and trigger warnings.

"Nineteen eighty-four" is probably his most famous book, but many would say that "Animal farm" is a better book and that Orwell was best at writing essays, so make sure you've read a collection of his essays before you decide whether he was a good writer!

You're not wrong about Orwell being posthumously enlisted as an anti-Soviet propagandist, but "Animal farm" is beautifully written and makes perfect sense to a reader who knows nothing about (and has no interest in) the early history of the Soviet Union.

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