Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

blogs.seattleweekly.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 162 posts

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#101

Post by rbanffy »

dangrossman wrote: post #15
rbanffy wrote: post #2

"the text lacks literary value" Oh boy... Why not ban Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 while we are at it. And let's burn all copies too. What kind of spineless school principal is this?

Especially in wealthier areas, school administrations have to bend over backwards to please parents or they really will sue the school districts over insane things like this.

No. Their job is to educate kids.

Unfortunately, they bend over backwards to please kids who complain to their parents about how crappy their school is.

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#102

Post by bmunro »

malandrew wrote: post #60

best comment on the article: "Brave New World takes place in London... I'm left wondering how many Native American reservations are near London, England."

But it doesn't take place entirely in London.

The reservation is in New Mexico. Two of the characters go on a trip there and meet a white man that lives among the native americans, but is not fully accepted by them.

TThe above is just another comment by someone that does not appear to have read the book.

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#104

Post by JoelMcCracken »

chc wrote: post #36
JoelMcCracken wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing with "It's just like Hitler!", "It's not what the founding father's wanted!", etc. I many times support the formal logic requirement.

"It's not what the Founding Fathers wanted" is not generally an issue of logic. If something is flagrantly against the values they espoused, then whether or not that thing should be opposed is simply a matter of your values. If it's not entirely clear whether they would have supported something but there could be reasonable arguments either way, then it's a matter of opinion. In neither case is it an example of fault…

I could explain what I'm referring to, but then, why do so when wikipedia does it so well?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#105

Post by theoden »

mapphusel wrote: post #89
sdh wrote: post #32

The book is about sterile, future society. "Savages" is completely relative. We'd all be considered savages by BNW standards. If that school focused more on educating and less on banning it, the student might have understood the context of the book.

It's not even relative: it's ironic. The term is used ignorantly by the people outside the reservation. The 'Savage' cares for his mother and reads Shakespeare, something that people outside the reservation don't do any more. It's clear that Huxley does not regard the 'Savage' as being savage.

But we can't have those nuances in our multicultural brave new world! It's the person being offended who decides what's offensive (so long as they belong to a protected group). Four legs good! Two legs bad!

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#106

Post by eru »

moconnor wrote: post #82
eru wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the philosopher Kant would have had some problems with his name in English. (In German Kant just sounds very similar to the name for edge Kante, and not female anatomy.) But I guess you get around that impasse by just pronouncing it wrong. (German pronunciation: [ɪˈmaːnu̯eːl ˈkant])

I've had philosophical discussions with Germans that ended abruptly because one party suddenly exclaimed 'Kant!'

Could be me. I'm not a friend of Kant's philosophy.

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#107

Post by pmr_ »

jrockway wrote: post #56
TomOfTTB wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's true. Civil Disobedience is a tool to draw attention to a broken system. So in the 1950s and 1960s I don't believe most white Americans realized segregation was a problem (remember segregation was largely gone from the North and West by 1950: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_segregation_in_the_Unite... ). So Civil Disobedience was necessary to draw people's attention to the problems still in th…

Is it really "crazy people getting their way" when the crazy person complains, the school says, "oh yeah, it's banned, uh huh", and then everyone reads it anyway? To me, that sounds more like getting the crazy person to STFU as quickly as possible. Sometimes you have to pretend to throw your principles away until the next shiny object comes along.

Yeah, and the next shiny thing that comes along is personal freedom, free speech and some "crazy person" complains and you just "pretend" to throw away your principles to make them shut up.

'and then everyone reads it anyway' And when the time comes some simpleton that just takes orders and follows the law to the letter will come and throw you into prison for reading it.

Are you serious?

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#108

Post by Goronmon »

roel_v wrote: post #66

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 pres…

I read Brave New World expecting a dystopic society, but failed to understand why the world that is described is dystopic.

I'll quote a passage from the Wikipedia article on it that expresses just one frightening aspect of the society described in the book.

Natural reproduction has been done away with and children are created, 'decanted' and raised in Hatcheries and Conditioning Centres, where they are divided into five castes (which are further split into 'Plus' and 'Minus' members) and designed to fulfill predetermined positions within the social and economic strata of the World State. Fetuses chosen to become members of the highest caste, 'Alpha', are allowed to develop naturally while maturing to term in "decanting bottles", while fetuses chosen to become members of the lower castes ('Beta', 'Gamma', 'Delta', 'Epsilon') are subjected to in situ chemical interference to cause arrested development in intelligence or physical growth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#109

Post by masklinn »

corin_ wrote: post #84
MarkSweep wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person writing the complaint letters repeatedly referred to the books as "non-fiction". See page 10 and 12 in the parent comment's PDF link.

But you weren't quoting it, you were calling them non-fiction yourself... and by any definition possible they are fiction.

I didn't read it that way at all. I read his comment as saying the list has a list of 3 books labelled as mandatory and non-fiction (and an unspecified number of books which maybe be any of optional and fiction), and then giving that list. He didn't call the books anything at any point.

Re: Brave New World banned from High School curriculum

#110

Post by sukuriant »

anamax wrote: post #61
sukuriant wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're right, it isn't banning. How would you describe it? If we are to raise a banner against this person's effect on their area, we need to have a precise word that not only describes what's going on, but also reflects to the reader the strength of the defender's stance.
Post reply on HN