Banned Books discussion

A- destroying information is evidence that your point is weak. Prefacing and contradicting things you don't agree with should be enough to keep a reasonable balance of ideas.

B- i have an instinctive aesthetic discomfort with the destruction of books, but it is irrational. Keeping information from people is bad. Destroying copies of books, especially if they're still in print, doesn't really do much to keep people from accessing them.

Unless a book is damaged beyond repair, there is no reason for destroying it--and certainly not because of ideas which one may find objectionable. Mein Kampf was mentioned as a case for destroying a book. But as heinous as the ideas to be found within the pages of Adolf Hitler's treatise, Mein Kampf does offer insight into the mind of the Nazi dictator.

Of course, the works of Rowling aren't comparable to Mein Kampf, but that isn't the point of the matter.

You contend that had Mein Kampf been destroyed, millions of lives could have been saved, which likely would not have been the case.

Hitler, his book and followers sprang out of the fertile ground of age-old antisemitism and the then-contemporary ills that plagued Germany, including a worldwide depression and the rise of the eugenics movement there and elsewhere. To lay the wholesale slaughter of Jews, Gypsies, political prisoners and others at the feet, if you will, of Mein Kampf is drastically simplifying history.

The Bible is replete with genocidal actions--with how-to instructions more graphic than anything found in Mein Kampf. (I learned from reading this tome in middle school that if A.H. didn't kill you, he'd certainly would bore you to death) So, should the Bible be banned as well?

How about a book that details the horrors King Leopold of Belgium exacted upon millions in the Belgian Congo? Or a chronicle of the 1994 Rwandan genocide? All should be banned lest some murderous, genocidal monster cull ideas from such works? Of course not.

As with any form of free speech, objectionable ideas--voiced or printed--should be met with opposing ideas, not the elimination of either. Consequently, no book should ever be banned, much less burned.

However, some books do cross the line from a parent point of view. I agree with you as a matter of principle, but I also agree with Amazon for making the exception in this case...

Parents are free to determine what their children may or may not read. Unfortunately, there are parents who want to deprive their children of learning about classic works in school, e.g., Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, The Diary of Anne Frank, et.al. However, when they press the banning of a book from a school reading list or the local library, that’s where they cross the line.

With regard to a book promoting a so-called code of conduct for pedophiles, Amazon has a right to refuse to carry such material. Amazon is not a common carrier and is well within its right to do so; the same could be said for companies offering to provide self-publishing services. Manuscripts and story ideas are turned down all the time because of the limits of time and interest.

But this is not the same as banning a book or destroying it because it harbors objectionable views.

You've never heard of parents' efforts to ban "safe" books, yet here you are at Goodreads touting the destruction of titles you deem objectionable.

Banned Book Week's website has numerous news stories and links regarding such action. http://www.bannedbooksweek.org

And this very site has a group dedicated to the topic: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

Focusing on Mein Kampf is pointless. Let us suppose that somehow we could prove that preventing the book would have saved millions of lives. We cannot change history, so the only value would be if we could use it as a model for preventing the publication of similarly dangerous tomes today.

But what are the standards. Books written by politcal prisoners? Wasn't Mandela in prison for putting land mines in a highway?

Racist rantings? Aren't we all god's chosen people? (Well maybe not the cananites.)

Your moral judgement requires us to discern the future events stemming from a work. However, we cannot know the full impact of a work until long after it's completion.

Now Mandela is now in your crosshairs? And you want to ban his works because of his actions against apartheid? I think it's sheer hubris that you set yourself up as some arbiter who has a self-designated right to determine what books should be read and what works should be destined for bonfire as it were.

Whose book is next on your list?

Stephan,

Both arguments are ad hominems.

Dismissing an author's work because of the author's actions, rather than the content of the book, is the essence of ad hominem.

It is immoral to use a people as means to an end. The taboo does not apply to inanimate objects. While I agree in principle that censorship is a violation of the categorical imperative, this violation is not always immoral. In example, I argue that child pornography is a signifigantly worse violation. In this case censorship is the socially responsible act, because exploitation is far worse than exposure.

J. wrote: "Wasn't Mandela in prison for putting land mines in a highway?"

No.