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Top Banned Books of 2003
michaelzhao writes "The ALA (American Library Association) recently published the new 100 most frequently banned books list of 2003.
Of the banned books, Harry Potter was in the number 7th place in the most frequently banned. Also included were 'Where's Waldo' and 'The Giver' along with 'Goosebumps' and 'How to Eat Fried Worms.' These books were banned from various public institutions. This means that they were banned from various public libraries and public schools around the nation. (private schools, libraries, and institutions of higher learning don't count) The ALA encourages the people of the United States to fight against the book bans and read a banned book today!"
The title actual is "The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-20001".
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
Is the objection to Harry Potter that it depicts magic? I don't get it. C.S. Lewis had magic in his books, and Christians love him. What is the difference?
I used to think my high school literature teacher was the coolest person in the world. (Oh, and she was HOT!) Obviously a previous bra-burning flower girl...
Then, the school board told her that she had to quit teaching A Brave New World -- and she did.
What a wimp. I lost all respect for her for not fighting it.
AC
Nudity.
Perhaps someone who's read the article (it's loading in another tab, but I'm not holding my breath) can say for sure, but my best guess would be that the ban list must include books that are not "banned" so much as "excluded by policy," perhaps in this case because "Every time we buy a Waldo book, some smart aleck has to go through and circle Waldo on each page, so we should stop wasting our money on them."
Or some such.
It's *still* loading, though.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Well..this wasn't banned really... They just couldn't find it.
here.
Not a list, but has a good portion of the books and actually gives inciteful commentary.
Harry Potter - encourages children to take drugs, mainly pot
Wheres Waldo - Encourages Stalking
and as for "how to eat fried worms" this obviously encourages animal cruelty
No question after seeing the list and finding these.
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
88. Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
That list is disturbing. The ones I highlited here are some of what I read that really shouldn't be banned in my own opinion. Though I think no book should be banned, it's up to people to shepard their children and decide for themselves.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
30. "The Goats" by Brock Cole
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
See, I think that a more important list of which books were banned would be a list of which public institutions did the banning. If there are provincial, backwards-minded, insular communities out there banning books, I'm more interested in knowing where they are than what they're banning.
There are much more serious and interesting instences of banning, like the actual 1995 book burnings of Germar Rudolph's published findings (a German chemist who found evidence showing no signs of Zyklon-B use in Auschwitz other than in delousing chambers). Extreme or not, his publications were literally burned...
And another similar instance wherein publication was halted and pages were ordered torn out of a medical study which showed people of Jewish ancestry to be significantly genetically linked to the Arab and Palestinian population.
A Wrinkle in Time is apparently banned because it contains magic and "new age" nonsense. (http://solonor.com/bannedbooks/archives/001742.ht ml). Oddly enough, Madeline L'Engle was openly Christian, known to run with other prominant Christian authors like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. It boggles the mind.
Out of curiosity what gets banned overseas? I would figure most NAZI related material isn't permitted in France, Germany, or similar countries.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
If you wouldn't like your kids reading those books, fine; the library doesn't have to stock them. Schools choose what books they do and do not show, and it's well within their right to simply not accept copies of "Sex", but banning them altogether is certainly inappropriate. Ultimately, it's the reader's choice whether or not he/she wants to read a book, not the author's; no book should be completely banned.
Not shelved, fine. If there's a book in the school library that you'd rather not fall into your child's hands, petition to have it removed from the shelf, or made inaccessible to younger children. But banned completely, based on the objective opinions of a mother? No.
And many of them SHOULD be banned. I'd be pretty ticked if my kid brought home some of the books from that list from school.
And while I respect your right to decide what your child reads, you do NOT have the right to decide what MY child reads or what OTHER PEOPLE's children read. Just because you find Bridge to Terabithia to be crap doesn't mean all kids do, and I want my child to be able to check it out of a school library.
Keep in mind that this list does not just reflect school libraries, and that this is a list of challenges to books, not necessarily that all these books have been successfully removed from libraries.
I'd also disagree that Heather Has Two Mommies is inappropriate for elementary school kids. We have books picturing heterosexual couples, why not homosexual ones? It's not like the book advocates for only homosexual couples, or has sexual tones. Shockingly enough, there are also picture books about death out there. These kinds of books have a purpose. If your child brings it home, sit down and talk about it. If you don't want them reading it, tell them that. My parents vetted my reading.
If we're going to censor everything anyone finds offensive or inappropriate for their children, we're not going to have any materials in libraries.
Not only that, but many of the books weren't even banned, but the parents rather requested that they be simply moved. As in "This doesn't seem appropriate for a first grader to be reading. Do you think you could move it to a fourth or fifth grade level area?" The ALA makes no distinction about this, and the book being "banned".
... YES! This child is being subjected to a book, that were it a movie, it would have been rated R (or at best PG-13) and wouldn't be able to see on their own. And heaven FORBID that the school would sanction such a movie to be shown to the child.
Also, I heard a story from a parent, whose child in the second grade (it was elementary school at the least), was reading a book that had a vivid description of a rape scene.
So, the parent complains, and the school complies, and the ALA lists it as a "banned" book.
The ALA has a decent idea here, fight censorship, but they have to be aware, we should but the same sort of standards on our literature that we put on our movies. There simply are some books that aren't appropriate for children.
And NEVER have these "banned" books been truly banned. If the parent, or the child really wanted the book, they could obtain it for their child to read. It was just felt by the school system, that it wasn't appropriate for them to supply it.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
Daddy's Roommate / Heather Has Two Mommies
I'm not so sure how I feel about this one. Something like "The New Joy of Gay Sex" I could understand. But I like the idea of people seeing a homosexual couple as normal. (Conservatives will totally flip out over that?)
Go back 150 years, and imagine it was "Heather Has a Black Mommy." I'm not trying to defend gay marriage here or anything, but I think it's the same thing -- I strongly doubt the objection to this book was because of the homosexuality, as opposed to the homosexuality.
A homosexual couple has nothing to do with sex until, well, they have sex. It'd be like banning a book with a mother and father because they have a heterosexual relationship. The mere act of having a child proves they had sex!
I haven't read the book, but if it doesn't cover their bedroom activities, I don't see the problem. But maybe that's why I'm a liberal democrat.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
My parents vetted my reading
,-)
So did mine. And that was a sure fire way of getting me to obtain and read those books
Your point is valid, tho. I get to decide what my child reads or not but I have no business doing to same with your kid. The problem is, how do I know if my kid gets a book I don't approve of at the school library? Maybe he reads it there and doesn't bring it home so I'll never find out.
A desicion has to be made by the school custodian (or PTA or whatever) as to what books to have available at the library. It is unrealistic to think that the librarian will have a list of allowed books per student.
If I'm interested in making sure my opinion counts in deciding what books will or will not be available to my kids at school, I'll make sure my voice is heard at the committee that does the deciding.
That said, I believe children should be able to read what they please and form their own oppinions instead of being "censored" into thinking like we do. If my kid wants to read "Mein Kampf", I won't forbid it to him. I will, however, make sure he has access to counterpoint arguments and will sit down to discuss it with him.
No sig
Being able to get books for free is not a right.
But it should be.
Just because you don't like them doesn't mean you have the right to prevent other people or other people's kids from reading them. If we could ban anything that people considered crap, Britney Spears and the all those "Spice Boy" bands would not be played on any radio stations if it was up to me.
* Daddy's Roommate / Heather Has Two Mommies Well, need I say anything? These obviously don't belong in a school library. Six year old kids don't need to be learning about homosexuality anymore than they need to be learning about heterosexuality. Leave this stuff for the later years - like when they can at least tie their own shoes.
I agree with you that material that deal with sexuality (homo or hetero) is not approprite to younger children. But the list is not definitive on what was banned and where. If these books were banned from a high school, I would have a problem with it.
Really, most of the books on that list suck. Some are great, but not many (Slaughter House for example). And many of them SHOULD be banned. I'd be pretty ticked if my kid brought home some of the books from that list from school. Others, though, make no sense at all. Really odd.
I think you answered our own question. People with strong opinions like yourself have probably taken on themselves to make sure that the libraries in their area do not carry books that are against their beliefs or tastes. I think one reason why the list is so huge is that some people don't distinguish between material they don't like with material that offends them. They think that they can speak for everyone and have that material banned.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
This isn't quite what it appears.
John Kerry's claiming the book is incorrect; he didn't use the word (that I see), but it's essentially saying it's a slander campaign. He's asking that they stop selling a book that's just out to slander him.
He's not legislating it away because it's damaging to him.
Granted, I'm a Kerry supporter, and you're clearly (by your signature) anti-Kerry. It's no secret that if you support someone, you'll make allowances for things, and if you oppose them, you'll blow things out of proportion. Which is why I hate arguing about politics.
Asking someone not to carry what you perceive as a slanderous book is totally different than him trying to legislate it away, which is what's suggested.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
*snicker* ...Others from 150 years ago:
"I know why the caged bird is quiet and subservient."
"The new joy of...proper wifely housekeeping and cleaning"
"What's happening to my body? Shameful and filthy wicked things."
"Where's E.A. Poe?"
"Heather has an upper class mommy and an Irish daddy!"
"It's perfectly abnormal and wrong!"
"Saying no! to 'sex'!"
"The Whig's cookbook"
"A brave new world of corsets and revealed ankles!"
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
This is one that always confounded me.
Books that deal with issues of race are often banned by people who object to racism. I sometimes think it's because they haven't actually read the books, but have merely done the kind of sanctimonious counting of "offensive" terms or situations (e.g., like the CAP Alerts. Or anybody remember that lady who talked to the Meese commission, and enumerated the number of times the word "horny" was used in Catcher in the Rye?). You could argue this for several of the books:
Huck Finn was clearly written with an anti-racist agenda, but was written ironically, from the perspective of an ignorant kid. It contains the word "nigger" many, many times. As a result of these two factors, it's considered by some as inappropriate for children.
To Kill A Mockingbird deals with a rape trial, and therefore could be considered inappropriate for kids. It also contains a lot of racial slurs and violence.
I think what's underlying the attacks on these books, though, is less these characteristics (which are usually the nominal reasons for banning them), but the anti-authority themes running through the books. They question the conventional morality of the times they describe. People who don't like that kind of thinking may find that mroe offensive than all of the ostensible faults of the books. They don't wnat to encourage this kind of questioning (of course, they're way too late to try to stop it now.)
You can see a similar effect, by the way, against some of the best anti-authoritarian books like Animal Farm ("it makes kids think animals can talk!"), Brave New World ("but it mentions sex!"), Slaugherhouse Five ("it's filthy!"), and so forth.
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
I read a Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle a million years ago and I forget the details. I've read all of the Harry Potter stuff, J.D. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye, Flowers For Algernon, S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, the
... I never viewed her as a particularly controversial writer.
Lord Of The Flies, Slaughterhouse Five, A Brave New World, A Light In The Attic, both Mark Twain books, all three Stephen King books, and this is a bit embarrasing and out of character for me, but I *own* a copy of Howard Stern's Private Parts.
The last time I busted my roomie watching Howard Stern they were interviewing a female dwarf porn star and I must say this is the most
redeeming episode I've seen, but his book examines corporate ownership of radio stations and is a fine read in a Hunter S Thompsonesque sort of way.
I see a smattering of gay parents are OK books and various juvenile magic manuals - no surprise on these getting the evil eye, but what is Judy Blume's stuff doing in there? She has five of the hot 100 and I just don't
understand
Can anyone shed some light on Judy Blume's presence on this list?
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
These classics are almost REQUIRED reading:
03. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
05. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
06. Of Mice and Men
13. The Catcher in the Rye
22. A Wrinkle in Time
41. To Kill a Mockingbird
69. Slaughterhouse-Five
70. Lord of the Flies
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
There is some dissent however, in the source code of the page the first 22 books are marked-up as <strong>, while the last 78 are just <b>.
Maybe their proofreading department is flawed.
Stuff that matters.
Not that I agree with banning it, but I can appreciate some academics having trouble with the material (Atticus Finch is seen as a "nigger lover" - a quote straight from the book, btw).
Academics should be broadening the minds of tomorrow's leaders. Racism still is an issue in our country, although not as bad as it used to be. "To Kill a Mockingbird" does explore racism a little bit, and that is a good thing. Banning it for quotes such as what you mentioned is a very bad thing. That is like living in denial -- if I pretend that word does not exist, it will not (at least not in my head). Ludicrous.
When my son is old enough to go to school I will be very proactive and make sure he learns about these issues. I will encourage him to read banned books if his school acts stupid. Government censorship is evil. There are two people allowed to censor what my son sees, and the other one is my wife.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
I love lists like this as they remind me of long forgotten books that I really enjoyed growing up. "How To Eat Fried Worms" was the funniest book in existence when I was 9. At one time, the most powerful book I had read was "Bridge to Terabithia". "Lord of the Flies" entranced me in Jr High. Those, and books like them, were all ones that really had an impact on me at a particular age but were ones that I have since forgotten.
This don't think it's odd that a list of banned books would have a lot of very good books one them. Good books tend to be more challenging to the reader and it's exactly those challenging parts that certain people object to. To those people, if it's not the same old pablum, then they don't want anything to do with it.
Still, there are some books on the list that are decidedly NOT great or even good books. "Sex", by Madonna. "The New Joy of Gay Sex". I'll have to admit that I can definitely see why somebody would try to get them banned from a public library. After all, you don't see Hustler magazine next to the New York Times at public libraries so why should you expect to find "Sex"? But on the flip side to that, they ARE books and as such, were I at a public library, I would fight any attempt to ban them.
And finally, it would be nice if this particular list had the following info:
1. Was the book actually banned? All it says is they were all "challenged" which means "somebody tried to ban it" to me.
2. WHY was the book challenged in the first place?
So you wish to enslave...
... so that you may have books without paying for all of the above services?
1. the authors of the books
2. the choppers of the trees
3. the processors of the wood into paper
4. the drivers of the raw materials
5. the printers of the words onto the paper
6. the editors of the books
7. all the people who support all of the above
Your comparison to porn is disingenuous or ignorant--most of the books were banned, yes, banned in those school district or public libraries because they contained cultural or political views that offended a few squeaky wheels.
Lastly, while it's nice that you and I have plenty of money to buy whatever books may not be found in a library, I for one would like to see my tax-funded libraries not reacting for or against some would-be censor's political agenda.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
highschool are on this list...
6. Of Mice and Men
41. To Kill a Mockingbird
47. Flowers for Algernon
70. Lord of the Flies
All required reading in my highschool english classes.
Heh. People didn't see interracial couples as "normal". There were laws against it for many years, they didn't get repealed until the 60s.
A lot of things considered "normal" today - women voting, blacks not being slaves, minorities having equal rights - were not in previous years. What makes you think that our idea of "normal" today is any better than it was a hundred years ago?
The reason why we need "feverish activist campaigns" is because there are bigots like you - the same kind of people who were against civil rights 40 years ago - trying to repress a segment of society. And that's what they're fighting.
The burning of books has long been a sign of an oppressive regime flexing it's muscles of propaganda to strike down things that counter their essence. From early Chinese emperors burning scrolls and burying the scholars alive to erradicate knowledge up to the Nazis burning books and sending off their undesirables to death camps. While some have been successful in their campaign to destroy knowledge and hide it, for the most part it is an exercise in futility. Reasons for burning books are typically to keep those sorts of ideas and concepts from the masses, reasons for banning books are to keep those sorts of ideas and concepts from the masses. In the age of the Internet this is a shallow useless act that only shows a repressive nature of somebody or some group.
Some books are banned because they showcase the shame of America, like Huckleberry Finn with the word nigger being used correctly in context as it was for the time the story was wrote in. Does banning this book for printing the word nigger as it was used make bigotry and racism go away, change history and the fact that it was used, miracle away American hypocrisy of liberty and justice for all except slaves? By not learning the truth and being exposed to facts we erradicate the lessons we should have learned. Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. If you have such a serious problem with a book, close the cover and get rid of it. If you are such a failure as a parent you don't want little George reading a book because you don't have the time to invest in your child, don't get them the book. If they have book because they do not want to follow in your silhouette, take it from them or find somebody to be the parent you are not. Nobody is making you read them, why force others down to your level of illiteracy.
Putting a book on a banlist is a quick way to get my attention, and usually much more reliable for a good read than the bestseller listings. Celebrate the banned book list, check them off as you read each one.
No book should be banned, censorship spawns ignorance.
-1 Overrated (Too many big words for me to comprehend)
I find it facinating that "Daddy's Roommate" is #2 on that list, while "Heather Has Two Mommies" is #11. Does this show that our culture is a little more accepting of a lesbian lifesytle?
Too bad that list isn't a click-through to Amazon to buy those books. I bet they could be raising a little bit of money from that website to combat censorship.
and what of childrens' innocence?
Children's innocence is an adult fantasy.
My parents tried hard to keep me not only sheltered, but their "little baby girl" forever. Yet by the time I was 10, I knew all the facts (or at least myths) of life, courtesy of classmates. I knew things that would have curled my parents' hair. Children were far from "innocent" when I was 10 years old -- and I'll be 42 in September.
Unless you isolate your children from every child who knows a child who knows a child who has seen mommy and her boyfriend going at it on the couch, unless your isolate your children from every child who knows a child who knows a child who has been molested by her uncle, unless you isolate your children from every child who knows a child who knows a child who knows about something you want to pretend doesn't exist, there is no "innocence." There never was. There is only adult blindness, pretending that if we don't talk to children about things we don't like then those things will go away, or at least never affeact our children.
I see the following entries on the list:
40: What's Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
61: What's Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
Why? Is the sexuality of girls more quationable the that of boys, or is this list simply a list of sexual prejudice?
//Wegge
It would be interesting to see a list of books children are required to read, around the country and around the world.
My 6th grade class was required to read The Scarlet Letter. I still question adultery as an appropriate theme for grade schoolers. If it was supposed to impart a moral lesson, it missed its' mark as we all knew the teacher was having an affair with the gym instructor. It shouldn't have been banned, but should it have been required?
And why isn't Fanny Hill on that list? ;)
If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it? ~ Albert Einstein
The article should have cited the 2003 list:
The following books were the most frequently challenged in 2003:
1. Alice series, for sexual content, using offensive language, and being unsuited to age group.
2. Harry Potter series, for its focus on wizardry and magic.
3. "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck, for using offensive language.
4. "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture" by Michael A. Bellesiles, for inaccuracy.
5. "Fallen Angels" by Walter Dean Myers, for racism, sexual content, offensive language, drugs and violence.
6. "Go Ask Alice" by Anonymous, for drugs.
7. "It's Perfectly Normal" by Robie Harris, for homosexuality, nudity, sexual content and sex education.
8. "We All Fall Down" by Robert Cormier, for offensive language and sexual content.
9. "King and King" by Linda de Haan, for homosexuality.
10. "Bridge to Terabithia" by Katherine Paterson, for offensive language and occult/satanism.
Consider buying these books and donating them places where children can get them (schools, after school programs, librarys).
yeah, back then when on average humans only lived to 40ish, they were getting married and starting families at twelve.
Actually, you're mistaking average life expectancy for the age people actually lived to. Average life expectancy includes infant mortality -- so if you have a society where 50% of the people die before they're a year old, and the other 50% live to the biblical threescore and ten, your average life expectancy is 35. But nobody is actually dying at 35 -- it's either 0 or 70. Of course, reality isn't quite that binary, but it's the same basic math. Since modern western societies have such a low infant/child mortality rate, we're used to seeing the average life expectancy number having something to do with how long you can expect to live, but when you're dealing with societies that have very high infant mortality rates, it's not even close to the same thing.
Wander around a cemetery in New Engalnd some time and read the dates on old tombstones. If a man lived to grow up, he was fairly well assured of living to 60+. If a woman survived childbearing, she would probably live longer than that. But that is counterbalanced in the overall average by those rows of little tiny stones that say "Baby Smith, 8 days old."
The average of first menstruation in girls has actually gone down in the past hundred or so years. This may be because of better nutrition and overall health, nobody is quite sure. Though, interestingly enough, it seems to have been at roughly modern ages in ancient Rome and possibly during the medieval era. It's rather difficult to determine, because in societies where marriage is arranged or contracted for social reasons rather than individual choice, girls often are married before they are capable of bearing children, and the actual consummation of the marriage is postponed. Without medical records, it's hard to tell when young women were sexually mature; mostly it's a matter of guessing based on birth records.
Your whole point is a non sequitur anyway. When people were getting married and starting families at young ages (12 or otherwise), it was not because they had seen the pigs making piglets. It was because they were ready to take on the duties of adulthood, which were much simpler at the time. They had learned the basic skills of household management, food production, etc., as children -- kids worked from the day they could toddle. Many young couples lived with one or another set of parents (usually the husband's) for a number of years and got further on-the-job training before they established a separate household.
They didn't have educations to complete -- if they were lucky, they went to the one room schoolhouse for a few years. They didn't have careers to decide on -- they did what their parents did, which was usually farming. They didn't travel and see the world -- most people never went more than 100 miles from where they were born. The reasons that modern people put off marriage and family didn't exist for any but the wealthy classes. Since they had learned the skills they needed for adult life since early childhood, the only thing they had to wait for was their bodies to be ready to do the job.
Obviously, that is not the case today. People have educations to complete, careers to plan, a world to explore. Having children in today's complex world is a much more complicated isse than adding a few more kids to a big farm family, more than doing things the way your parents and grandparents and ten generations back had done them. It is that, rather than knowing where babies come from, that determines things like age of marriage. That is true whether wishful-thinking adults try to keep those children in ignorance in the hope of achieving some mythical "innocence" or whether they give them accurate and reliable information. They are going to get information from someone, somewhere, no matter what. They are going to ask questions and get answers. Far better that those be accurate answers.
(1) These are primarily books that have been banned (actually the numbers are based on complaints received not the number of successful complaints) from school libraries, or childrens books that have been banned from public libraries. From the ALA web-site:
In otherwords this is mostly a matter of what kids get to read, not a matter of what adults get to read.
(2) Schools and public libraries are mostly government institutions, and what conservatives object to is the government deciding how and what their children will learn about issues like sex, religion, drugs, and so on. In short they would like the freedom to raise their children without interference from the government.
The liberal response is that children should not be subject to the control of their parents in this way. If you think one side or the other is obviously right, or obviously more interested in freedom then you need to think about the issue more carefully. The fundamental problem is that children can not be free because they are naturally subject to the influence of others. Hence the dispute over who gets to do the influencing.
...as the completely consequences-free environment known as Hogwart's.
I live in a fairly conservative area. Many, many families I know are strict Christians (Protestant, Catholic, across the board), and the ones that have read Harry Potter nearly all love it.
Once you actually read the books, it becomes fairly clear that the magic is just there as a gimmick. The author needed a British public school setting, but that's been done to death, so she made one with a slightly different curriculum.
The "nearly" part above... a number of people were bothered, not by the "witchcraft" but by the fact that in the first couple of books, Harry can do no wrong. Rules are bent or overlooked, everything is forgiven or ignored once it's all over, he makes bad decisions and doesn't discover -- via consequences, like the rest of us did -- that they were bad.
The later books definitely change that (people get injured, killed, etc, as a result of Harry's screwups).
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I guess you're a bigot if you want people to be able to live their lives the way they want.
... to save my life I couldn't think of what it was, some random SF book I read long ago ... where some guy was complaining to the protagonist that he (the complainer) suffered from terrible religous persecution in that world. It turned out that the "persecution" was that they were prevented from suppressing all other religions. The big problem with a truly free society comes in when you have people who would take away freedom from others. That is the one freedom -- the freedom to restrict freedom -- that a free society cannot permit, because that is the worm that can eat it from within. Nice little paradox there.
You mean like being able to marry whoever they want to? To do whatever they want in their bedrooms with other consenting adults?
I guess you're a bigot unless you acknowledge there's only one set of acceptable thoughts and no others will be tolerated.
You mean like male-dominant, married, heterosexual relationships are the only permissable form, and all others are sinful and should be illegal as well?
I guess you're a bigot if you want to make your own decisions rather than have them made by the government or some activist group.
You mean like those groups that want to amend the Constitution of the United States to take those decisions away from individuals, from states, from the federal government, not only for our generation but for every one to follow?
I guess "live and let live" is bigoted now, and "you will think what we tell you and do what we tell you" is the only way to avoid this evil bigotry.
"You have to live in accordance with my religion" is bigoted no matter how you look at it. Nobody is trying to force you, by either laws or violence, to be gay. Plenty of people are trying to force gay people, by both laws and violence, to be straight, or at least to pretend so.
I'm put in mind of a passage from a book
If you've ever had your kid bring home a Where's Waldo book and ask you to find Waldo with them, and if you've ever agreed, you'd understand why people want the book banned. It drives an adult absolutely crazy, because the child either gives up and just flips from page to page, or obsesses over every tiny detail and won't let you leave until everything has been found.
Complaints against Where's Waldo probably all take this form: a poor, harried parent calls up the school and says, "PLEASE don't let my kid bring home any more of those blasted Waldo books! I haven't slept in days; I'm seeing Waldo in the wallpaper; every time I see a guy with glasses and a striped toque I get the urge to yell out, 'I FOUND WALDO!' Please make it stop!!!"
or somethin' like dat.
Standing at the very edge of my imagination, I peered into the inky void and realised -- I couldn't think up a new sig.
Not a lot of folks realize how meaningful that is: shit was the very first engineering challenge, and how we get rid of it speaks volumes about where we are on the development timeline. And kids treat it very much like a Waldo book, examining all the details as they race to find the guy on the crapper.
rj
I agree with Hogwash McFly in finding a relation between facing problems with information and good-sense, rather than attempting to supress them. :) Do you recall seeing how the Administration recommends abstinence as means of stopping AIDS in African countries? Well, it's not just about that being hypocrite, that's a fine example of puritanism at the higher levels. Don't you find it at least a bit odd?! I mean... c'mon, abstinence? They don't have TVs or computers to spend their times in... ;) And the worst part is that I can imagine many people in most states in the US, in their homes watching TV and nodding in consent at those declarations of abstinence. Then they'll quietly change channel to the pr0n cable network.
:)
Maybe it's just that puritanism doesn't work.
Topless sunbathing is allowed in every beach in Portugal. Yet, it's a very conservative country, and quite religious (at least middle-age up). The thing is, it's a matter of personal choice and context. Respect for the other people and facing issues with information rather than attempting to hide'em, that plays a large role in the lack of sex-related crimes and a population with a healthier mind. Drinking is allowed to people above 16 that don't show signs of mental disorder, and although we have our share of people who exceed their account, most people are raised in the notion that there is a limit. It's a matter of teaching good-sense instead of forcing people to obey rules.
Another fine example - I've been to Marrocos, and that's a country where the majority follows the islamic religion. I felt ashamed at how easily they meet foreigners and accept the difference in cultures. They'll make jokes about Allah showing us the way while we're there and will usually meet you with curiosity as opposed to the arrogance you'd find for being a foreigner in a more developed country. In comparison, in the US and in other more developed places, pre-conceptions and the belief that "we know best"... well... you know where this is going, and I don't want to be moderated as a troll.
Cheers.
"I don't mind God, it's his fan club I can't stand!" E8
well, over here in Holland, as most of the world knows, we have some of the finest pot there is, and we're even allowed to buy it, smoke it and on a very small scale transport it. result: we smoke less pot than the british, the french, the germans, heck, everyone around us. it's allowed, so the whole thrill of "doing something forbidden" goes away. most highschool kids try it once at a party and decide it really isn't all that terrific to begin with and that's that, end of story.
another funny thing is that if you take a map of holland, and mark tiny red dots for every teenage pregnancy, you'll find a couple of big red blobs right in the areas where we still have some really, REALLY religious folks hanging out. the kind that refuses to take polio shots...or teach their kids about safe sex, or even the subject "sex" at all. imo this mindset is fighting a losing battle. kids these days have all the information they could ever want right at their fingertips. tv, internet, you name it. either parents adapt to this, and steer their kids in the right direction instead of simply saying "you're not allowed", or they'll utterly fail.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Didn't you know that Mein Kampf is banned because it turns everyone who reads it into a Nazi? So beware!