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<\/a><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nI’ve always had the impression that the impact of books on children is greatly overestimated. Leo Lausemaus<\/em> was criticized, for example, for wanting to sell children an old lifestyle model with the father as breadwinner and the mother as a housewife as the norm, and numerous mothers boycotted Leo Lausemaus<\/em>. Complete nonsense. Sure, the father is the provider and the mother is always at home. But when I think about the mass of books I’ve read to my children, this worldview completely disappears in all these different stories. Besides, with Leo Lausemaus<\/em>, the focus is completely on everyday problems, and I suspect that no child would even begin to perceive this role distribution of the parents. Children’s worldviews are shaped by all the impressions conveyed through their entire lives with their broad network of influences. There’s media consumption in its entirety, there are films, radio plays, later also games, there’s the social environment, what’s taught at school, what parents live out, grandparents, there’s how society interacts in sports clubs, there’s so much that a single story read certainly doesn’t ruin the child forever, especially not if it contains barely perceptible racist elements.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The current discussion has happened before. I remember how Oetinger Publishing changed the “Nigger King” in Pippi Longstocking to the “South Sea King”. I’m very relaxed about this kind of fine-tuning. I can certainly understand it, since it’s a translation and these are repeatedly adapted to the current cultural framework. This becomes particularly evident with the book The Nigger of the “Narcissus” by Joseph Conrad<\/a>. Originally, the author published the book under the title The Nigger of the “Narcissus”<\/em>. I can understand that the publisher uses a different word here, since it has since taken on a completely different connotation than when the book was written. Especially since Conrad wrote it under the influence of his long time as a seafarer. It’s similar to the word “Kanake” used these days, which within certain sociocultural groups is a completely legitimate and accepted, if somewhat pointed, form of address. With the translation of The Nigger of the “Narcissus”<\/a>, I found it understandable that the word “Nigger” was replaced with “Nobody” and the publisher made it completely transparent, marking all the places in the text where this replacement was made. What’s very important to me here is how the reader is treated. The fact that the reader is respected and informed about the adaptation and the actual text is simply extremely important.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Another book that is repeatedly called racist is Gone with the Wind<\/em> by Margaret Mitchell. On the surface, it’s marketed as a love story, especially shaped by the film adaptation, but I love the book and for me it’s a masterpiece with the depth of War and Peace<\/em>. It’s a book about the war between the North and South, it’s a character study and it shows the transformation of the Southern states, away from the terrible institution of slavery. The original translation of the book is criticized for being too romanticizing, especially regarding the old aristocratic society of the Southern states before the Civil War. Therefore, two years ago, a new translation by Andreas Nohl was published, which attempts to convey the rather sober and factual style of the author and to free the book from exactly these romanticized racist passages. Apparently, however, the translator also went too far at numerous points and polished too much. Some examples can be found in a very interesting article in the NZZ<\/a>. Of course, this is a real balancing act, as with every translation, and something is always lost from the original and something is added by the translator. Because of this exaggeration, I’ve also refrained from the book, as it seems far too extreme to me. But this raises a different question for me: If someone picks up this old classic, if someone reads this book and immerses themselves in the reading, can’t we credit them with the ability to differentiate? My edition is from the 1950s, the translation is probably much older. Of course I know what I have in my hands, of course I assess while reading, as a mature reader, that the book comes from a different time, just as I love Balzac’s books and can only shake my head at his theistic and mystical digressions. Does the book radicalize me? Certainly not. The problem is: Why do people deny their fellow human beings the power of judgment? Why does one hold one’s neighbor for a complete idiot who absolutely must be patronized? Might there be a psychological problem lurking beneath the ideologically feigned problem? Isn’t this being taken to extremes with the typical German know-it-all attitude, just as it practically happens daily on the political stage?<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n For me, there is a value here in Germany that is extremely important to me. Much more important than the question of whether a book is racist, another politically incorrect, or whether one should not read a book because the author was a racist, even if his work is unaffected by it. What I so greatly appreciate here in this country is the possibility of reading any book. It’s the access to any literature whatsoever, without censorship or restriction. I’ve read a wide variety of books, including those where it was clear from the start that I disagreed with the content. It’s precisely such books that you must read. I’ve also read so-called new right-wing literature. And I’ve been considering reading Mein Kampf<\/em> by Adolf Hitler for some time now. There is a annotated version, but the original edition is actually what interests me. Simply out of curiosity, to really know for myself what led to this nightmare. Am I therefore a racist, a Nazi, or an opponent of any women’s rights if I read an old classic from the 19th century? Of course not. I also believe that anyone who reads a lot and has immersed themselves in so many books by so many different authors couldn’t possibly be a real racist or subscribe to any other one-sided view. After all, they’ve felt with so many people, they’ve glimpsed in so many lives what everyone actually strives for and thus seen that everyone is equal in this, in the search for their own happiness. Someone who read a story in their childhood about the friendship between a redskin and a paleface, someone who trembled with both figures, empathized with both\u2014will such a person become a racist thinker? The freedom to read all of this is so valuable, and from this perspective, the self-censorship that some publishers and readers practice is the real scandal.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n How do you see this discussion? Do you still read Winnetou or have you already banished these books from your shelves? Which books would you never pick up? How do you perceive this discussion?<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Update 08\/25\/2022:<\/strong> I originally wrote about a new edition, but the books that were withdrawn are actually a new adaptation, as well as the underlying film. I’ve corrected that in the post. However, the media discussion has since expanded to Karl May’s original works, and the topic keeps coming up for classics. What I write here about it, and originally wrote, doesn’t touch on that.<\/p>\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Neuer Chat \u00dcbersetze folgenden WordPress Post ins Englische. Achte darauf, dass die korrekten Namen f\u00fcr genannte B\u00fccher verwendet werden. Es sollen also die korrekten Titel f\u00fcr die englischen \u00dcbersetzungen verwendet werden. Beispiel wenn das Buch “Der gr\u00fcne Blitz” von Jules Verne erw\u00e4hnt wird, dann gibt “The Green Ray” aus, weil das ja der Titel der … <\/p>\n<\/a><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n