What exactly is 'offensive', again?
Sep. 28th, 2004 10:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosen(Ganked from the Daily Illuminator.)
Wal-Mart is well-known for trying to protect customers from material that might offend them. Wal-Mart refuses to sell Tipper-stickered music; some of the albums it does sell are specially made with tamer lyrics dubbed over the regular versions. They won't sell Maxim or FHM, and they've been known to cover up the cover of Cosmopolitan to make sure nobody's sensibilities are offended.
However, until a couple of days ago, their website was selling The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, with this description (according to CNN story, original is unavailable): "If ... The Protocols are genuine (which can never be proven conclusively), it might cause some of us to keep a wary eye on world affairs. We neither support nor deny its message. We simply make it available for those who wish a copy." No worries about offending anybody there. No acknowledgement that the bloody thing has been known as a forgery for more than eighty years now.
Edit: Found a full copy of the blurb, which Wal-Mart reproduced unaltered from the publisher. Not *quite* as bad as the above story led me to believe, but still pretty poor; while the forgery issue is mentioned, it is presented as an unsubstantiated claim rather than well-documented fact. But judge for yourself:
"The Protocols supposedly outlines a plan of action by elders of the Jewish Nation to rule the world -- to take control over key organizations, including assets, in order to manipulate world affairs in their favor. Some say the issue has already been settled conclusively -- that it is clearly a forgery. Although there may be final evidence to this effect, we have not seen a clear and convincing version of it produced by those making the claim. Others maintain that it was and is absolutely genuine -- proven by the fact that all copies were destroyed in Russia in the early 1900s by the Kerensky regime. In the following years, anyone caught with a copy could be, and sometimes were, shot on sight. It was law, The Protocols were taken seriously by the Russians and by people in America like the famed industrialist, Henry Ford. This seems to give it validity, but people (and nations) have been known to be fooled. If The Protocols are a forgery, they still form an interesting book which deserves to be studied in the same way "The War of the Worlds" radio broadcast duped many thousands into thinking we were being invaded by Martians in the early part of the 20th century. If, however. The Protocols are genuine (which can never be proven conclusively), it might cause some of us to keep a wary eye on world affairs. We neither support nor deny its message, we simply make it available for those who wish a copy."
FWIW, the publisher have now accepted that it's a forgery; better late than never, I suppose.
I'm not in favour of censoring such material - that just encourages the conspiracy theorists (who'll get hold of it anyway) and makes it harder for everybody else to 'know the enemy'. But Amazon's page for the same book shows how to do it responsibly: they *tell* people it's a forgery created for propaganda purposes. None of this spineless "can never be proven conclusively" and "neither support nor deny its message".
I'll leave the last word to the Illuminator: "They've stopped [selling it]. A "business decision," they called it. Apparently it would have been inappropriate for them to admit to making a moral decision?"
Wal-Mart is well-known for trying to protect customers from material that might offend them. Wal-Mart refuses to sell Tipper-stickered music; some of the albums it does sell are specially made with tamer lyrics dubbed over the regular versions. They won't sell Maxim or FHM, and they've been known to cover up the cover of Cosmopolitan to make sure nobody's sensibilities are offended.
However, until a couple of days ago, their website was selling The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, with this description (according to CNN story, original is unavailable): "If ... The Protocols are genuine (which can never be proven conclusively), it might cause some of us to keep a wary eye on world affairs. We neither support nor deny its message. We simply make it available for those who wish a copy." No worries about offending anybody there. No acknowledgement that the bloody thing has been known as a forgery for more than eighty years now.
Edit: Found a full copy of the blurb, which Wal-Mart reproduced unaltered from the publisher. Not *quite* as bad as the above story led me to believe, but still pretty poor; while the forgery issue is mentioned, it is presented as an unsubstantiated claim rather than well-documented fact. But judge for yourself:
"The Protocols supposedly outlines a plan of action by elders of the Jewish Nation to rule the world -- to take control over key organizations, including assets, in order to manipulate world affairs in their favor. Some say the issue has already been settled conclusively -- that it is clearly a forgery. Although there may be final evidence to this effect, we have not seen a clear and convincing version of it produced by those making the claim. Others maintain that it was and is absolutely genuine -- proven by the fact that all copies were destroyed in Russia in the early 1900s by the Kerensky regime. In the following years, anyone caught with a copy could be, and sometimes were, shot on sight. It was law, The Protocols were taken seriously by the Russians and by people in America like the famed industrialist, Henry Ford. This seems to give it validity, but people (and nations) have been known to be fooled. If The Protocols are a forgery, they still form an interesting book which deserves to be studied in the same way "The War of the Worlds" radio broadcast duped many thousands into thinking we were being invaded by Martians in the early part of the 20th century. If, however. The Protocols are genuine (which can never be proven conclusively), it might cause some of us to keep a wary eye on world affairs. We neither support nor deny its message, we simply make it available for those who wish a copy."
FWIW, the publisher have now accepted that it's a forgery; better late than never, I suppose.
I'm not in favour of censoring such material - that just encourages the conspiracy theorists (who'll get hold of it anyway) and makes it harder for everybody else to 'know the enemy'. But Amazon's page for the same book shows how to do it responsibly: they *tell* people it's a forgery created for propaganda purposes. None of this spineless "can never be proven conclusively" and "neither support nor deny its message".
I'll leave the last word to the Illuminator: "They've stopped [selling it]. A "business decision," they called it. Apparently it would have been inappropriate for them to admit to making a moral decision?"
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-28 04:18 am (UTC)Potentially, yeah. This is related to the argument we had a while back re: corporations. There's a school of thought saying that it violates fiduciary duty for a corporation to make a moral decision, because it decreases shareholder value. This school of thought is IMHO dumb and wrong, but I am not a corporate lawyer.