Seth Abramson

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

RT @ProjectLincoln: Today Donald Trump is traveling to East Palestine, Ohio to do what he does best - campaign off of American suffering. J… — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

RT @SethAbramson: (📢) To celebrate Presidents’ “Week,” PROOF is having its biggest subscription sale ever. I hope you’ll click below to fin… — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

RT @SethAbramson: (🔐) NEW at RETRO: The Recent Controversy Over the Posthumous Editing of Roald Dahl’s Books is About Fascism and Parental… — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@Sanspareille I think it would’ve been better for only one of the professions to be changed rather than both in order to underscore the intent of the sentence, which was to establish a range of professions women are commonly found in in the current era. It wasn’t necessary to alter both words. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@Sanspareille Actually, my Twitter feed is *exactly* the place where I tell people my opinion and have a right to do so. And no one gets to “decide” any of what we are discussing besides the copyright holder, so I don’t even know what that word is doing in this context. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@Sanspareille The sentence in question is explicitly about the wide range of jobs a woman can hold in society. To say that that wide range does not begin with cashier and end with secretary is in no way whatsoever shaming either of those occupations. And I do think you know that. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@Sanspareille Pretending that an edit that reflects the mass entry of women into professional workplaces (to a degree not extant when Dahl was writing in the 1970s) is an attempt to do violence to women seems pretty disingenuous to me, to be honest. It is a weak argument. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@Sanspareille That said, I do think you know that Dahl seeing the gamut of jobs a woman can hold as ranging from “cashier to secretary” was a product of his time and certainly sends an unmistakable message of disregard to young ambitious girls around the world. We don’t have to be naive, here. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@Sanspareille Natasha, I’ve no doubt that of the edits made across his body of work there are several I would deem offensive and unnecessary and not consistent with the surgical approach I discuss in my essay. The question at hand is whether categorical opposition to the edits is fair or wise. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@salaried_minion Yep — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

If you can spot the (many) problems with the statement below, you might just know the first thing about publishing and literature. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@bobwerley @Treiber5S Ignore this person. It is simply a troll who does not want to engage this debate seriously. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

I wonder if people have even the foggiest idea of how many great works of literature would’ve been lost to time forever if the executors of the estate of their authors weren’t *permitted* by copyright law to change a few words. The pro-Puffin position on Dahl is a *pro-art* view. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

Many people have suddenly forgotten this fundamental fact in literary history for the sake of maintaining the position in the debate over Roald Dahl that literature should never be changed to make it more appealing to contemporary audiences though that’s *always* why it’s changed — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

Correct. Almost everything we read has already been endlessly edited—sometimes voluntarily by the author, sometimes because the author was forced against their will by an editor or publisher, sometimes after the death of the author by their estate. We love to pretend otherwise. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

(PS9) The list of basic precepts and facts in play in the debate over Roald Dahl’s work that are being summarily erased from the conversation by some artists does cause me concern that what’s happening in the debate now is mere virtue signaling rather than considered discourse. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

(PS8) The editing of works to keep them relevant and accurate and marketable is literally as old a tradition in literature as is the tradition of creating literature in the first place. Right now a lot of artists are pretending that ideas central to art are somehow foreign to it. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

(PS7) Every artist knows that the knee-jerk reaction in every debate over art is to position art as sacrosanct. Your fellow artists will *always* cheer you for that view—no matter how ill-considered or even disingenuous it is. But we need to do better when the issues are complex. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

(PS6) And nearly every critique I’ve seen so far ignores the possibility of mitigation measures—for instance, the continued availability of original versions in some venues or simply critiques of editing like we’re seeing here that urge it to be *surgical* rather than non-extant. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

(PS5) And nearly every critique I’ve seen so far erases the dramatic and decades-long history of Roald Dahl’s work being revised—sometimes by him but sometimes by others—for precisely the same reason it was just revised by Puffin. That history is an inconvenient truth for some. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

(PS4) And nearly every critique I’ve seen so far of what Puffin did ignores the fact that it’s copyright law and free markets—not some sort of eldritch political movement seeking to accrue power to itself—that enabled what happened here and makes it unlikely to be oft replicated. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

(PS3) For instance, nearly every critique of what Puffin did *starts* by ignoring the fact that we are specifically and only discussing Children’s Literature here—which in the context of Creative Writing as an academic discipline is literally a different genre than Adult Fiction. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

(PS2) Just added an addendum to this essay to acknowledge the public statement that was just made on this issue by Pen America. No one is saying that this topic is an easy one, but I do think most of the nuances are being lost in the public debate over it—and that’s a real shame. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@sybilsdad The fact that you’re using a work that has famously been edited over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again across hundreds of years to prove your point that books should never be edited is a good sign there actually *is* a need for an essay — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

RT @SethAbramson: (🔐) NEW at RETRO: The Recent Controversy Over the Posthumous Editing of Roald Dahl’s Books is About Fascism and Parental… — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

RT @SethAbramson: (📢) To celebrate Presidents’ “Week,” PROOF is having its biggest subscription sale ever. I hope you’ll click below to fin… — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@OuraniaSeven If you signed up for my Substack writings, you have a Substack account. Can't do one without the other. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

RT @SethAbramson: (🔓) PROOF UNLOCKED: How Should We React to Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy Unilaterally Gifting Tucker Carlson Access… — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@Lynnenallo Lynne, please at least drop a link to the source. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@Izuelanna Yep, one of the many points in the essay is about how common, even timeless, debates like these are—and how complicated — PolitiTweet.org