The main problem with retrospective cleansing of books is that it won't lead to the dissapearance of racism and sexism
The controversy around the changes made to Roald Dahl’s books in the name of sensitivity and inclusion have raised hackles across the world. The idea of removing the word “fat”, replacing “cloud-men” with “cloud-people” and changing the description of a character from “working as a cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman” to “working as a top scientist or running a business” are so ridiculous that they seem like a parody of wokeness.
However, there are several issues that do get thrown up which are worth combing through given that this is not a one-off occurrence. Many authors, including Ian Fleming have had their work sanitised in their newer editions. The purported reason for the change is that they seek to protect the readers, particularly if they happen to be children, from being unconsciously influenced by biases in-built in texts of an earlier time.