Ray Bradbury's take on censorship and inclusivism

[asterroc]

I just reread Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (first read in high school). The edition I had included two afterwords, one of which discusses some letters he received from readers in this and other books of his. A number of these letters, he says, criticize his treatment (or lack thereof) of blacks and women. Bradbury harshly rebuts that this is the first step of censorship, and that changing his works to appease the many different minorities present in a large and populous society such as ours would be changing the essence of his pieces and would destroy his artistic creation. Unfortunately the afterword is still under copyright so I'm not easily finding the relevant text - anyone happen to have a link?

I'm disappointed by this attitude. Bradbury lumps underprivleged minorities (such as blacks and women) with privileged or neutral "minorities" such as dog lovers. He doesn't show understanding of the distinction between elective special interest groups, and minority status imposed upon one by society, and he also doesn't show understanding of the privilege/status/power involved in the involuntary minority statuses. He also doesn't show any interest in increased inclusivism in future works, applying the criticisms only to past completed works - altering completed works wouldn't be right IMO, but I do feel it is worthwhile to portray a more ideal society in pieces one writes in the future, without as many boundary lines of privilege between different members of society.

Comments

[blahblahboy.livejournal.com]

At the risk of being racist, I'm not sure I would want everybody in the world to write with the same racial diversity. I want to say that diversity of writing styles should allow writers to write however they'd like. For example, why dont the Berenstain Bears books have black bears? Or polar bears? I'm also not sure that having a more diverse cast of characters would necessarily make a book better. For example, did I care that Harry Potter dated a ... Korean?... girl? Did that make the depth of the story better?

As a composer, I actually like that some composers did not embrace the modern mvt that hit music in the early 20th century. Their conviction to stick to the Bach/Beethoven/Brahms harmonic traditions have created some great works (alongside other great "modern" works). Too bad they're so Germanic in harmonic progression, but so what? I enjoy them anyway.

For that matter, do we actually limit diversity by wanting everybody to think, respect, and even produce diversity? (ie., we will only tolerate one thinking/production style.) In English or on the western tonic scale system, of course. :)