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From: bch@unc.UUCP (Byron Howes )
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: The power of words
Message-ID: <6638@unc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Jan-84 08:46:17 EST
Article-I.D.: unc.6638
Posted: Tue Jan 24 08:46:17 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Feb-84 02:04:10 EST
References: <6449@watdaisy.UUCP>
Organization: University of North Carolina Comp. Center
Lines: 55

I find I have a very negative reaction to the bowdlerization of any text
for any purpose, even in support of the women's movement which I whole-
heartedly support.  Changing the original text to any end implies a form
of censorship which is, to me, a more critical issue than human rights.
Although changing pronoun references and gender may seem a minor detail,
certainly not destroying the intent or sense of the text, it opens a
door for further rewriting by those who do not agree with the political
direction of a citation.

Secondarily (and *really* secondarily) if text is to be made "more
accessible" by changing gender references, then why not something like
the following (I feel very uncomfortable doing this):

"Go, seeker, if you will, throughout the land and you will find us burning in
the night...  To everyone the chance, to everyone, regardless of 
birth, the shining golden opportunity - to everyone the right to live, to
work, to be yourself, and to become whatever thing your individuality and vision
can combine to make you - this, seeker, is the promise of America"
	Thomas Wolfe,
	You Can't Go Home Again, 1940

"Whoever would change people must change the conditions of their lives."
	Theodore Herzl, Diary, 1923

"When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to
shut the mind and close the mouth, then all Americans are in peril"
	Harry S Truman, New York Times Magazine

"You have not converted a person, because you have silenced them"
	John Morley, On Compromise, 1874

"My political ideal is democracy.  Let every one be respected as an individual
and no person idolised"
	Albert Einstein,
	"Forum and Century", 1931, volume 84

"Human history begins with the act of disobedience which is at the same time
the beginning of freedom and development of reason"
	Erich Fromm, Psychoanalysis and Religion, 1950

"Put fear out of your heart.  This nation will survive, this State will
prosper, the orderly business of life will go forward if only people can
speak in what ever way given them to utter what their hearts hold - by voice,
by posted card, by letters, or by press.  Reason never has failed.  Only force
and oppression have mades the wrecks in the world"
	William Allen White
	The Emporia Gazette, 1922

[The last quotation seems particularly applicable here...]

-- 

					Byron Howes
					UNC - Chapel Hill
					(decvax!duke!unc!bch)