Burning Books/Banning Books

Torden:

druscilla's way.:

Small towns can be worse because diversity may not be accepted and therefore they can be extremely conservative. A lot of my town was extremely conservative and thought Harry Potter was evil.

I don't understand why some people view Harry Potter as evil :(

Encourages witchcraft.

My friend can't do anything related to witchcraft. If I were to show her a Wiccan book, she'd probably scream at me for hours. It sucks that I could never watch Harry Potter with her.
Burning books is stupid. People worked hard to make that. Plus you can give it away.
Banning is stupid too. I think ratings would be a good idea.

I think It is absolutely silly to be banning books, they try and promote books and get kid/teens to read them then they take away and ban books saying they are to violent. Who should be the judge. I mean in my school they had everyone read the book the outsiders, which is a really good book, but there is violence and things like that in it also, so why is it they felt it nessarary to ban such books as Go Ask Alice. It is wrong in my opinion.

Nope.
At least in America. Hellooooo, our freedom??!!
So they can take them out of school libraries or out of libraries if they think it's wrong. But it's not up to other people to decide what we want to read! If a parent doesn't think their child should read a certain book, I think they need to explain to their child about the book, and why it's 'wrong' or 'immoral' or whatever. If schools want to 'ban' books, they shouldn't. Just stay away from those books, or something! jeeez....
I mean, some crap is jsut porn and curses. If so, then why are you reading? Explain why it shouldn't be read. But it never gives them the right to take away our free will.

LyricRiddle:

Nope.
At least in America. Hellooooo, our freedom??!!

In America, children and teenagers have very little freedom. So there would really be no technical liberty lost if you ban a book at a school or whatnot.

LyricRiddle:

If schools want to 'ban' books, they shouldn't. Just stay away from those books, or something! jeeez....

I don't understand this at all. Don't ban books, just stay away from them? Elaborate, please.

People can choose what to read. Don't take the choice away from them because you think it's inappropriate. Some of the most brillaint books ever written were banned by uber conservatives who thought them not fit, which i think is total and complete bullshit.

That's B.S
Theres a book called Farenheight 451
Where there were no books and they burned all of them. If that happened I'd either kill myself or who ever invented the law.

Banning books like Harry Potter seems rather silly, to me, and because it 'encourages witchcraft'? Come on! It's FICTION!

omgno: The thought of burning books just...makes me unhappy. I've joked about it before, but I've never been able to do it. I always give the ones I don't want away.

My city's a decent size, so we've got no real "banned" books, but I know my mom was squeamish about Harry Potter because the magic in it. :shifty

The whole idea of burning/banning books makes me want to vomit. I mean, I get why parents wouldn't want their kids reading certain books, but not everyone makes that same choice. Not everyone has the same opinions on controversial subject matter. If someone doesn't like a type of book, they shouldn't read it, and they definitely shouldn't try to ruin it for others.

rebelinred:

That's B.S
Theres a book called Farenheight 451
Where there were no books and they burned all of them. If that happened I'd either kill myself or who ever invented the law.

Well, if that happened you wouldn't actually feel like that because, like the rest of the population, you'd be ignorant about the actual origins of fire brigades. They change history and tell people that fire fighters originally burnt books supporting The Queen.

Books are symbolic of knowledge and free thought. Censoring and banning them are the equivalent of trying to suppress free thought and keeping people in the dark.

It's interesting to me that a while back, a lot of schools banned Judy Blume books. She's an excellent author and I still read her stuff when I can, but her work was banned because of certain topics she tackled such as divorce and teen sexuality. I think that's kind of stupid, but then again, I've never run a school library.

I think banning books is stupid. Some books are banned because they have the 'N' word in it. The fact that they were written in a time when that's just what people called black people is neglected.

rebelinred:

That's B.S
Theres a book called Farenheight 451
Where there were no books and they burned all of them. If that happened I'd either kill myself or who ever invented the law.

Actually, Bradbury has often said that his noel is not about censorship, but about how our society is influenced by mass media. In Fahrenheit 451 people didn't burn books because of laws, they did it because the mass media made them not need nor want books anymore. The problem is cultural ignorance, in a sense illiteracy, we have books but what do we do with them?

kafka.:

rebelinred:

That's B.S
Theres a book called Farenheight 451
Where there were no books and they burned all of them. If that happened I'd either kill myself or who ever invented the law.

Actually, Bradbury has often said that his noel is not about censorship, but about how our society is influenced by mass media. In Fahrenheit 451 people didn't burn books because of laws, they did it because the mass media made them not need nor want books anymore. The problem is cultural ignorance, in a sense illiteracy, we have books but what do we do with them?

I did a report on Fahrenheit 451 for my English 1301 class, and I feel the need to correct you. In the book they were actually burning the books because of laws against them. If people were caught by police with books then they got into trouble. The 'firemen' came to there house and burned all the books. This wasn't because the people watched TV and decided they should burn their books. Honestly, have you read the book?

Alan the great:

kafka.:

rebelinred:

That's B.S
Theres a book called Farenheight 451
Where there were no books and they burned all of them. If that happened I'd either kill myself or who ever invented the law.

Actually, Bradbury has often said that his noel is not about censorship, but about how our society is influenced by mass media. In Fahrenheit 451 people didn't burn books because of laws, they did it because the mass media made them not need nor want books anymore. The problem is cultural ignorance, in a sense illiteracy, we have books but what do we do with them?

I did a report on Fahrenheit 451 for my English 1301 class, and I feel the need to correct you. In the book they were actually burning the books because of laws against them. If people were caught by police with books then they got into trouble. The 'firemen' came to there house and burned all the books. This wasn't because the people watched TV and decided they should burn their books. Honestly, have you read the book?

Link to article where the author talks about how Fahrenheit 451 is misunderstood
But, he's just the author of the book, he obviously wouldn't know what the novel is about.

Banning? On some levels right, but on some wrong.
Burning? That's insulting the author.
I wouldn't anyone to burn my books.
Much less ban them,
But then again, my stories are uber insaneee

philophobia;:

Banning? On some levels right, but on some wrong.
Burning? That's insulting the author.

If I were an author, I'd find it more insulting that my book(s) were banned. Banning means that a group of people (how large depends on where it's banned) cannot read the book or buy the book. Burning a book is just burning the pages. Some people might find it offensive, but I don't. In fact, I recently helped burn a whole box of books we had at our house in a fire we made (they were left in the rain and then they dried, and were not really useful - so we burned them).

Banning is more dangerous, for an author.

I think banning & banning books are taking away the reader's right to read it and the author's right of freedom of speech really. We had an arguement about this in my english class after we finished reading Farenheit 451. My whole class agreed that banning/burning books is unacceptable.

I mean if a child is smart enough to read at the level of Harry Potter, they should be smart enough to know that it's fiction, regardless of their age...

^ Exactly.

Banning books is not only stupid and unconstitutional; it doesn't work. History has shown that when media is banned, the banning usually works wonders for the piece of media's popularity. (That's what happened when many radio stations banned Billy Joel's "Only The Good Die Young." Which is obviously not a book, but I think the logic is true for any sort of entertainment.)

And burning books...well, if you want to do it, that's fine, but all it does is make you look like a nutcase. You lose many of the people who might actually agree with your underlying reason for disliking the book, because they immediately write you off as a maniac. At least, that's what I tend to do when I hear about people burning books.

And don't even get me started about Harry Potter. IT'S NOT REAL WITCHCRAFT, PEOPLE. It's PRETEND witchcraft. The only similarity it has to real-life magic is the name. My friend's parents, while overall reasonable people, don't allow her to read Harry Potter, and I really disagree with them on that. That's just silly. Especially since the book series contains very good morals. My family doesn't have any problem with me reading it, and we're all Christian.

Okay, burning books people? For real? I understand that there are some things some people just do not want to hear or see. That's your personal choice. But for the love of all that is sacred, do not tell other people what they can and cannot read. It's this thing called freedom of speech. Don't ignore it.