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On December 03 2013 04:48 Pandain wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2013 04:42 farvacola wrote:On December 03 2013 04:34 Pandain wrote:On December 03 2013 04:16 itsjustatank wrote:
I have more thoughts on this issue but I'm on a cell phone so I will reserve them for later. For now, your high school interpretations are deeply flawed at best and demonstrate a dangerous level of authoritarianism at worst. Will be excited to hear them. Also it wasn't high school, it was Honors College, but not that that would impact the strength of the statements anyway. I do believe that the only time books should be banned is when it more acts as a guide for violent acts(not just illegal ones imo); violent acts are almost always wrong in domestic society. There's no reason literary expression should protect guides to bombing and murder, why pamphlets on how to Rufi someone should exist, or other things. It passes the line of artistic expression and instead infringes on the physical status of others. The problem here is that you have not shown how the books or the ideas contained within are themselves what infringes on the "physical" status of others (which, I'll add, isn't as clear as it could be to begin with); you are just hoping that everyone else jumps from book to actor as seamlessly as you do. I'm not saying we should censor books really ever on the sole basis of the ideas contained; even novels like American Psycho(which is actually anti-serial killer and conserumism) which seem to promote violent acts can be useful for expression and I think it's expression enough and not enough definitive to point that it motivates violent acts. Only when they instead start to act as a guide for murder. Even if it glorifies it, that's okay although wrong. But if you teach someone, give commentary, best ways and worst ways. Well that's pretty unacceptable in any society and objectively wrong.
Boy, you should never read Chuck Palahniuk or you're going to suffer a heart attack.
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On December 03 2013 03:16 remedium wrote:I believe that the banning of a book is a sign of fear. I don't believe that it is ever ok. Proliferation of knowledge and debate is important to the development of humanity. Also, + Show Spoiler +Wow, that FBI watchlist bait.
NOPE
Unless you believe that freedom of expression should take precedence over any kind of perjury, privacy or secrecy it is not possible.
When that is said, the OP seems to have concentrated on "teaching of crime". Unfortunately criminal descriptiveness is too easy to find in fiction. If you wanted to ban descriptions of crimes from writing, half the novels at a library would be at risk. The line-drawing there seems very penible.
When that is said, my line is closer to perjury of a real life person or showing everything about a person without their consent. Those would be very destructive to a persons image and may lead to unfounded blackballing or worse.
There may be things like the launch codes to the US nuclear arsenal or whereabouts of weapon depots, soldiers in a warzone etcetera where state secrecy should trumph the first amendment or free speech.
In other situations, you may argue that discussion will clear any issues, but books are not on their own social activities and discussion of books may be sparse. Online or in daily newspapers the problem doesnt exist if there is a possiblity for people to debate.
You may argue that a book may need some analytical support or political counterweight to avoid people getting trapped in a violent and dangerous mindset, but that is again an extremely hard line to draw.
To make it a more interesting debate:
Is Bering Breiviks manifest reasonable to read without some counterbalance?
Is Adolf Hitlers "Mein Kampf" fine without some contextualisation?
Is the bible or quran fine to read without some history and knowledge of interpretation techniques or common interpretation?
Is Silvia Plaths "Arial" harmless enough for people to swallow, without falling into her trap?
Is "Candide" by Voltaire a reasonable book to read without some moderation?
"The Peaceful Pill" by Nitschke and Stewart a handbook to euthanasia. Teaching murder?
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On December 03 2013 04:05 itsjustatank wrote:
Never. Full stop.
What this nigga said
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There's books teaching violent methods, what shall we do?
We'll make rules banning their sale and distribution.
But how will we enforce these rules?
Hmm, good question... I've got it! We'll threaten them all with violence!
*facepalm*
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This just in: The internet makes banning books impossibru. Printing stuff is very easy nowadays.
Reading is never a problem, the problems start when actions are taken. Actions can be prohibited, (written) ideas can't and should not be. Frowned upon, yes (ideally argued against) - forbidden, no.
I'd also like to hear who should "accuse" books? Who should do the ruling and how will those bans be enforced?
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Hungary11283 Posts
On December 03 2013 04:36 farvacola wrote:
Banning is generally bad, but I would like to see a moratorium on "to be or not to be" constructions. All in all, OP, content notwithstanding, Id watch the overly flourishing language. When a two, three, and four syllable word will all do, the three and four are not inherently superior and in many ways detract from the persuasive capacity of your writing. I can already guarantee that your teachers probably don't mark you hard for ornamental language, but if you want to keep writing and see it improve, I'd work on moderating the fancy. You will run into teachers who don't like mouthfuls, and in terms of writing for the general public, this becomes even more true.
When reading your essay (with a very interesting topic!), I had similar thoughts. For example, "Remarkable contingencies should remain the only area where literacy restriction is possible." does not say much more (in my mind) than: "books should only be banned under very specific circumstances". Not that my sentence is the best ever, but your version expresses a simple point in very complex words, which is unnecessary.
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Regarding the content, I find your initial axiom "The only significant time when censorship is permissible should be when it threatens the physical well-being of others." hard to maintain and overly simplistic. First, physical well-being is hard to define - say, a book promoting soft drinks could directly threaten our well-being through comsuming too much sugar. Second, if any book was directly endangering the psychic well-being, of a group of people, I would be similarly - or even more - worried. Third, I believe people will easily find ways to hurt each other. The important part is, why they do it. The ideology which justifies violence ("we need to defend ourselves" "they are inferior", ...) is more dangerous than the "knowing how". (on a sidenote, many who practice martial arts are very peaceful people, despite knowing exactly how to hurt people). That still doesn't build a conclusive case for "censorship of ideology" instead of "censorship of tutorials", but I find it more important to consider than the case you discuss.
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United States24637 Posts
I'm not clear on whether you want us to discuss your essay, or whether you want us to discuss the topic and the essay was provided merely to share your opinions and offer talking points. I'm guessing it's the latter.
Despite reading the essay, I cannot really tell what the 'prompt' was. Your italicized introduction implies that you are somehow supposed to discuss the morality of banning 'controversial' novels, but a more specific description of the assignment would be helpful because us readers are basically left to guess what the topic of discussion is, exactly.
Many people in this thread are discussing book banning, in general. Without any more specifics or context, it seems like a useless discussion to me. If you want my opinion on whether or not book banning is okay, the first thing I want to know is who is doing the banning, and what does a 'ban' actually mean. Without specifics as to what we are actually discussing, not much can come from this thread, or at least not what you intended.
The only thing I could say given such a non-specific topic, is that banning of books is usually a bad thing, but I can't rule out a possible situation where it becomes necessary. Anyone giving an extremely 'absolute' response is probably being naive or at least idealistic.
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The prompt was:
"Discuss the most important reasons there may be for banning a text", but I thought that this can also be a more general thread/blog about when and where are the limits of book banning. Most people seem to say none at all, which is a fine opinion but I disagree with.
My argument was the only one I felt had real legitimacy for banning a text. I disagree with Aesop that the idealogy is the more important thing. Words are words, but actions are actions and I think opening possible actions rather then just new thoughts are the most important thing.
Someone made a good point that I had already thought of but has great legitimacy: what is describing a crime?
Honestly I was only supposed to write two pages, but had I gone more in depth I would probably have said that that is the baseline for a court interpetation should it go to court. So if the court decides it acts as a guide enough(with information a normal person would not have been able to guess), it may threaten the safety of the public.
Of course that brings in new discussions of why should a court decide it and the dangers of that.
I also welcome critiques on my writing. Usually I'm very simple actually, I was motivated by my more eloquent peers to try fancier writing. My original sentence for the quandary phrase was actually basically what you described Aesop: "There's only one real reason why a book should be banned".
I just feel like it's not powerful if it's simple but I can see I'm wrong.
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I'll harshly criticize the essay but I'm sure some of my complaints are unfounded. These are basically things I've noticed.
Nitpicking:
1- William Shakespeare: Why'd you plug that and the "to be and not to be thing". So cheesy! Maybe teachers like it, but at this point it's overdone and cliché.
2- William Shakespeare probably never would have said: Was Shakespeare particularly opposed to censorship? I'm not too familiar. But if not, it's just a goofy remark like "Socrates probably never designed a very efficient jet engine".
3- modern century: Is that a thing? It might be, but I'd phrase it differently.
4- As society grows in depth: Does it? (I think so but I'm sure some would argue that society is becoming more shallow.)
5- books constantly force us: Books have no power of coercion
6- censor it and then forget about the issue: I'd argue that censoring something in many cases reinforces the ideology that's carried in the censored material.
7- is like placing a gun in the hands of a person who simply has to load it.: Peculiar and sloppy comparison.
Actual concerns:
8- The only significant time when censorship is permissible: This is never justified.
9- A quick look at www.anarchistcookbook.com shows that when you teach people how to commit crimes, they quickly become more infatuated with the possibility of violence. : Do you have some sort of study showing this? Are "quick looks" a substitute for social sciences and psychology?
10- We are past an age where we need to use violence to accomplish political goals : You say that violence is not necessary in “democratic countries” but I’ll have you know that Mexico is a democratic country. Also, democracies have armed police, so that’s violence. Also, democracies use violence in international conflicts. You say we don’t need violence but we certainly use it all the time. Are we mostly allowed to use violence against countries which shouldn't use it against us because they're not democratic?
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good writing should be simple and direct, especially academic writing. If you have an idea that's worthy of more complex phrasing, you'll know. Otherwise dressing up your sentences do not make them any more profound, often it suggests you are compensating for a lack of something.
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The prompt is asking for important reasons, not legitimate ones (subjective terms, in any event). Approaching the prompt from an imagined banning authority's perspective, there are many important reasons for banning a text. These include (1) the suppression of free and public debate, and (2) the containment of information and communications that the banning authority does not wish to see spread.
Nailed it. Gimme dat A.
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Upon a glance, I'm not seeing this flowery writing that others are proclaiming he has used. Are the words he has used not apt and concise enough for the writing he is going for? Are they not all part of common speech?
His writing style is not periphrastic.
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On December 03 2013 06:36 Ovid wrote:
Upon a glance, I'm not seeing this flowery writing that others are proclaiming he has used. Are the words he has used not apt and concise enough for the writing he is going for? Are they not all part of common speech?
His writing style is not periphrastic.
I'm trying to decide if this is tongue-in-cheek.
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
I do not believe that banning books is ever okay, just as I do not believe that banning film or music or any other kind of media is ever alright. Providing warnings like "Contains X kind of content" is great, forbidding some (graphic) material from being shown or distributed in schools, cool - I can get behind that, but completely banning them? No. I'm firmly against censorship.
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Zealously, snuff films /end
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Hungary11283 Posts
On December 03 2013 06:36 Ovid wrote:
Upon a glance, I'm not seeing this flowery writing that others are proclaiming he has used. Are the words he has used not apt and concise enough for the writing he is going for? Are they not all part of common speech?
His writing style is not periphrastic.
I wouldn't call it flowery but rather a bit stiff and formalistic instead of using simple, direct speech.
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Isn't formalistic the approach for maximum marks, correct me if I'm wrong here but he's not trying to push the boat out on the field of censorship he's trying to adhere to a curriculum and achieve a good grade.
So I would've thought formalistic is the way to go?
Edit: Even more so in a field where marking is less precise than in a field such as maths?
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By formalistic, I'm almost certain that Aesop is more referencing "formal" in the sense of "formal wear" or a dressing intended to appear professional or elegant. In this sense, dialing back the "formal" constructions in favor of something a little more "casual" would cut down on some of the clunky sentence flow.
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Hungary11283 Posts
On December 03 2013 06:54 Ovid wrote:
Isn't formalistic the approach for maximum marks, correct me if I'm wrong here but he's not trying to push the boat out on the field of censorship he's trying to adhere to a curriculum and achieve a good grade.
So I would've thought formalistic is the way to go?
I should have said "formulaic" probably  .
But anyway, in my mind learning to write is less about incorporating all the fancy words you learned, but more about maintaining a certain simplicity of speech while expressing complex concepts. I think some of the points in this article could be phrased more directly and thus made more accessible and precise at the same time.
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
On December 03 2013 06:48 Ovid wrote:
Zealously, snuff films /end
The issue with snuff films wouldn't even be the material in itself, but rather the fact that acts of serious violence were commited during the film's production.
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EPT
