Table of Contents
Sensitivity Readers
There’s a new politically correct term floating around. “Sensitivity readers” or “sensitivity experts” (a title I use very loosely). What are those, you may ask? Allow me to sum it up as succinctly as possible.
A “Sensitivity reader” (or “expert”) is a wanna-be writer who either a) didn’t have enough talent to write a book or b) tried to write a book and failed because, like reason ‘a’, they have no talent. Instead, publishers hire these angry and resentful blue-haired hacks to butcher other people’s works, to rewrite them, so their feelings aren’t hurt.
Roald Dahl
This bullshit began in February 2023 when published Puffin began scrubbing Roald Dahl’s famed children’s book to remove language these so-called “experts” deemed offensive. It’s basically censorship. These angry children removed words like “fat,” “ugly,” “crazy,” and even “female.” It makes sense, really, as they’re all words that surely describe these alleged “experts.” But here’s the funny part; they replaced “fat” with “enormous,” which, to me, is worse! Think about it. It’s one thing to say, “you might want to think about losing a few pounds as you’re getting fat,” but replacing it with, “you might want to lose a few pounds because you’re enormous” takes what the recipient might perceive as a slight to a full-on insult. Bad call, in my humble opinion.
Plus, in today’s vocabulary, it’s insulting to use the word “woman” for some odd fucking reason. Anyone identifying as one of the fifty billion other genders considers this “misgendering.” A made-up term by the left to justify outrage and violence. Allow me to continue that insult by pointing out the fact that this is gender dysphoria and is classified by the DSM-V as a mental illness that supposedly can be treated, although I doubt it. Not until some of these kids wake up one day and realize they fucked up by cutting off their breasts or penis and “de-transitions” back to the sex they were born, now completely sterile and with a lifetime of medical issues. Mix in some depression and suicidal tendencies, too. This is what the left wants, and part of the reason they’re Orwelling old books.
Doubt me?
Oompa Loompas, the diminutive staffers of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, were once called “small men” yet are now “small people.” They’re also now gender neutral. Another favorite character of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” infamous glutton Augustus Gloop, is no longer called “fat” but now “enormous.”
In the original version of “James and the Giant Peach,” a character rhymes, “Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat / And tremendously flabby at that,” and, “Aunt Spiker was thin as a wire / And dry as a bone, only drier.” However, after being scrubbed, the text reads: “Aunt Sponge was a nasty old brute / And deserved to be squashed by the fruit,” and “Aunt Spiker was much of the same / And deserves half of the blame.”
In “The Twits” book, the Mrs. Twit character is no longer called “ugly and beastly” but just “beastly.”
A description of the Mrs. Jenkins character in “The Witches” has seen the word crazy removed. In older versions, Dahl had written, “Mrs. Jenkins will go crazy,” but it has since changed to “Mrs. Jenkins will be furious.”
In “Matilda,” a sentence that previously read “crazy with frustration” now says “wild with frustration.”
The book “James and the Giant Peach” also saw similar edits. A sentence that read “that crazy Glow-worm has gone to sleep with her light on” now uses the term “silly” instead.
Puffin has also neutralized gender references not to offend women or the transgender community. In “The Witches,” a section saying witches are bald beneath their wigs has a new disclaimer: “There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.” A “bunch of dangerous females” has now been changed to describe them as “witches.”
Finally, all references to ‘mother’ and ‘father’ have been replaced with ‘parents’ or ‘people.’
“Words matter,” begins the notice at the bottom of the copyright page of Puffin’s latest editions of Roald Dahl’s books. “The wonderful words of Roald Dahl can transport you to different worlds and introduce you to the most marvelous characters. This book was written many years ago, and so we regularly review the language to ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today.”
A collection of failed and non-writers called Inclusive Minds is responsible for raping Dahl’s works and others to come. They claim, via their website, “We’re a collaboration of consultants and campaigners with a passion for inclusion, diversity, equality and accessibility in children’s literature.”
The Roald Dahl Story Company, the current copyright holder of Dahl’s works, downplayed the changes, insisting to the Guardian that the revisions preserve the author’s voice and style.
“Our guiding principle throughout has been to maintain the storylines, characters, and the irreverence and sharp-edged spirit of the original text. Any changes made have been small and carefully considered,” a spokesperson said.
However, Dahl’s biographer, Matthew Dennison, said he’s “almost certain” the late writer “would have recognized that alterations to his novels prompted by the political climate were driven by adults rather than children.”
Puffin, Roald Dahl Story Company, Inclusive Minds, you’ve Orwelled the fuck out of beloved classics. You should be utterly ashamed of yourselves. Fuck you all.
If you’ve not heard the term Orwelled (and if you haven’t, I have to wonder what rock you’ve been living under) or are unfamiliar with it, it references George Orwell, the author of the literally classic, “1984.”
1984
If you’ve never read “1984”, I’ll give you a brief synopsis. If you have, feel free to skip to the next section.
“1984” begins with the protagonist, Winston Smith. He’s a member of the Outer Party who works in the Records Department in the Ministry of Truth, rewriting and distorting history. Winston begins a diary to escape Big Brother’s tyranny, at least inside his mind, an act punishable by death. Under inhuman circumstances, Winston is determined to remain a human. But telescreens are everywhere — in his home, his cubicle at work, the cafeteria where he eats, and even the bathroom stalls. Big Brother watches every move. No place is safe.
During one of the mandatory Two Minutes Hate, Winston catches the eye of an Inner Party Member, O’Brien, whom he believes to be an ally. He also attracts the attention of a dark-haired girl from the Fiction Department, whom he believes is his enemy and wants him destroyed. A few days later, Julia, the dark-haired girl Winston believes to be against him, secretly hands him a note that reads, “I love you.” Winston takes pains to meet her, and when they finally do, Julia draws up a complicated plan whereby they can be alone.
They rendezvous in the countryside, where Winston and Julia make love and begin their allegiance against The Party and Big Brother. Winston can secure a room above a shop where he and Julia can go for their romantic trysts. As the weeks go by, Winston and Julia fall in love, and while they know Big Brother will someday catch them, they believe The Party can never take the love and loyalty they feel for each other from them, even under the worst circumstances.
Eventually, Winston and Julia confess to O’Brien, who they believe is a member of the Brotherhood (an underground organization aimed at bringing down The Party), their hatred of The Party. O’Brien welcomes them into the Brotherhood with an array of questions and arranges for Winston to be given a copy of “the book,” the underground’s treasonous volume written by their leader, Emmanuel Goldstein, a former ally of Big Brother turned enemy.
Winston receives the book at a war rally and takes it to the secure room, where he reads it with Julia napping by his side. A noise behind a painting in the room disturbs the two. Upon inspection, they discover a telescreen when they’re dragged away and separated. Winston finds himself deep inside the Ministry of Love, a prison with no windows, where he sits for days alone. Finally, O’Brien comes. Initially, Winston believes The Party has captured O’Brien, but he soon realizes O’Brien was there to torture him and break his spirit. The Party had been aware of Winston’s “crimes” all along; in fact, O’Brien had been watching Winston for the past seven years.
O’Brien spends the next few months torturing Winston to change his way of thinking, employing the concept of doublethink, the ability to hold two opposing ideas in one’s mind simultaneously and believe in them both. Winston insists that the human mind must be free, and to remain free, one must be allowed to believe in objective truth, such as 2 + 2 = 4. O’Brien wants Winston to believe that 2 + 2 = 5. Winston resists.
Finally, O’Brien takes Winston to Room 101, the most dreaded room in the Ministry of Love, where prisoners meet their greatest fear. Winston’s is rats. O’Brien places a mask made of wire mesh over Winston’s head and threatens to open the door to release rats on Winston’s face. When Winston screams, “Do it to Julia!” he relinquishes his last vestige of humanity.
Winston is a changed man. He sits in the Chestnut Tree Café, watching the telescreens and agonizing over the results of daily battles on the front lines. He has seen Julia again. She, too, is changed, seeming older and less attractive. She admits that she also betrayed him. They repeat each other’s phrases, a subtle device to show that they are genuinely indoctrinated. They use the diction and the speech patterns of The Party. Ultimately, totalitarianism has won over humanity; Winston is one of the masses, putting his authentic self aside for the Party and Big Brother. Still, he has ambiguous feelings and is haunted by memories of a former time, but he has effectively convinced himself that these feelings and memories are false. Winston loves Big Brother and will, presumably, spend the rest of his life loving him and waiting for the bullet in the back of his neck to set him free.
Thoughtcrime
I’ll focus here on two themes of 1984 that apply to rewriting classic literature and the meaning of words. The first is the term “Thoughtcrime,” which is used to describe a thought that’s antithetical to The Party’s teachings and beliefs. For example, if one felt sexual desire towards another person, thought something negative about Big Brother, doubted Oceania’s war, and more, it’s considered a Thoughtcrime. Winston repetitively commits Thoughtcrime throughout the novel and works hard to keep it from showing on his face. Winston notes in his diary, “Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later, they were bound to get you.”
To understand thoughtcrime, it’s essential to understand the consequences of committing it. If one were to have illegal thoughts and those thoughts showed on their face, or they expressed them somehow, the Thought Police would arrest them. This group hunts down thought criminals and brings them to the Ministry of Love. This aptly named ministry reforms and kills thought criminals.
The implications of the Thought Police are wide-ranging. Citizens are frightened into policing their own thoughts and giving in to the demands of The Party, whose goal is to strip every means of independence from the citizens of Oceania.
Winston and others try to avoid the Thought Police, knowing Big Brother could observe them at any time through their telescreens. Orwell writes: “There was, of course, no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate, they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”
This paranoia makes most citizens too frightened to even conceive of betraying Big Brother and The Party ideals. Most unindoctrinated people would rather preserve their lives and betray their beliefs.
We have a form of Thoughtcrime today. The left labels anyone who disagrees with them an “extremist MAGA Republican” or some variation of that terminology. If you are white or straight and don’t bow before the mutilated rainbow flag and swear you’re an ally, then you’re a homophone, a bigot, and possibly a transphobe. Such labels will get one canceled. It would fuck up that social credit system we already sort of have. It’s not like China’s yet, but it’s getting there.
If you’re not anti-racist, then you’re a racist. If you’re anti-racist, you’re not anti-racist enough and are still racist. One cannot win. The left has rigged the game.
Look at what happened to Scott Adams recently, the author of the comic strip “Dilbert.” He responded to a Rasmussen poll that said 26% of black Americans said it is NOT okay to be white (which is a racist thing to say in and of itself) by saying, “that’s a hate group,” and encouraged white Americans to “get the hell away” from them.
“I don’t want to have anything to do with them,” Adams said. “And I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people…because there is no fixing this.”
He’s right about one thing. If we don’t stop this special treatment shit and start encouraging equality, in which no one gets a special treatment month under the guise of ‘history,’ there is no fixing this.
Interestingly, everyone who attacked him for being racist didn’t say he was wrong. Think about that. Black people have demanded self-segregation. They want their own dorms, their own graduation, their own ‘spaces’ where they don’t have to interact with while people. There’s even an article where black women go on vacation together to escape from white people because they need a break from white people. Imagine if that same show reversed the races. It would cause 2020-level riots. Adams surmised it’s okay for black people to be racist but not white. Blacks, in recent years, have been given high levels of special treatment for being black. Special treatment isn’t equality. They get an entire month which the media then proceeds to ram down our throats whether or not we want it.
Now that Adams had said these things (and certainly thought them), he’s been canceled, which is our version of the Thought Police.
DoubleThink
Doublethink refers to the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts in one’s head. They result from political indoctrination. They are only present because an overwhelming force convinced the thinker that both are true. The term “doublethink” is a Newspeak word. It’s a terse way of describing a complex phenomenon in Oceania.
Often, Winston wonders if “he alone” is “in possession of a memory?” It seems to Smith that everyone, including those he believes, is more intelligent, has forgotten the past, and will erase any parts of their memory that Big Brother tells them to. For example, their memories are as quickly erased as Winston changes the information in news articles while at work at the Ministry of Truth.
Winston narrates his thoughts about doublethink as, “To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself.”
Examples of doublethink referenced frequently in “1984” are: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength.
The Ministry of Truth
Winston’s job at The Ministry of Truth. The title is ironic at best. Here, his job is to rewrite history according to Party needs. Winston’s task is to rewrite news articles in which Big Brother commended a person who is now in the Party’s disfavor. Winston Smith creates a war hero, Captain Ogilvy, who has led an “ideal” life and was killed in battle. He also writes a speech that Big Brother is supposed to have given, commending this hero that never existed. It strikes Winston that he could create a dead man, but not a living one. Ogilvy, now in the records, exists on the same authority as genuine, living people.
When working, Winston uses the speakwrite, a contraption into which Winston speaks the articles that will be later written (speaking and writing here are considered opposites). All written records and requests to change records go into memory holes. Here they will not be remembered and documented but destroyed. The function of the Ministry of Truth is to create lies. Period.
Winston forges the past into something palatable to The Party’s ideology: Big Brother is never wrong. Heroes are those who put their own lives aside for the Party’s benefit, and goods are always manufactured at a quantity beyond what is expected. Of course, none of it is true, and so follows Winston’s question, haunting him throughout the book: If a fact only exists in your memory, and yours alone, what proof is there that it really happened at all?
One slogan The Party frequently uses is, “Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
Let’s look at what the left has done since 2020. They tried to erase their racist history as if tearing down Confederate statues would magically fix that. Spoiler alert: It didn’t. Then they moved on to projection by accusing everyone of questioning them as racist. So much so that Merriam-Webster actually changed the definition of ‘racist.’ They did what to it? Orwelled it!
The left did it to the word ‘recession,’ too, to describe a period in which real GDP declines for at least two consecutive quarters. They took out the ‘two consecutive quarters’ part so Biden could say we were not in a recession when we were. Leftist privilege.
They even changed the definition of ‘woman’ from “an adult female human being” to “an adult who lives and identifies as female, though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth.”
So, does Winston Smith work at Merriam-Webster? Sure does feel like it.
Or maybe the dictionary we all knew and grew up with is being shrunken into something like Newspeak.
Newspeak
To illustrate the idea that language can corrupt thought and that totalitarian systems use language to restrict rather than broaden ideas, Orwell created Newspeak for “1984”, the official language of Oceania. Without a word for freedom, for example, the concept of freedom cannot exist.
One of Winston’s “friends,” Syme, lectures him on the principles of Newspeak, the only language that regularly loses words instead of gains them, effectively narrowing the range of thoughts. Syme says that, by the year 2050, everyone will be fluent in Newspeak.
Syme may, in fact, be correct.
One of the major themes in “1984” involves language; when language is corrupted, thought is contaminated. Syme, an authority on Newspeak, gleefully informs Winston about its nuances. Whereas, for example, one would think that a language should grow to facilitate communication of invention, newly discovered subtleties, and changing times and attitudes, Syme explains that exactly the opposite is true. The language is streamlined by destroying words because some words, such as synonyms and antonyms, are unnecessary and only confuse issues. After all, the reasoning goes, “If you have a word like ‘good,’ what need is there for a word like ‘bad’? ‘Ungood’ will do…better because it is an exact opposite…” “Plusgood” requires no explanation; the same logic applies. Oldspeak contains “vagueness and useless shades of meaning.” According to Syme, Newspeak’s mission, of course, is to narrow the range of thought to such a degree that thoughtcrime is impossible.
Newspeak is a language created to control thought, thus controlling action. Orwell believed that the decline of language ultimately had political and economic consequences. He’s warning that language can be a weapon and that The Party created Newspeak to control, not enhance personal communication and expression. In “1984”, this narrowing of thought facilitates doublethink, the primary instrument of control that The Party uses on its people.
Ian Fleming
In March 2023, these self-proclaimed “sensitivity experts” came for one of my favorite franchises, James Bond. You knew they would eventually. Fuckers. For now, we’re merely dealing with the source material, the books of Ian Fleming, who wrote the James Bond series.
The “sensitivity experts” have decided Flemings’s books must be written with modern audiences in mind by removing several racial references ahead of 007’s 70th anniversary this spring. All of Fleming’s thrillers — from “Casino Royale” to “Octopussy” — will be re-released this spring after Ian Fleming Publications, the company that owns the literary rights to Fleming’s work, commissioned a review by “sensitivity readers.” Put another way, they want the opinion of a bunch of whiny brats to appease a tiny fraction of the population. The new versions of the classic novels will include a disclaimer: “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace. A number of updates have been made in this edition while keeping as close as possible to the original text and the period in which it is set.” (I should note when I pasted this quote in Word, Grammarly lit up like a Christmas tree. How about you fucking morons hire some legitimate writers?)
In some cases, racial descriptors and mentions of the n-word have been thoroughly scrubbed from the texts Fleming wrote during the 1950s and 60s.
For example, in the novel “Dr. No” (1958), criminals escaping from Bond become “gangsters,” and the race of a doctor and immigration officer now go unmentioned. The ethnicity of a barman in “Thunderball” (1961) is also omitted, as is the race of a butler in “Quantum of Solace” (1959).
Interestingly, revisions to the Bond books depend on the market. In America, edits include toned-down sex scenes and modified racial references in “Live and Let Die.”
While the publisher reworked some depictions of black people, other antiquated references remain. For instance, the racial terms Bond uses to refer to Asian people, and his unfavorable views of the Korean character Oddjob will stay, as will his remarks about the “sweet tang of rape” and homosexuality being a “stubborn disability,” according to the Telegraph.
One must wonder why that is. It’s no secret the left discriminates against Asians. Look at the college admission criteria where black people are given preference for their race and not their SAT scores, which apparently won’t be a factor anymore. The left believes this is necessary to depict real-world diversity, which is bullshit. It’s the socialist ‘outcome of equity’ agenda. We all end up in the same place, and in a socialist/communist society, that means we’re all equally poor. This, in turn, will lead to more racism. I know that if I see a doctor in the operating room and I’m on the cutting table, I’ll wonder if he’s there because of a diversity hire instead of qualifications. Ditto for airline pilots.
It’s like this: I don’t give a fuck what color you are or what your sexual preference is. I want you to be qualified to do the surgery or fly the airplane. Anything else is unacceptable and will only hurt society as a whole. But then, I believe that’s been the left’s plan since they gave us Obama (who I foolishly and stupidly voted for the first time. Buyer’s remorse quickly set in after I couldn’t keep my doctor or insurance plan. Fucking liar).
Anyways, Ian Fleming Publications said: “We reviewed the text of the original Bond books and decided our best course of action was to follow Ian’s lead. We have made changes to Live and Let Die that he himself authorized.
“Following Ian’s approach, we looked at the instances of several racial terms across the books and removed a number of individual words or else swapped them for terms that are more accepted today but in keeping with the period in which the books were written.
“We encourage people to read the books for themselves when the new paperbacks are published.”
So now they’re going to fuck with Bond. Great job, guys. Seriously. All the way around. Just…well done. Get work, go broke, fuckers. I won’t feel sorry for you when you end up going the route of Disney.
Slippery Slope
Personally, think this is a bad idea. We preserve our history, even if it’s fiction. The problem with the left is they feel the need to rewrite history, specifically racial issues because they were the origin of most of them. The Democrats didn’t want to give up slaves. Democrats began the KKK. Democrats began Jim Crow. Democrats were against the equal rights amendment.
Until they weren’t because they wanted the minority vote so that they could stay in power.
Remember, The Republicans wanted to end slavery. Lincoln (whom I have controversial opinions about) was a Republican (but not an abolitionist). A Republican Congress passed the 13th Amendment (the work of Senator Thaddeus Stevens and not so much Lincoln; he merely signed it into law).
Now, I understand my comparison of the work of the “sensitivity readers” isn’t quite Ministry of Truth levels…yet. It’s a damned slippery slope, and the left excels at that. Remember how back in 2019, drag queens were bitching and complaining about story hour in libraries? “We just want to read them stories!” they said. Now, in 2023, they want children to attend their shows while they do some utterly perverted dances and want children to grab their costumes. It took less than four years to graduate from reading to full-on participation. We call that grooming; it’s another perversion the left wants to normalize.
Here’s another example of a slippery slope; the LQBT agenda (I won’t use the entire fucking alphabet…it’s stupid). How did it begin back in the 90s?
“We just want to get married and adopt children.”
Fine. No problem. I don’t give a shit who you sleep with, and if you can be a proper parent, then more power to you.
Then it graduated to, “We just want to let men that identify as women use the little girl’s room.”
Nope. Sorry. No can do. If you have a penis, you’re a male, you use the men’s room. You have zero reasons to intimidate and scare women and children by swinging your dick around the ladies’ room. None. That makes you a pervert and should be dealt with accordingly. No decent human being should put your feelings, based on a mental illness, above the feelings and need for safety actual women have. Period. The end.
Then they began saying in recent years, “We just want to take your kids on a field trip to experience kink and drag queens.”
That, sir, makes you a pedophile. I don’t care if the left thinks that’s okay. It makes you a sick fuck and is one of two things that offend me (the other is men who viciously beat women and children).
Now, “We’re coming for your children.” No, that’s not an exaggeration. This gay choir sang about it, and it was no satire.
See how slippery slopes work for the left?
In CLosing
But don’t think to yourself that the left is evil for doing these things, because it might show on your face, and that’s a Thoughtcrime. We do have Thought Police, in a sense. They call themselves Antifa. If you disagree with them, they will beat the shit out of you.
We may not have a Ministry of Love yet. although public schools are close. If the left could have reeducation centers as they do in Canada (ask Dr. Jordan Peterson about it), they’d set them up in a heartbeat, and those with a poor social credit school would be required to visit them often.
The Ministry of Peace? Shit, that’s Joe Biden and the Military Industrial Complex single-handedly giving billions to Ukraine and that Welfare Queen Zelinsky, which is assuredly a path to World War III.
And mark my words, if things like these egg shortages we’re experiencing in 2023 or more ‘supply chain issues’ occur, you’ll see the Ministry of Plenty soon enough.
George Orwell may have written “1984” in 1949, but he knew. He knew that if humanity in his era didn’t change, his work would be the shape of things to come (also the title of a book by H. G. Wells I recommend).
“1984” has become the left’s ‘how-to’ guide, which should scare the hell out of you. The Democrats are Orwell’s “Party.” Leftists are basically the Thought Police looking for us to say or do something they disagree with so they can invoke political or physical violence to silence us. Us conservatives, we’re the proletariats in their eyes, the deplorable’s, the MAGA extremists, the domestic terrorists for standing up at school board meetings where schools try to Ministry of Truth our kids.
And Big Brother? He’s been around for a long time. He crept up on us bit by bit, hoping we’d not notice. Every time you use Alexa, Google Voice, Facebook Messenger, or the, worst of all, TikTok, Big Brother is watching you.
All those security cameras everywhere? Big Brother is watching you.
That camera and microphone in your computer or laptop? Yup, Big Brother is watching you.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
Might be time to revolt.
