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Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

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Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#61

Post by anamax »

sukuriant wrote: post #46
anamax wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of books that aren't on the reading list. Are they all "banned"?

No; however, they aren't on the reading list for potentially different reasons. This book (I have not read it) was on the reading list, but has now been stripped from the reading list because someone didn't like it and was vocal about this. A very contrived example of a similar vein would be: Cooking with a Microwave isn't on the reading list. 1984 isn't on the reading list because some bureaucrat didn't like how it…

My point is that "banned" requires some attempt to interfere with access.

Taking something off a reading list isn't interfering with access. ("They won't read it if it isn't on the list" doesn't change things as it applies to everything that's not on the list and you're arguing that the reason matters.)

There's nothing wrong with objecting to how a reading list is selected, but no matter what the reason, that process does not ban anything.

Yes labelling something as a "ban" has persuasive power, but that doesn't make the label accurate.

Such mis-labelling actually makes it harder to get people to react to actual wolves, so to speak.

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#62

Post by VladRussian »

Overmind wrote: post #16

This is ridiculous. They also shouldn't teach history because you know someone might be offended the same way.

if you compare history curriculum of different countries, you'll notice that it is already happening, everywhere. Check WWII history, for example, in Japan and China, WWI in Turkey and Armenia, etc...

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#64

Post by anigbrowl »

kenjackson wrote: post #25

It is a bit more nuanced. As pointed out by the appeal record ( http://www.seattleschools.org/area/board/10-11agendas/111710... ) there were three required non-fiction books for the 10th grade list: BNW, Othello, and Lord of the Flies. Apparently all three make reference to native or indigenous people as "savages". And then apparently in one lecture they promoted an inaccurate view as to why we have reservations. It'…

No, it's worse - the whole episode is a glaring case of illteracy run wild. The original complaint and supporting documentation describes BNW and the other cited works as 'non-fiction.' The complaint about the word 'savage' appears predicated on the assumption that it has never been applied to anyone other than Native Americans. The members of the reconsideration panel seem oblivious to why the objections are so misplaced.

After being notified (via a form letter) of the decision to take it off the curriculum and her right to appeal said decision - which she does, requesting it should be removed from the required reading list for the whole school district and not just that which her daughter attends. Despite attempts by the faculty and principal to explain the meaning of the book she apparently still believes it's a work of non-fiction. Cluelessness all round...at best. At worst, abuse of process as a poor justification for a shakedown.

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#65

Post by swombat »

grellas wrote: post #49

The Enlightenment was premised on the broad idea that people were rational and that, once education became widespread, reason would eventually stamp out superstition and other evils and would cause humanity to want to promote and defend liberty. This thinking broadly underlies the idea that we are continuing to progress as a species and will ultimately learn to solve the problems that historically have beset us. This…

The next thing you know, they will be banning books that use the word "niggardly."

Worth pointing out, because when I saw this word while reading Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf recently I did a double-take, that niggardly has absolutely nothing to do with "niggers".

Niggardly means "miserly" or "stingy". It is based on "niggard", not "nigger", which means the same - a miser, a stingy person. The roots of this word are:

Derived from the Old Norse verb nigla, meaning "to fuss about small matters". Cognate to the English word "niggle", which retains the original Norse meaning.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/niggard has further information:

This word, along with its adverbial form niggardly, should be used with caution. Owing to the sound similarity to the highly inflammatory racial epithet nigger, these words can cause unnecessary confusion and unintentional offense. The word is not related to the word nigger (a corruption of the Spanish word negro, meaning "black"), though someone unfamiliar with the word niggardly might take offense due to the phonetic similarity between the words.

Talk about an unhelpful coincidence. I wonder how many words fall out of disuse not because of their meaning but because of their phonetic similarity to words considered offensive.

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#66

Post by roel_v »

I realize the 'ban' is because of the Native American/savages angle, but now that the book comes up I'd like to ask: I read Brave New World expecting a dystopic society, but failed to understand why the world that is described is dystopic. Huxley seems to go out of his way to ascribe all sorts of pejorative attributes to the society in the book, to the point where the promiscuous sex lives of the inhabitants are presented so prominently that I got the feeling he did this mostly to instigate the (presumably morally much more strict) early 20th century reader against it. Still, he described a world where the vast majority of people were happy, actually happy and content with their lives, and managed to live those lives without much hardship or grief.

Now maybe if one takes the position that hardship and grief are somehow morally virtuous (a position that is surprisingly common and that I as, I think, a rational person have a very hard time understanding, especially since the reasons for it are very seldom given in coherent theories) there is merit to this argument. But even then I still fail to see why the 'savages' in the book, or the protagonist, are somehow morally better than the other people.

So if anyone has read the book and wants to explain why they feel the world described in there is bad, I'd be very interested to hear why they think so.

(I'm leaving aside some what I think are minor issues, like the apparent destructive qualities of soma addictions - that was one of those other points I felt Huxley just put in there to get his point across, the technical deficiencies of the drug are irrelevant to the moral position he's (presumably) arguing).

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#67

Post by dLuna »

grellas wrote: post #49

The Enlightenment was premised on the broad idea that people were rational and that, once education became widespread, reason would eventually stamp out superstition and other evils and would cause humanity to want to promote and defend liberty. This thinking broadly underlies the idea that we are continuing to progress as a species and will ultimately learn to solve the problems that historically have beset us. This…

4. A brave new world is set in LONDON, UK. Not that many native Americans in that neighborhood.

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#68

Post by andrew1 »

dLuna wrote: post #67
grellas wrote: post #49

The Enlightenment was premised on the broad idea that people were rational and that, once education became widespread, reason would eventually stamp out superstition and other evils and would cause humanity to want to promote and defend liberty. This thinking broadly underlies the idea that we are continuing to progress as a species and will ultimately learn to solve the problems that historically have beset us. This…

4. A brave new world is set in LONDON, UK. Not that many native Americans in that neighborhood.

It's true that the book is set in London, but I believe that the 'native reservation' that the characters visit is in fact in the US.

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#70

Post by corin_ »

kenjackson wrote: post #25

It is a bit more nuanced. As pointed out by the appeal record ( http://www.seattleschools.org/area/board/10-11agendas/111710... ) there were three required non-fiction books for the 10th grade list: BNW, Othello, and Lord of the Flies. Apparently all three make reference to native or indigenous people as "savages". And then apparently in one lecture they promoted an inaccurate view as to why we have reservations. It'…

non-fiction?
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