I have entered this item to continue the discussion on banned books in Fall
1998 Agora's Announcement item.  Hope we can pick up the dialogue on this
subject.

25 responses total.

  I recently started "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."  The choice
  was coincidental, it had nothing to do with the banned books item in
  Agora, it's just one of those great works of American literature that
  I've always meant to read (which is not to say that there aren't a
  great many "great works of American literature" that I have no intention
  of *ever* reading, banned or unbanned.)  I like Twain, have read much
  of his other work, but somehow never read Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn.

  The mania for banning books is one to which America has always been
  susceptible.  Still, Anthony Comstock would be proud to know that his
  spirit is alive and well at the end of the 20th century..

I feel it is foolishness to ban books.

 Yeah, but try telling that to the PC crowd who wants to save everyone from
themselves. No one enjoys total freedom of the press in this country, and it's
a real shame.
 Every banned book is a chink in the armor of our freedom. Take away Huck
Finn one month, next thing you know The Bible is on the banned list, then
we begin burning things, and limiting what can and cannot be posted to the
Internet and places like Grex. Defy the book banners. This is how Hitler got
started.

Don't you just want to go out and see what the banning is all about?
In America, at least, banning a book is probably the worst thing you can
do to keep people from reading it, thank goodness.  "Congress shall make
no law..." well...city councils, public libraries, and public schools,
aren't Congress, unfortunately.  Not that the Constitution stops Congress
from trying to abridge freedom of speech and of the press.  They will
not get the point until they themselves can no longer speek freely.

        No, losing the Great War is what allowed Hitler to get started. :P

        The best way to prevent something from being seen in this economy
is to create a slicker, more advertised, but noticeably different version
of it.  

 re #3:  As far as I can tell the Bible is the last thing most of the
 pro-banning folks would like to restrict.  There are two main camps of
 would-be censors, one which is very conservative and religious and its
 opposite which is interested in restricting books which are not politically
 correct.  As far as I can tell the former camp still substantially 
 outnumbers the latter, not that I find either one acceptable..

I think the most recent banned book or ex-banned book or whatever that I read
was "I know why the caged bird sings". Which was quite a while ago. Then
again, I'm not really up on what's been banned and what hasn't.

Re resp:4 - Ah, but the 14th Amendment applies the Bill-of-Rights
restrictions to the states, too.  If a community wants to express its standards
by not stocking a particular book in its public or school libraries, I think
that that is within their rights.  If a group of private citizens wishes to try
to convince their fellow citizens to do so, then that is within their rights,
too.  Now, if they want to tell private booksellers that they may not stock a
particular book, that's a different story.

If I had time, I would read all banned books.

        The restriction is on states and the Federal government, but isn't
against the spirit, if not the letter, of the law, for a community to refuse
to stock a book that others wish to read or wish to donate?

If they restrict the stocking of a book, the customer may still request the
book.  If the seller wishes to keep the customer's business, it will offer  to
order the book for the customer.  Still, the customer must know exactly which
book to ask for.

Re resp:10 - I think that a stronger case could be made for that in
reference to public libraries than to school libraries.  Again, they would not
be prohibiting the (presumably) protected speech, but expressing their local
community standards by not condoning it in the publicly controlled forum.  If
they tried to prevent a speech by a disapproved person, or prohibit sale or
distribution of the writings thereof, again, that would clearly be a violation
of free-speech rights.

I think that a state would be too big to be considered a "local community"
in this sense, but a town or city would not be.  Am I making any sense?

I!tel losttoy
if we 

  I keep reading "losttoy" as "tolstoy"..  guess I'm in the right place,
  anyway..

Sorry, I got interrupted and forgot I was shelled to respond.

Wait - lilmo, are you saying that public libraries should have more freedom
in refusing to stock books than school libraries should?  That seems kind of
illogical.  There are plenty of books that belong in any public library that
I wouldn't dream of putting in an elementary school library...or am I
mis-reading #12?

I worked in a public library for two years.  

Our policy was that everything was available based on the requests of the 
patrons.  If people didn't want their children to read them, they would, 
presumably, take charge of their children and prevent them from reading 
the book.  

Do you know how many complaints a library usually gets from irked patrons 
who think their public library is "compromising the standards of the 
community"?

I learned of a library that had lots of requests for Madonna's book 
"Sex".  That particular library had a policy that, if they had a certain 
number of requests, they would purchase a copy of the book.  When the 
library's board of directors decided to buy a copy of the book, a large 
percentage of the community got up in arms and complained a lot and 
picketted the library.  The library still bought the book.  They bought 
only one copy and kept it in the reference department on a chain so that 
no one could steal it.  They said that, although the pictures were fairly 
explicit, they weren't very good (really grainy).  Eventually, all the 
furor died down and life got back to normal.  After a month, the book had 
been worked over to the point where it was past redemption (torn pages, 
pages ripped out, dog eared, doodled, etc).  So the book was discarded 
and the board of directors decided not to get another copy.

Now--
That was a very big deal, but the point of it all is, public libraries 
are usually subsidized by the government, which means that they are 
subject to the Bill of Rights: specifically the right to freedom of the 
press.  In other words, if you don't want your kids to read it, fine.  
Just don't try to stop the rest of us from reading it.

<rant=off>  
Sorry, I get verbose when I'm passionate about something. <blush>

I can remember, when I was around 10 and just getting into sci-fi, checking
out a copy of A Clockwork Orange from the library and being told, very calmly,
that I probably wouldn't like it anyway and why don't I find something else
to read.  I don't remember my parents monitoring what I read too closely,
although they probably did and I just didn't notice.  So now I'm trying to
think what would have happened had I been able to read whatever I got my hands
on...    Part of the problem is, I can't imagine growing up any differently
than I have been growing up, so it's hard to picture any sort of "what if"
about my own life.  

I guess what it amounts to is, on the one hand I can't imagine being hugely
altered by a book or two: being a non-violent person, I most likely would have
put down A Clockwork Orange after 10 pages or so even if I could understand
it, and if I had been a more violently inclined person, the book wouldn't be
bringing out anything that wasn't already there.  On the other hand, Everyone
seems to agree that there are things that a 10-year-old shouldn't read, and
I find it hard to believe that Everyone is wrong on this one.

Depends on the emotional maturity of the ten year old.

Jon was reading the Newspaper at ten and that has lots more violence in 
it than the average novel.

In any case, I still think that if parents want their child not to read 
certain books they should monitor their child's library visits, not try 
to pass laws that restrict books from entering the library.

Re resp:16 - You are misreading resp:12 but I'm not surprised.  It took
me almost a whole minute, staring at it and resp:10 to figure out what was
said, and I'm the one that wrote it!!  :-)  There seem to be too many canceling
negatives for it to be obvious what was meant.

What I was trying to say was that it seems to be much more likely to be
against the spirit of the law for public libraries to refuse to stock items
than for school libraries to do so.  That is, I think it would be easier to
use the courts to force a public library to carry something than a school
library.  I think that it is clear that children need protection.

Does that make more sense?

My point exactly, lilmo.  Very well put.

Ah.  I see.  I must've missed one o' them negatives....

Like I said, I'm not surprised, DV.

Thank you, bookworm.


So, have you read any banned books lately?  :-)

It occurs to me that most of the books I've read that I know have been
banned and frequently censored, I read in my public high school.
Interesting, that.

The only banned book I'm especially planning to read is _The Satanic
Verses_.  I read another Rushdie book that I much enjoyed, and am curious
as to what the fuss is all about with this one.  Not sure if I'll get
around to it anytime soon, though...

Well, let us know how it goes, when it does, OK?

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