181–190 of 284 posts
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That makes more sense. How could a library or a bookshop in a location legally offer books that are banned in that location?
Historically (and maybe still today, in some very authoritarian countries!) university libraries were often this.
Even discussing a taboo topic may cost someone their freedom, if not their life.
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THAT would be awesome bravery and freedom: "Come and take it" has been powerful before.
I don't know the law in Portugal but I will assume the principles are similar to other western European countries. If you have book that are actually banned in these countries, I don't think many people will call it awesome. Books are typically banned for: - copyright: not really a ban, but the copyright holder simply doesn't want it to be published the way you want it to be, doing it anyway is just piracy. It can be…
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> one need only remember that Life of Brian (the Monty Python movie) is banned in the Vatican. I can find no confirmation of this, or of any ban since 1966 (and that is assuming that the index of forbidden books had legal force in the Vatican). > But if the criteria of being in the library - that the book be banned somewhere in the world; that's a reason to visit the library in of itself. Is it worth a visit to a phy…
One thing to note about this list is that it mostly seems to be books which were _banned at some point_. It's also terribly incomplete; while they got unbanned a while back, at one point Ireland banned _thousands_ of books, for instance. (Some but not all country grids do list unbanned dates.)
Some historical bans and the reasons for them are very interesting too.
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> Right, that's the problem Is it a problem? I think it allows greater flexibility for humor and subtext than ever. It's the people who insist on contextualess interpretation that rain on the parade. > it's ok to call books "banned" even if they're not First of all, of course it's ok. Nobody is getting hurt. Second, the books are banned—just not where the bookstore is. I'm not sure how anyone could struggle to unders…
>I think it allows greater flexibility for humor and subtext than ever. It has more ambiguity because we had many similar words for similar things that are differential in some minor way. Now everything can mean anything, it is leaning more expressive with less precision, English's best quality is that it balances the precise and the expressive, the craft is gone and if you misunderstand what I've written because I'v…
I don't think you're this unable to discern meaning. I have faith in you.
> if you misunderstand what I've written because I've used the wrong words that's your fault.
You could say the same thing about how you're reacting right now.
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No, make it part of the curriculum. Read it and shown how boring and stupid it is. Demystify such nonsense
> Read it and shown how boring and stupid it is. Except it's not, or it couldn't have continued to radicalize people to this very day.
Like the bible people mostly know the parts of it that fit their own agenda.
And don’t underestimate the effect it has if you are forced to read a book in school from front to back and write essays about it.
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Banning a book in a school district still signifies a form of authoritarianism. If someone is prevented from reading Maus[0] (or finding out they are in a cult, or a victim of domestic abuse), what is the effective difference to them between an authoritarian censoring it at the national level or the local one? [0]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/holocaust-novel-maus-banne...
The effective difference is of course that they could easily get that book from somewhere else if they want it. If I'm prevented from bringing my dog into a restaurant, that doesn't mean that dogs are banned. It means I have to go to the restaurant on the other side of the street. If McDonald's doesn't serve any hard liquor it doesn't mean that alcohol has been banned in the country.
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I've banned a number of books from my household as I don't want my child exposed to them. And I support banning them from the school. Children aren't adults. It's reasonable to expect that education caters to a common denominator within society. I would only have a problem if adults couldn't acquire these books.
A family we know got swept up in the "banned books" movement. They repost banned book content on their Instagram and even got T-shirts with witty sayings about supporting banned books. They bought some books for their kids from a banned books list thinking they were "banned" for thought-control reasons, but opened one up to find an illustrated guide to using mobile phone apps to find partners for anonymous hook-ups a…
Whenever the topic of “banned books” comes up, a bunch of people argue about whether they should be called “banned”. What I haven’t seen mentioned in these discussions is where the mental association of “banned books” comes from. In America, at least, the school curriculum spends a lot of time talking about dictators. It mentions, numerous times over many years of a child’s life, that something dictators often do is…
¹ literally banned, i.e. it was illegal to buy, sell or distribute such publications in the state: https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1929/act/21/enacted/en/h...
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The effective difference is of course that they could easily get that book from somewhere else if they want it. If I'm prevented from bringing my dog into a restaurant, that doesn't mean that dogs are banned. It means I have to go to the restaurant on the other side of the street. If McDonald's doesn't serve any hard liquor it doesn't mean that alcohol has been banned in the country.
So you are suggesting that kids should just go to a different public school?