Going over everything my opinion on banning books hasn't changed a bit. New ideas may have entered my mind but my mind hasn't changed one tiny bit. The reasons people usually challenge a book and try to ban it are all stupid because most book are representations of reality and real situation and not allowing someone to understand real situations hurts them later on. The quote below exemplify the problem with banning books the ideas within are immortal and you just increase curiosity and knowledge of a book when you try to ban it by bringing attention to the book.
As is already done, restricting access to books by age is the only restriction that I believe is okay.
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My views on banning and restricting books has not changed with the discussion that we had, however some points were brought up that I really hadn't put much thought towards but those don't change my views.
A parent after a certain age say 12 should have no say in what their child reads if they have any comments or objections they can shove it. There should be no banning of books because banning a book just makes people want to find out what is in it all the more and do the opposite of what the people who banned it wanted. Parents shelter their children to much already and this makes those children inept when dealing with real world problems and situations which they will encounter when they leave home. They may be unable to deal with regular situations and create bigger problems because they were not exposed to the real world as children. The world and life are tough, mean, and unfair and not preparing and exposing children to the reality of life will create even greater problems in the world. Books are a way to expose people to real situations without actually having to be in that situation and will help people how to learn to deal with those situations in real life. Banning books just narrows the ammount of situations that a person can learn to deal with and thus make people less prepared to deal with real life and reality which is cold and cruel. Through some research on the internet I found some of the times that The Things they carried was challenged and what the reasons behind those challenges are. One of those challenges was about the use of profanity in the book, the book is about the Vietnam war soldiers swore and cussed then so why should the book be banned or censored when it gives an accurate portrayal of the soldiers who fought and how they talked. In my opinion this challenge was just stupid because not only was it accurate of the people and times but more than likely anybody reading the book probably already knows all the swear words in the book.
Another reason that the book was challenged was its references to sex, drugs, and violence. I do agree that there are references to drugs, sex, and violence but I do not agree with trying to ban a book because of it. The book gives accurate accounts of what Vietnam and the Vietnam war was like, if you censor that information and history you are forgetting history and those who do not know history are bound to repeat it (pg. 12-13, 31, 35, and 75). Two other possible reasons that I found while reading the book myself were, use of racial slurs(gook-person of Philippine, Korean, or Vietnamese decent)(pg. 70) and animal cruelty (pg.35 and 75) none of which, while not okay, don't warrant the censorship of this book. The racial slurs were part of the culture of the war and should not be forgotten, but used no. Talking about banned books and the book I choose was The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, who
The Vietnam war is a controversial war and time in our history so any book about that time and war may get challenged like The Things They Carried did. Monitoring books, like The anarchists cookbook, and who checks them out is a good idea but banning a book out right just give that book's ideas more power than they otherwise would have had. So banning book or censorship isn't a great idea because it just make them more powerful. So far in the first twenty pages in the book I have found nothing that I would deem challngeable but I don't believe in banning books in the first place so that my influence my perception, also the things that I have seen on tv and other media make anything written there not bad. |
Asher CarpenterI like to read fantasy and realistic fiction especially about war. ArchivesCategories |