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mg_ridgeview t1_jdlu9hm wrote

I don't know what was ever made better in history by banning a book. If you ban something, all you're going to do is get people more interested in the work, not less. Want to get a kid to try to do (or read) something? Tell them they can't.

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1945BestYear t1_jdlyelg wrote

I mean, the Allied Control Council that effectively ran Germany immediately after World War II banned and pulled out of circulation massive amounts of literature that was either explicitly or was more indirectly associated with Nazi ideology. I'm only semi-flippant when I characterise that less as traditional censorship and more as the rest of the human race telling Germany to touch grass and read another book.

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PracticalTie t1_jdlhzw3 wrote

This type of thing always generates some hot takes so I’m sharing the ALA definition of a book ban

> A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.

Emphasis mine because that’s the important part. Collection management is not censorship. Library weeding is not censorship.

Trying to limit what other people in the community have access to IS censorship.

E: this is sometimes called soft censorship.

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spotted-cat t1_jdmgeui wrote

Are you actually supporting this trash — and by trash I mean the book bans.

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WintersChild79 t1_jdn9iqp wrote

They are just defining terms. I see a lot of confusion about this, and there's already a comment below equating curating with banning.

The mention of soft censorship (trying to remove a book from a library or curriculum) is to differentiate it from hard censorship (the government banning the publication and sale of a book). Again, there are always a few people on these types of articles trying to say that only hard censorship counts. Soft censorship is still censorship, and it's pretty much always the type that we're talking about in a U.S. context.

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spotted-cat t1_jdncl4k wrote

Then its unconstitutional and therefore illegal in the US.

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DanimaLecter t1_jdm5ep2 wrote

It's deeply ironic that the internet gives kids access to more images and information than anyone will ever live long enough to experience, but if some kid sees, hears, or reads something shocking at a school or library, it's a scandal because there is literally nowhere else in the entire world to encounter it.

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GarnetShaddow t1_jdmx59q wrote

A lot of this is just people going to meetings and making a scene. Apparently one lady who has no kids and hasn't read most of the books she keeps trying to get banned just shows up and makes a fuss.

Has anybody else ever thought about organizing in favor of books? People need to stand up and say that these works need to stay available.

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Night_Runner t1_jdpnfhv wrote

On the topic of book bans... After the recent book ban in Florida's schools, I put together 32 classic public-domain books that all got banned at some point in the past. They range from Huckleberry Finn to Uncle Tom's Cabin, from Voltaire to Hemingway, all of them controversial in some way. The resulting file is about 8,600 pages long and should keep any reader happy and entertained for a loooong time. :)

If you want a free copy (PDF or EPUB), DM me and I'll send you the link. I'm doing this for free, without any hidden agenda, solely to spread forbidden books all over the world. If you know any teachers in Florida who'd like to share the banned books with their students, that's even better. ;)

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deevulture t1_jdo74ys wrote

Can these people behind these bans go out and read a book for once. Cause I'm certain the overwhelming majority of them haven't touched a book in years.

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Fritzkreig t1_jdlcqpi wrote

I think banning books is super stupid, but I would think that the percentage would be smaller than back in the day when something like Ulysses was published, just due to the amount of books written today!

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Disparition_2022 t1_jdr5jwv wrote

According to the article, this "record high" is only in the context of the ALA's data, which only goes back 20 years. Ulysses was published a little over a hundred years ago. It would be interesting to see data from earlier periods of history.

It's also worth noting that Ulysses wasn't banned in the sense of being challenged at a local library by a bunch of angry parents in the sense that things happen today. Rather, it was completely blocked from being imported into the US by the federal government. I don't know if that level of ban could or would happen today.

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spotted-cat t1_jdmhl1t wrote

Anyone supporting these bans is just ignorant beyond belief. Banning queer literature goes hand-in-hand with white supremacy which really shouldn’t be that much of a damn mystery since the first book they tried to ban Maus was about life inside Nazi internment camps. But in case you don’t know what I’m talking about maybe go google Magnus Hirschfeld and the pink triangle.

Throwing a temper tantrum about the books a library stocks is not only going to make their kids more curious and interested in the book themselves — HELLO DOES NO ONE REMEMBER REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY — parents are completely overlooking all of the gay pornography and fanfiction and forums and blah blah blah that ANY TWELVE-YEAR-OLD WITH WIFI can find within five minutes without their parents ever knowing it.

Ffs, learn to use the parental control settings and talk to your kids about internet safety and the media they consume. In other words be a fucking parent and let people read what they want.

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JIN_DIANA_PWNS t1_jdml0ep wrote

This should be a Tinder profile quick match service. Books you would ban: none

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tygerprints t1_jdn4jkg wrote

Just more proof that America is run by fascist shitheads and uneducated knobs.

My dream is to bring "the Banned bookstore" to Utah and other states where we will feature all the "banned" books and all the reading materials that these uneducated shitheads find so offensive.

My partners and I will make them available to all ages, and to all open minded, good people. Bigots will not be allowed. And no religious idiots either.

In a way, we'll be doing our own sort of banning - banning ignorance, banning the perverse molestation of kids by putting their brains into cement braces.

I stand up against fascism. And will never salute the behavior of nazis.

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QTheLibertine t1_jdq35tw wrote

If we count, burnt out light bulbs, and lost pets as book banning too, we can really pump those numbers up. Since counting books that have been banned doesn't seem to have anything to do with books that are banned.

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Dramatic_Bear_7985 t1_jdlf7dt wrote

Books at public libraries have always been curated; the growing public interest in the type of content being promoted or withheld by tax-and-state-funded institutions isn't a bad thing.

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Dom_Q t1_jdlfkmx wrote

/r/noshitsherlock

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