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I replied to a comment that said that all book-bans are would be evaluated to be harmful/negative in retrospect. I don't think that this general statement is tr
by wirrbel 6y ago
I replied to a comment that said that all book-bans are would be evaluated to be harmful/negative in retrospect. I don't think that this general statement is true and brought up the ban of Mein Kampf as a counterexample.
Who knows how harmful Mein Kampf publishing in Germany could have been from 1950-2000, but surely, there was no harm in having it banned.
You must understand that in post-war Germany the threat of fascism still lingered, with successor-parties to Adolph Hitler's NSDAP even managing to get parliament seats in the first parliamentary elections, etc.
- egeozcan 6y agoI mean, we still have it with AfD, no? I think it's a given that some portion of the population will support fascist parties. IMHO, how much total support they achieve has little to do with the books people can read, but much to do with socioeconomic balances (global and national).
- wirrbel 6y agoBanning one book is of course not a guarantee and parties like the AfD do become popular not for a monocausal event... Funnilly enough, I think a main driver for AfDs formation as an neoliberal-turned-alt-right party are the books by Tilo Sarrazin and their public discussion in the both-sides style (often blatantly ignoring the core racist message correlating genetics to intellect, etc.). In that respect, I think one can make an argument that certain "cancelling" (refusal to publish/discuss/sell a book by private persons or companies/platforms) that is not censorship (prohibiting a book by the state) surely is something a society must be willing to perform in order to at least not foster certain ideas within the group of people among them, that is susceptible to fascism.