Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 February 21

= February 21 =

Trump and self-coup
No political debate, please; I'm looking for references.

Self-coup includes Donald Trump and 6 January 2021 in its "Notable events described as attempted self-coups" section, with dates of "November 3, 2020 – January 6, 2021". However, the two sources originally provided differ on the dates: speaks only of 6 January, while  speaks of the entire 3 November-6 January time period as the self-coup. (Because the two sources were weak, I've replaced them with a scholarly source, which speaks only of 6 January.) With this in mind, I wondered: as far as reliable sources (not news reports) using the term "self-coup" to describe Trump's actions, is it more common to speak of 6 January or 3 November-6 January? The one I found,, speaks of 6 January only, but since I don't have any institutional subscriptions to academic databases, I can't access anything except the occasional CC-licenced publication. Nyttend (talk) 01:17, 21 February 2023 (UTC)


 * The only self-coup action taken by Trump, as opposed to just expressing opinions and arguments, was debatably trying to rile up the crowd against VP Pence, with the hope that Pence would be driven from the Capitol and, with no certification, the Constitutional waters would be muddied enough to buy some time before the certification. Absent that, I don't see a self-coup as opposed to self-expression (which arguably bordered on "clear and present danger" exceptions to the 1st Amendment). 2600:1700:A3A0:1630:4980:8FAA:9545:138F (talk) 01:58, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Is not "expressing opinions and arguments" largely what political leaders do? It's nearly always the rank-and-file who act on those "opinions and arguments", whether or not they're explicit orders. {The poster formerly known as 87..81.230.195} 51.198.55.125 (talk) 02:52, 21 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Try Studies of Communication in the 2020 Presidential Campaign Ch. 2, p. 37 onwards. Alansplodge (talk) 14:01, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks Alansplodge, but I can't access it. What does it say?  Nyttend (talk) 21:01, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry Nyttend, try this instead. Ping me if you still have no luck. Alansplodge (talk) 10:55, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The text uses the term "self-coup" only in reference to the events of January 6: On January 6, 2021, following the president’s repeated urging to “stop the steal,” hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in what has been called an “insurrection” or an attempted “self-coup.” [...] Additionally, the violent and unprecedented nature of the January 6 events perhaps required more targeted labeling, hence the use of words such as “assault” and “attack” by Trump and Biden, and subsequent labeling as an insurrection, self-coup, and act of domestic terrorism by some journalists and opinion leaders. The authors do not signal that they themselves consider the term applicable. --Lambiam 11:01, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Depending on the evidence produced in potential future criminal proceedings, the general perception of the temporal scope of the failed coup attempt may widen, which then will be reflected in reliable sources. For now, the legal status is "alleged". --Lambiam 10:34, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Hardy Boys, Roald Dahl, and other kids' fiction
The Hardy Boys children's detective novel series started publication in 1927 and the early editions were blatantly racist, and intentionally so--according to our article, the novels' main ghostwriter got scolded by the series editor (daughter of the guy who created the series in the first place) because the editor wanted them to be even more racist. They got updated starting in the 1950s to dial back the racism and also incorporate other cultural changes like the presence of television. Our article doesn't say anything about a backlash to the changes. Does anyone know if there was one? I figure that a major purpose of kid fiction is to encourage kids to read by presenting entertaining stories that make sense, rather than to create immortal works of literature. So I wasn't upset to learn about the revisions when I read about them some years back. I similarly don't think I'd freak out to hear about a hypothetical 2023 revision that included references to cellular phones and the internet. I read the (revised) Hardy Boys books as a kid and enjoyed them, while the originals probably would have seemed like anachronisms even to me as a 10yo or thereabouts.

Some true literary works for adults, like Charles Bukowski's poems, were apparently censored pretty badly without causing much backlash either. That seems less fortunate.

Meanwhile, there is a huge brouhaha about Roald Dahl. I remember reading some of those books too, including the one with the high-BMI kid whose description has apparently been changed in the new version to avoid fat-shaming. Right now the teevee is going berserk about this. I get that the Dahl books had higher literary merit than the Hardy Boys, but the Dahl family is apparently on board with the changes, unlike the Hardy Boys changes which were opposed by the original editor (the one who wanted more racism in the books).

Is there much history or philosophy about the concept of fiction being revised because of author preferences or changing times? How are such changes generally received? I'd consider it censorship if and only there was a serious effort to suppress the original version, like the 1977 Star Wars version where Han shot first. I once read an unrelated novel that was pretty bad, and the author felt the same way enough to later publish a rewrite that was a lot better. But that seems fine with me, since the original bad version is still out there for those who might want it. I'd tell prospective readers to not bother with the earlier version unless they had some kind of scholarly or completist interest in doing so.

Thanks and sorry for the verbiage. 2601:648:8200:990:0:0:0:756C (talk) 08:19, 21 February 2023 (UTC)


 * For the history, there is some at Expurgation. Shantavira|feed me 09:27, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Specific to Dahl, some revision has been required for The Oompa-Loompas. Alansplodge (talk) 13:53, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * It did, though these things tend to be considered differently when the author himself agrees and makes the change, as with the Oompa Loompas. The current brouhaha is regarding changes made now while Dahl is dead and the criticism is also about how ham-handed the changes are. This is a descent overview. Matt Deres (talk) 19:03, 21 February 2023 (UTC)


 * For revisions to children's books by a single named author during that author's lifetime, see the Mary Poppins books, where some scenes were rewritten to conform to standards of later decades. From what I remember reading decades ago, P.L. Travers found the whole thing inexpressibly tedious... AnonMoos (talk) 15:02, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * We think of the Mary Poppins books as children's books, but Pamela Travers made the point - not once but many times - that she wrote them for adults, as children would not have the maturity to understand their essential message. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  11:17, 22 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I think it was Hume who pointed out that what is NOT said tells you more about a historical period than what IS said. So what is NOT being revised?  Which authors will NOT revise due to current trends (as opposed to a desire to improve their work -- Tennessee Williams, according to Gore Vidal, kept working on old published manuscripts because, he said, "They're never finished").  So maybe the answer lies in authors who simply would never revise due only to current trends.  As for philosophy, in 1948 Sartre said his ambition was to “write for my own time.”  I think other quotes would show he meant "my own time" to mean the immediate present, per existentialist approaches to how choices are made.  That is a philosopher saying, in effect, if I were to revise decades from now due to new trends, I would not have been writing for my own time.  Rather, one would perhaps write ABOUT what one wishes could be changed in previous work, in, say, a time-machine .... 2600:1700:A3A0:1630:4CF6:FA4B:C41:7ED8 (talk) 03:05, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * See also Culture war for the general frame.
 * By the way, not all the later changes made by an author are well received. Many fans of Franz Kafka are happy that his unpublished works were published after his work instead of being burnt as per his will.
 * --Error (talk) 13:31, 22 February 2023 (UTC)


 * See also Thomas Bowdler and his expurgated edition of Shakespeare's plays, The Family Shakespeare. The concern then was content alluding to sex rather than political correctness. Alansplodge (talk) 09:35, 24 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Even today, some high schools have an unaccountable objection to including "the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon" in the text of "Romeo and Juliet" as discussed in the classroom... [[Image:SFriendly.gif|20px]] "Julius Caesar" was sometimes favored in non-higher teaching during the 20th century, since it has very little which needs to be cut out (plus one famous rhetorical speech). AnonMoos (talk) 23:37, 24 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Captain W. E. Johns changed Scotch to lemonade in a Biggles story when they were being reprinted in the 1950s. DuncanHill (talk) 23:50, 24 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks everyone. For poorly received self-revisions who can forget Han shot first?  I liked the Katha Pollitt (Nation) article taking the Dahl revisions' clumsiness to task, and not just their existence.  It looks like Dahl's publisher has responded by keeping the revised Dahl books in their Puffin line (kids' fiction), but continuing to publish the un-revised versions in their Penguin line (adult fiction).  Sartre of course was writing literary works for adults.  I can understand the view that kids' books are intended as partly instructional (i.e. to teach kids to read), so revising them to keep up with the times is like revising any other textbook (textbooks constantly get revised).  Keeping both versions available seems like an ok solution imho.  Just, per Pollitt, the Dahl revisions were done badly and deserved backlash for that.  2601:648:8200:990:0:0:0:BDFA (talk) 21:13, 25 February 2023 (UTC)