6 ms·

> removing books from school libraries is a de facto ban on those books. No, it isn't. There are millions of books that aren't in school libraries. Are they al

by imgabe 3y ago

> removing books from school libraries is a de facto ban on those books. No, it isn't. There are millions of books that aren't in school libraries. Are they all de facto banned? Confidently declaring something doesn't make it true. A library deciding not to carry a book is not a book ban.

rtpg 3y ago
What about when libraries have books but then the state govt demands these books get taken out? How much context are we allowed to include in a judgement of an action? Never having a book, having it but having it be removed for non-content-related reasons, having it removed for content-related reasons, having the content removal decision come from librarians, or parents, or politicians, the public record of comments about why something is removed, all of these things are obviously important. Flattening it to "yeah lots of books aren't in libraries" is a _bit_ reductive! Good things are good, bad things are bad. Sometimes it's hard to write laws that work around this, but at the very least moral judgements can be made, with space for nuance.
- mattmaroon 3y ago
  It’s still not a banning. Banning would be if you’re no longer allowed to bring a copy to school at all. In my high school (and boy am I dating myself here) The Anarchist’s Cookbook was actually banned. There’s a big difference between saying “we don’t think Tropic of Cancer is appropriate for high school kids so we’re going to remove it” and “Tropic of Cancer is banned in our schools”. The “book bans” happening are mostly the former and while I do think they’re mostly stupid, they’re nowhere near what you’d think is happening from headlines. Very little actual banning is occurring.
  - rtpg 3y ago
    Right, that is a distinction. I do think it's important to think about the fact that school libraries are where kids tend to access a lot of books (there are of course city libraries, but those places are also being targeted). At least my experience was around that. And many libraries will have a request system, so if a kid is like "I want to read this", then libraries are able to often put in a purchase order, and then make that available for other students. At least based on my own school experiences, I do think that teachers of a certain ... authoritarian bent would be more than happy to make up a stink of books brought in that would be "banned" from the library if a copy circulating were brought to their attention. Power structures in schools are like that. But that's just conjecture. I think the general point of the "book ban" terminology is that librarians and schools generally had leeway to bring in more or less anything to the library, and that autonomy is being stripped away for very dark reasons. This is the age of the internet, but from my own childhood, if my school and city library suddenly decided to not provide certain kinds of book, I would just not have access to that at all. All that to say that you're right on the word in some sense, but it feels fitting to me.
    - mattmaroon 3y ago
      I’m guessing books aren’t really popular among the kids these days anyway. It’s really just a political fight now. The people complaining about banning are being either intentionally alarmist (if they understand what’s going on) or knee-jerk reactionary. It’s the exact same as when the religious people are mad the state mandates we teach evolution. School districts and states have to select what kids learn, since we have finite time and resources to reach them, in the same way that libraries have to choose which books occupy finite shelf space. I don’t agree with a lot of the decisions, but people are acting like it’s some right wing fascism every time they remove Henry Miller a library.
woodruffw 3y ago
This is the fifth or sixth time someone has started a thread with this “gotcha,” and the answer is still no: curation is a logistical concern, not a doctrinal one. Banning is a consequence of doctrine; curation is a consequence of books being expensive to categorize and store.
- mattmaroon 3y ago
  I disagree that the fact that it is removed from a shelf for doctrinal reasons is banning. It’s only banning if it’s actually banned, meaning you can’t have it at all, like Mein Kampf in Germany. There’s surely a more accurate term than banning or curation here.
  - laserdancepony 3y ago
    Mein Kampf has never been banned from possession in Germany. It just has not been published in the post-WW2 decades because the copyright holder, the Free State of Bavaria, decided to just not publish it and withhold the right to do so from anybody else. One could readily purchase, sell, or trade old copies at an antiquarian bookstore. It's now in the public domain, so one could even set up a little publishing company and publish it oneself. And it's an incredibly awful book, measured to all the 'fame' it holds in certain circles.
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    We have adjectives for this: a possession ban, a sales ban, a distribution ban, and so forth.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  I recently looked up one of these books that was on the "banned" list. Someone had scanned it in on archive.org. I just checked, and it was either the #1 banned book on most lists, or made the top 10. Gender Queer by Kobabe. You can see it for yourself. https://archive.org/details/gender-queer-a-memoir-by-maia-kobabe-z-lib.org/page/168/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/gender-queer-a-memoir-by-maia-ko... This is apparently what it would be censorship to keep out of gradeschool libraries. If you're ok with the book, then I guess there's not much more to talk about. If you're now not ok with the book, then I guess this is the first time you actually saw inside of it. We're told that there is a difference between doctrine and curation, and maybe in some theoretical world this is true. But in the world we actually live in, doctrine's already being pushed... they're just pretending that they're "merely curating". And they're demanding that the other side not be allowed any oversight on that curation. When they curate, good, when anyone else does it, well... they're the "bad guys". Personally, I could not care less. If you want this book in schools, it does not affect me. But you should know what book it is we're talking about. Take a look, click the link.
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by imgabe 3y ago

rtpg 3y ago

What about when libraries have books but then the state govt demands these books get taken out? How much context are we allowed to include in a judgement of an action? Never having a book, having it but having it be removed for non-content-related reasons, having it removed for content-related reasons, having the content removal decision come from librarians, or parents, or politicians, the public record of comments about why something is removed, all of these things are obviously important. Flattening it to "yeah lots of books aren't in libraries" is a _bit_ reductive! Good things are good, bad things are bad. Sometimes it's hard to write laws that work around this, but at the very least moral judgements can be made, with space for nuance.

mattmaroon 3y ago
It’s still not a banning. Banning would be if you’re no longer allowed to bring a copy to school at all. In my high school (and boy am I dating myself here) The Anarchist’s Cookbook was actually banned. There’s a big difference between saying “we don’t think Tropic of Cancer is appropriate for high school kids so we’re going to remove it” and “Tropic of Cancer is banned in our schools”. The “book bans” happening are mostly the former and while I do think they’re mostly stupid, they’re nowhere near what you’d think is happening from headlines. Very little actual banning is occurring.
- rtpg 3y ago
  Right, that is a distinction. I do think it's important to think about the fact that school libraries are where kids tend to access a lot of books (there are of course city libraries, but those places are also being targeted). At least my experience was around that. And many libraries will have a request system, so if a kid is like "I want to read this", then libraries are able to often put in a purchase order, and then make that available for other students. At least based on my own school experiences, I do think that teachers of a certain ... authoritarian bent would be more than happy to make up a stink of books brought in that would be "banned" from the library if a copy circulating were brought to their attention. Power structures in schools are like that. But that's just conjecture. I think the general point of the "book ban" terminology is that librarians and schools generally had leeway to bring in more or less anything to the library, and that autonomy is being stripped away for very dark reasons. This is the age of the internet, but from my own childhood, if my school and city library suddenly decided to not provide certain kinds of book, I would just not have access to that at all. All that to say that you're right on the word in some sense, but it feels fitting to me.
  - mattmaroon 3y ago
    I’m guessing books aren’t really popular among the kids these days anyway. It’s really just a political fight now. The people complaining about banning are being either intentionally alarmist (if they understand what’s going on) or knee-jerk reactionary. It’s the exact same as when the religious people are mad the state mandates we teach evolution. School districts and states have to select what kids learn, since we have finite time and resources to reach them, in the same way that libraries have to choose which books occupy finite shelf space. I don’t agree with a lot of the decisions, but people are acting like it’s some right wing fascism every time they remove Henry Miller a library.

woodruffw 3y ago

This is the fifth or sixth time someone has started a thread with this “gotcha,” and the answer is still no: curation is a logistical concern, not a doctrinal one. Banning is a consequence of doctrine; curation is a consequence of books being expensive to categorize and store.

mattmaroon 3y ago
I disagree that the fact that it is removed from a shelf for doctrinal reasons is banning. It’s only banning if it’s actually banned, meaning you can’t have it at all, like Mein Kampf in Germany. There’s surely a more accurate term than banning or curation here.
- laserdancepony 3y ago
  Mein Kampf has never been banned from possession in Germany. It just has not been published in the post-WW2 decades because the copyright holder, the Free State of Bavaria, decided to just not publish it and withhold the right to do so from anybody else. One could readily purchase, sell, or trade old copies at an antiquarian bookstore. It's now in the public domain, so one could even set up a little publishing company and publish it oneself. And it's an incredibly awful book, measured to all the 'fame' it holds in certain circles.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  We have adjectives for this: a possession ban, a sales ban, a distribution ban, and so forth.
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
I recently looked up one of these books that was on the "banned" list. Someone had scanned it in on archive.org. I just checked, and it was either the #1 banned book on most lists, or made the top 10. Gender Queer by Kobabe. You can see it for yourself. https://archive.org/details/gender-queer-a-memoir-by-maia-kobabe-z-lib.org/page/168/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/gender-queer-a-memoir-by-maia-ko... This is apparently what it would be censorship to keep out of gradeschool libraries. If you're ok with the book, then I guess there's not much more to talk about. If you're now not ok with the book, then I guess this is the first time you actually saw inside of it. We're told that there is a difference between doctrine and curation, and maybe in some theoretical world this is true. But in the world we actually live in, doctrine's already being pushed... they're just pretending that they're "merely curating". And they're demanding that the other side not be allowed any oversight on that curation. When they curate, good, when anyone else does it, well... they're the "bad guys". Personally, I could not care less. If you want this book in schools, it does not affect me. But you should know what book it is we're talking about. Take a look, click the link.

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