THIS STUFF KILLS ME

 We seem to be living in a problematic age. That is, everything's a frigging problem for someone or another. Last night, my wife and I experienced a double problematic moment (for someone or another). 

Memo to people who hate Jordan Peterson: you bore him.

First problem: we were watching a brief video of Jordan Peterson, who, for some, is a
misogynistic, Christian, right-winger who traffics in toxic masculinity. Although, if you closed your eyes and concentrated on his voice, "masculinity" is the last thing that would come to mind. 

We find the guy interesting, even if we're not onboard with 100% of what comes out of his Canadian mouth. This alone is enough to put our faces on dartboards across North America's college campuses. 

The topic of his chat -- how to handle someone intent on an argument -- isn't important here. It's what was done by the people who posted it on YouTube that bugged me, even if it flew over my wife's head. Using gun control as an example, he said, "We can all agree guns kill." 

The word "kill" was censored. And the subtitles, which you couldn't get rid of, spelled it "k**l". Apparently -- or appropriately or ironically or, really, stupidly -- "kill" seems to be a "trigger word". The word "kill" hurts some sensitive people. To quote Bugs Bunny, oh buh-ruh-ther.

Still more shocking: an
autographed first edition goes
for $22,000.

All of the above is really just the introduction to something entirely different yet related by marriage. Future editions of the 1936 novel Gone with the Wind will now come attached with -- trumpets, please! -- a trigger warning concerning its "shocking elements" and "the romanticism of a shocking era in our history". Who would have guessed a novel nearly a century-old wouldn't be up to contemporary cultural snuff?

 It will also feature a new forward by "historical novelist" Phillipa Gregory sending up red flares concerning the book's "representation of unacceptable practices, racist and stereotypical depictions and troubling themes, characterization, language and imagery". Which translates to Buy my books instead!

It's sad that there's a generation or two of people who need a security blanket because of a book they will never read anyway. And that, I believe, is what's behind this move: ginning up some publicity for a novel that the rest of us were likely unaware is still in print. If young people know the title at all, it's strictly because of the movie. Which, let's face it, makes slavery look like an unpaid farming internship.

But you want to know the real laugh here? Gone with the Wind's publisher, Pan Macmillian, hired a white author to pen the forward "in order to avoid inflicting emotional labor on a minority writer." Man, does that ever sound like a troubling, unacceptable, racist, and stereotypical depiction and characterization of black people. 

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