Arresting a Culture

The recent effort to Bowdlerize Huck Finn should be a warning to all that nothing is safe from overprotective sanitation. However, the recent release of Conrad's Nigger of the Narcissus as N-Word of the Narcissus--http://www.amazon.com/N-word-Narcissus-Joseph-Conrad/dp/9076660115#_--is a true milestone; the culture has surely been taken into protective custody. Even the sanctimonious substitution of BCE for the offensive B.C. casts a shadow when placed beside this decision. Imagine the initial, insightful analysis of white guilt in the West having its title changed because of white guilt. It is as if The Onion had a publishing arm.

One wonders who the arresting officers are. Imagine the vastness of the task: Sanitizing a culture. Many people can't get their children to distinguish between the nominative and objective case. Some businesses suffer over dress codes. And here is a movement, seemingly unspoken yet uniform, that is going to make the culture right. There is a bit of the fist shaking Temperance Union about this but no one is laughing. No one dares.

A quality of recent times is the appearance of organizations with huge agendas, huge aspirations. Organizations plan to help us conserve water by controlling the water in toilets. (Half the water, twice the flushes.) Some want to cut down on butter use so they mandate unsaturated fats. Transfats. DDT is banned because it is felt that it might harm bird eggs and malaria comes off the endangered species list. The overriding character of these efforts is hubris; despite failure and disaster, there is no shortage of confidence. These censors are undeterred by failure. The bluenose cannot be embarrassed. They do not learn.

Years ago a movie was made about a struggle between students bent on liberalizing a country and a junta resisting them. The leader of the rebellious kids is eventually killed but he continues as a source of inspiration and the code word for him is "Z", the sound of the letter meaning "He Lives!" The junta eventually bans the letter "Z".