we are talking about the book’s provenance / authorship / otherwise “metadata”—and certainly not about the book’s impact
A belief that “TBC was written by a racist for the express purpose of justifying racism” would seem to qualify as “worth mentioning prominently at the top” under that standard, right?
And it would be quite unreasonable to suggest that a post titled “Book Review: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is somehow inherently “provocative”, “insulting”, “offensive”, etc., etc.
I imagine that very few people would find the title by itself insulting; it’s really “the title in conjunction with the first paragraph or two” (i.e. far enough to see that the author is not going to talk up-front about the elephant in the room).
Hmm, maybe another better way to say it is: The title plus the genre is what might insult people. The genre of this OP is “a book review that treats the book as a serious good-faith work of nonfiction, which might have some errors, just like any nonfiction book, but also presumably has some interesting facts etc.” You don’t need to read far or carefully to know that the OP belongs to this genre. It’s a very different genre from a (reasonable) book review of “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, or a (reasonable) book review of “Mein Kampf”, or a (reasonable) book review of “Harry Potter”.
A belief that “TBC was written by a racist for the express purpose of justifying racism” would seem to qualify as “worth mentioning prominently at the top” under that standard, right?
No, of course not (the more so because it’s a value judgment, not a statement of fact).
The rest of what you say, I have already addressed.
A belief that “TBC was written by a racist for the express purpose of justifying racism” would seem to qualify as “worth mentioning prominently at the top” under that standard, right?
I imagine that very few people would find the title by itself insulting; it’s really “the title in conjunction with the first paragraph or two” (i.e. far enough to see that the author is not going to talk up-front about the elephant in the room).
Hmm, maybe another better way to say it is: The title plus the genre is what might insult people. The genre of this OP is “a book review that treats the book as a serious good-faith work of nonfiction, which might have some errors, just like any nonfiction book, but also presumably has some interesting facts etc.” You don’t need to read far or carefully to know that the OP belongs to this genre. It’s a very different genre from a (reasonable) book review of “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, or a (reasonable) book review of “Mein Kampf”, or a (reasonable) book review of “Harry Potter”.
No, of course not (the more so because it’s a value judgment, not a statement of fact).
The rest of what you say, I have already addressed.