# Banning Books



## Eve (Jun 3, 2005)

I would like to know what you think about banning books.

Here is a list of books:

http://title.forbiddenlibrary.com/


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## silverwriter (Jun 3, 2005)

I had a saying I came up with for the drama club sweatshirts banned once. I beamed with pride every time someone mentioned it. However, the slogan had a deliberate sexual undertone. In this day and age, I think banning books is rediculous. Tom Sawyer?! My goodness. How in the world is that worse than say television, movies, the internet, or teenage hormonal minds? The fact that a kid may want to read a book is commendable and banning books is silly. That's my opinion anyway. I hope that's what you were looking for.


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## Eve (Jun 3, 2005)

Silverwriter, I'm not looking for any answer in particular just opinions on the subject.

It could also be to sell more books.

Thank you for responding to the post

Eve


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## BadLuckNovelist (Jun 3, 2005)

Banning books is rediculas.  It comes down to some people having a stick up themselves about topics, and they want books on it banned and destroyed, in my mind.  Its the same with TV,CDs, and games.

If it comes down to it..I'd rather it be were they had age limits on books, if they have to.  But banning them totally?  If I was little and was told I couldn't read something because it was banned, I'd probably of started getting relunctant to even bother trying again.  Tell me not to read something now, and I'd probably flick you off.  -snort-

And the reasoing behind some of them makes me want to weep:


> Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Anne Frank. Modern Library. Challenged in Wise County, Va. (1982) due to "sexually offensive" passages. Four members of the Alabama State Textbook Committee (1983) called for the rejection of this book because it is a "real downer."


Ban it because its a "downer"?!


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## strangedaze (Jun 3, 2005)

Burn fascists, not books.


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## Dramamine (Jun 3, 2005)

The only books that should be banned are those crappy anthologies from poetry.com. Put it to a vote, I'll vote for it. Allow me to take direct action, I'll do it.


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## Manx (Jun 4, 2005)

Well, the market as a whole is a lot more tolerate now I think but there will always be those who complain. Some people can't seem to get it into their head that if they don't like a book - don't read it! No need to spoil it for everyone else by taking action to get it banned.

The real worry now I think is death threats, etc to authors. While their books don't get banned there are still plenty of people who read horror, for example, and then threaten to kill the writer (prime example, Shaun Hutson, British horror writer who has received numerous death threats because of his work). More ironically, there's Philip Pulman who mentioned once getting death threats from Christians because his kid's books had witches in them. Very Christian, I'm sure! The organisation PEN aim to stand up for writers in these kind of situations. A worthy cause, I think, in respect of the rights to free thought.


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## Eve (Jun 4, 2005)

Good point Manx.


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## LensmanZ313 (Jun 4, 2005)

> A Wrinkle In Time. Madeleine L'Engle. Dell. Challenged at the Polk City, Fla. Elementary School (1985) by a parent who believed that the story promotes witchcraft, crystal balls, and demons. Challenged in the Anniston Ala. schools (1990). The complainant objected to the book's listing the name of Jesus Christ together with the names of great artists, philosophers, scientists, and religious leaders when referring to those who defend earth against evil. Got it. Let's cross Jesus off that list, shall we?



I want to laugh . . . but can't.

It's sad to hear about books being banned--worse yet, books burned. You hear about Harry Potter books burned and the like. Book burnings . . . conjures up images of the Nazis and their bonfires, burning books that the regime deemed dangerous and subversive . . . .


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## Eve (Jun 4, 2005)

I agree Lensman


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## strangedaze (Jun 4, 2005)

Or Salman Rushdie, who must travel in secret, live in secret, as a result of the fatwa on his head. Fundamentalism is perversion.


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## Eve (Jun 4, 2005)

I thought they were not after him anymore. I did not find The Satanic Verses that interesting, and some parts were funny to me. The whole controversy made it more interesting. The book is on my read again shelf, and I will get to it someday.


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## LensmanZ313 (Jun 4, 2005)

It's all about power. You have James Dobson, Donald Wildmon and others . . . they wish to have power over what we read or watch on TV or in movies or hear over the radio.

Phillip Pullman's _His Dark Materials_ trilogy film version is being stripped of its original content due to studio fears of religious backlash.

Let's hope publishers don't get that way . . . .


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## Saponification (Jun 4, 2005)

"Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings. D.T. Suzuki. Doubleday. Challenged at the Plymouth-Canton school system in Canton, Mich. (1987) because "this book details the teachings of the religion of Buddhism in such a way that the reader could very likely embrace its teachings and choose this as his religion." The last thing we need are a bunch of peaceful Buddhists running around. The horror."

The fact that it happened in the late 80s surprises me, I mean that's well after the rise of Zen in West during the 50s. If it had been in the 30s or 40s it wouldn't have surprised me: most early texts on Buddhism that were translated into English were given lots of really judgemental footnotes.


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## LensmanZ313 (Jun 4, 2005)

Uh-huh. Far be it that we make others aware of different beliefs . . . too too dangerous . . . .


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## journyman161 (Jun 4, 2005)

Now this one I just love. banning a book about censorship & book burning?

Fahrenheit 451.  Ray Bradbury. Ballentine. Ironically, students at the Venado Middle School in Irvine, Calif. received copies of the book with scores of words--mostly "hells" and "damns"--blacked out. The novel is about book burning and censorship. Thankfully, after receiving complaints from parents and being contacted by reporters, school officials said the censored copies would no longer be used (1992).(Purchase)

But what can you expect in a world where arguing over who has the best imaginary friend is the prime cause of war, where people want Myths taught as science, (& even worse, arbitrarily decide they 'know' which one should be taught) where funding is stripped from education & requirements to actually 'Learn' anything are reduced to automatic passes.

If you look at results & expected outcomes, the only conclusion is our leaders WANT us to be this stupid. they've certainly worked hard over the decades to ruin what was originally Govt. OF the people, FOR the People, BY the people.

Now, instead of the population driving Govt. we get to pick which of two almost identical sides we will allow to make up their own minds about what is good for us.

Book bannings are just a symptom of a far wider malaise.

(Sorry, bit of a red flag issue for me)


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## RebelGoddess (Jun 16, 2005)

Wow.

It's sad that eople find it necessary to censor what children read.

Frankly, I find banning books to be ludicrous.

A side note: My AP English clas this past year read over half of the books on that list : )

Gotta give props to my otherwise crap school system for not censoring us.

Racheal


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## blademasterzzz (Jun 17, 2005)

I have always considered people who dislike books because they have 
witches...  well...  nuts, really. Or so insecure that they MUST impose their belief upon the rest of humanity. 




We are _really good _at learning from our history, eh?


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## Kane (Jun 17, 2005)

I'm not a book banner myself.  However, in pondering the subject I came up with this question:

I think most people would agree that reading a lot of good books is a good thing.  If this is true, and reading good books is beneficial, then is it possible that reading bad books is detrimental?  Now, perhaps someone who has read enough good books will be able to see a bad book for what it is.  But a person who has only read bad books may end up with skewed ideas for his efforts.  I guess the real question is what makes a book bad?  Most people would agree that there are poisonous ideas, and a book that paints such ideas in a positive light may indeed have ill effects on a person.  Any thoughts?


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## Hodge (Jun 17, 2005)

That's a good question. Reading lots of books in general allows for a more open mind, and if you've read a lot of books on a certain subject you should be able to pick out which ones are crap. But if some kid who hasn't read a book in years decides to pick up a copy of, say, _The Ten Offenses_ by Pat Robertson, then that kid may very well buy into his ridiculous BS. I don't know, though. It seems like people who don't read very much aren't affected by the few books they do read, while those who read a lot are able take everything with a grain of salt.


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## waylander (Jun 17, 2005)

Kane said:
			
		

> I guess the real question is what makes a book bad?  Most people would agree that there are poisonous ideas, and a book that paints such ideas in a positive light may indeed have ill effects on a person.  Any thoughts?



Bad writing makes a book bad.
Problem is one of education, that's all.
People get confused with books as they do with films and the news.
They no longer know the difference between sensible and crazy, fiction and reality. Why so many 'reality shows' that are fiction disguised to look like truth ?
JMan said earlier on the thread that it is a deliberate attempt from governments  to keep people in a state of stupidity, I think unfortunately 
he's right.


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## journyman161 (Jun 17, 2005)

Sounds to me Kane like it's already happening. It's fine for us to read poisonous books about forced sex, murder, torture, power politics etc, but not to read about anything different from the enforced status quo.

A well-read person will have no problems marshalling the thoughts/ideas to combat a poisonous idea, but those raised on dogma simply don't have the experience to negotiate their way through false logic, biased arguments etc. And this happens NOW.

Banning books is probably a stupid move because it awakens the rage of people like us; they would have been better to stick to the ridicule idea. It seems to have worked perfectly for Da Vinci Code, setting up a false idea & relic trail so it can be successfully ridiculed later. Ditto UFO's, ditto true history of our race etc. (Hmm., lot's of etc's here - am I getting lazy?)


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## Talia_Brie (Jun 17, 2005)

Eve said:
			
		

> I would like to know what you think about banning books.
> 
> Here is a list of books:
> 
> http://title.forbiddenlibrary.com/



Why aren't any of Dan Brown's books on there.

I'd vote for banning his books. They're shit.


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## Ralizah (Jun 17, 2005)

Those who burn books burn with them their own integrity.


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## blademasterzzz (Jun 17, 2005)

> Why aren't any of Dan Brown's books on there.
> 
> I'd vote for banning his books. They're shit.




Along with Grisham's.


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## Hodge (Jun 17, 2005)

> Ditto UFO's, ditto true history of our race etc. (Hmm., lot's of etc's here - am I getting lazy?)



Whoa there cowboy, UFO's do exist—unidentified flying objects are picked up all the time on radar, film, or the naked eye. As to what they are and what people claim them to be... There isn't a false trail. Not one that a person can disprove, anyway, because there is almost a complete lack of physical evidence but an abundance of eyewitness evidence.



> Along with Grisham's.



Grisham rocks.



Up here we have a banned books week where everyone is encouraged to read banned books. They're only banned in certain southern areas.


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## journyman161 (Jun 17, 2005)

Hodge, I was talking about how the UFO phenomena has been ridiculed, not actually ridiculing them myself. 

It's become a very effective tactic to stop reasonable & reasoned discussion about what's going on. Mention them & if you don't get a 'crackpot' reaction it's because you're in a roomful of 'believers.


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## Hodge (Jun 17, 2005)

> It's become a very effective tactic to stop reasonable & reasoned discussion about what's going on. Mention them & if you don't get a 'crackpot' reaction it's because you're in a roomful of 'believers.



That's why I violently berate anyone who calls me a crackpot and I make them sound like morons for being so close minded. But really, many of the "believers" are nut jobs who won't listen to logic... Ugh. They're the ones who give the real truth seekers a bad name.


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## Hodge (Jun 17, 2005)

Oh and yeah, nevermind I misread your post.


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## Kikster (Jun 17, 2005)

banning books? are you kidding me? kids nowadays play grand theft auto when they are 6 years old, and their parents are worried about what they could read in a book???

come on, it's just nuts. I read tom sawyer (and LOVED it) when I was 7, and it didn't ruin me as a person. what these morons don't understand is that books are written in a context. tom sawyer's context was one of southern US in the 1800s, and what happens in the book is normal for that time!!!

I don't even want to mention all the other books that have been banned... the reasons are just too ridicolous!!! these people just proved to the world how ignorant and narrow minded they are.

no book should ever be burned or censored. no matter how bad it is. who are we to decide what is bad and what is good anyways???


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## Kane (Jun 17, 2005)

I bet you judge what's bad or good everyday...


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## Kikster (Jun 17, 2005)

yeah, but just because I don't like something I don't burn it or raise hell about it. I really don't want to force other people liking what I like. and I don't like being told what I should like, or read, or eat, etc etc


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## Verago (Jun 24, 2005)

Really, you can't truly ban a book. There's Project Gutenburg to help us around that.

I think censorship is crap. If we can hear about child molestors on the news, publically, why can't we read, voluntarily, a book that we like?

Grr...


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## Sir_Satoshi (Jun 24, 2005)

Just looked over a list of banned books...

o.o These books are awesome. Slaughterhouse-Five, The Catcher in the Rye...

1984 By George Orwell. =D I love the irony.


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## Ilan Bouchard (Jun 24, 2005)

I should mention I'm against banning books of any form.  But, debate calls, and thus I must answer.  (This may even be worth moving into the Debate section, but I imagine people might get more defensive there, for some reason).

There are books, though, that have great influences on people.  Hitler's Mein Kampf, for example, was the prime contributor of most of his followers.  The book spread so quickly in Germany that it sold more copies than the Bible for a while.  We can all agree Nazis are up to no good.  One might then rationalize that Mein Kampf would be worth banning, to prevent future Nazi uprisings.  And while that isn't very likely, that is the fear that leads to book banning.
On the other hand, as has been mentioned, it isn't really fair to dictate what beliefs are acceptable and which aren't.

Comments?


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## The Thing (Jun 25, 2005)

An interesting list. 

Alice in Wonderland, Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, even the bible, but no American Psycho. If they'd made the film like the book it would have been banned under the obscene acts law. That book is sick and twisted. I'm not for banning books but some of these banned titles begger belief.


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## Saponification (Jun 25, 2005)

It's misunderstood. It's a satire that says a lot about society.


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## strangedaze (Jun 26, 2005)

Books don't kill people. People kill people. The last person I know who read Mein Kampf didn't go on an anti-Semetic killing spree, but I do know a guy or two who are flung into KKK-like rages after watching Cops on Primetime.


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## horror_fan90 (Jun 29, 2005)

*Wha??*

What's the point in banning a book? How stupid can people be? There is absolutely nothing worse in books than some of the movies you can rent these days. For god sakes, most books would be no worse than PG-13 in movie terms, but parents let them watch those all the time, dont they? Shoot, if the stupid religious fanatics are going to burn something, make it pornography


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## Saponification (Jun 30, 2005)

*Re: Wha??*



			
				horror_fan90 said:
			
		

> What's the point in banning a book? How stupid can people be? There is absolutely nothing worse in books than some of the movies you can rent these days. For god sakes, most books would be no worse than PG-13 in movie terms, but parents let them watch those all the time, dont they? Shoot, if the stupid religious fanatics are going to burn something, make it pornography



Most books don't go over PG-13? 

/me looks at bookshelf
/me looks at "to read" list

I'd safely say I have a nice collection of "refused classifcation" titles sitting here.


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## Viper9 (Jun 30, 2005)

*Burn 'em!*

Cool thread, lots of interesting responses.

I can't find a solid moral justification for any sort of banning or censorship.  I've never banend my son from watching anything, and the closest I've come to censorship is requiring him to watch or read certain things only when I'm there with him.

I mean, Christ, I took him, to see the South Park movie (which is a hilarious take on censorship) when he was three.  He loved it, still does.

People tend to grossly underestimate what children can handle --especailly, what they can handle when you add in context and get them thinking about the substance of what they've seen or read.  We're also mislead by deliberately misinterpreted and often blatently false reports of potential "harms" of "mature" or "offensive" material spread by those in favour of banning and censorship.

It's about ignorance and control.  The more ignorant people are, the easier they are to control.  And that's what censorship and banning accomplish: ignorance.  Proponants say they want to preserve "innocence" -- but innocence is just ignorance that you approve of in children.

So, to paraphrase South Park's delightful little Wendy: "Fuck book burners, fuck them right up the ear!"


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## strangedaze (Jun 30, 2005)

> So, to paraphrase South Park's delightful little Wendy: "Fuck book burners, fuck them right up the ear!"



Free love, baby, that's what I'm talking about!


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## Ejp414 (Aug 7, 2005)

I've already seen that list (for English class, actually) & agree that it's ridiculous—but I think that most do. What really caught my attention is that someone tried to make a vernacular-English version of the Bible. That's really neat! Did anything like that ever get completed? I can see how it would be difficult since they didn't speak English, but hm. . . .


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## Julian_Gallo (Aug 7, 2005)

I think banning any book for any reason is wrong.  Period.  One does have a right to speak out against something they find offensive but to ban it?  No.  The whole idea is just ridiculous, especially in a free society. I know the art of book banning comes from BOTH the left and the right, but for different reasons.

If school boards ban certain books for whatever reason they have, this is wrong too.  People should be able to read whatever they want to read.  But if a school board bans a book, one could always get the book anyway...at a bookstore if their library won't stock it (or get the book on-line if they must). 

If the government gets into this business, then that's far worse.  

I remember reading a book in the 6th grade that my teacher "confiscated" from me because SHE felt it was "inappropriate".  The next day, my parents went into the school, got the book back from her, and handed it me telling her that I could read whatever I wanted, it was up to them to decide what was appropriate or not.  

When it comes to kids, let the parents decide for their own kids.  

My personal opinion is, if a book is on a "banned list", people should go out and read them just on principal alone.


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## Julian_Gallo (Aug 7, 2005)

Just read the list of banned books from the link provided.  

In some instances, I am not surprised because they were banned in societies that don't exactly respect the free flow of ideas.  It's the books banned here in the U.S. and for the ridiculous reasons for it that disturbs me.  Are people nuts?


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## Gehrig (Aug 8, 2005)

Banning books is small minded and, quite frankly, ineffective.  Anyone who thinks they can control information in this day and age is kidding themselves.  The Chinese government has not yet understood this. 

Rather than banning books, it is far better to speak to the merits, or lack of same, of these books.  If you don't agree with a book write a critique, or rebuttal.  Of course, the small minded among us do not have the time or talent for that.  I don't hate it enough to rail against it.  No, it is far easier simply to draw a line through the title.  

These people should look up pathetic, unless they have banned the dictionary.  After all, it contains words like intercourse which could be sexual in nature.  Of course, they could simply describe a conversation as well. Enough from me.   :?


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