04-24-2016, 09:13 AM
This isn't the first attempt to do something similar to this, and believe it or not, it resulted in similarly polarized opinions on the appropriateness of doing so.
I personally fall into the camp feeling that Ra spoke in a very particular way for a reason, and even if some of their idiosyncrasies create a barrier to understanding, they should never be dismissed completely. In that sense, I appreciate your strikethrough method, as it shows exactly what it is that you, the editor, found proper to eliminate, but makes it easy for the reader to see exactly what was omitted. And honestly, I don't think that this barrier created by the mess of complex language should be a barrier for entry into the material. There are many people who resonate strongly with Ra's words, but find it incredibly difficult to read them.
I think the important thing about doing something like this is to keep a clear understanding, on the part of the person doing to work as well as the person reading it, that to make such alterations is to introduce personal, subjective, human distortions to the text. Like Aion pointed out, each person may choose different portions to strike out. In doing something like this, you are, in a sense, sharing your opinion.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Many people all over the internet are sharing their opinions about the Ra material, going over various personal interpretations and comparing it with others. The biggest danger I see in doing something like this is to present it in a way that claims to be objective. And I think it would be good to take extra steps in ensuring this is created and read with this in mind, such as adding disclaimers to each strikethrough session claiming the alterations are a result of personal understanding and are not intended to be objective.
So long as this understanding is ensured, I feel this is appropriate and may even be useful for some people in the same way that simply discussing Ra's words can be useful.
I personally fall into the camp feeling that Ra spoke in a very particular way for a reason, and even if some of their idiosyncrasies create a barrier to understanding, they should never be dismissed completely. In that sense, I appreciate your strikethrough method, as it shows exactly what it is that you, the editor, found proper to eliminate, but makes it easy for the reader to see exactly what was omitted. And honestly, I don't think that this barrier created by the mess of complex language should be a barrier for entry into the material. There are many people who resonate strongly with Ra's words, but find it incredibly difficult to read them.
I think the important thing about doing something like this is to keep a clear understanding, on the part of the person doing to work as well as the person reading it, that to make such alterations is to introduce personal, subjective, human distortions to the text. Like Aion pointed out, each person may choose different portions to strike out. In doing something like this, you are, in a sense, sharing your opinion.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Many people all over the internet are sharing their opinions about the Ra material, going over various personal interpretations and comparing it with others. The biggest danger I see in doing something like this is to present it in a way that claims to be objective. And I think it would be good to take extra steps in ensuring this is created and read with this in mind, such as adding disclaimers to each strikethrough session claiming the alterations are a result of personal understanding and are not intended to be objective.
So long as this understanding is ensured, I feel this is appropriate and may even be useful for some people in the same way that simply discussing Ra's words can be useful.
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The only frontier that has ever existed is the self.
The only frontier that has ever existed is the self.
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