Kara Bell (the woman mentioned in the article who got the book banned) is infamous around Austin and Central Texas for creating inflammatory viral videos. She was recently cited by police for assaulting a Nordstrom Rack employee after they asked her to wear a mask [0]. The only reason this person has such an outsized impact on children's education is that relatively few people vote in school board elections, or attend the meetings.
“Rather than focus on what their kids are actually reading, these parents often take their lead from social media pages and conservative organizations that list which books to target and provide talking points, as well as screenshots of school library catalogs. Parents’ outrage may be genuine, but their actions create an even more hostile environment for already marginalized kids.”
Crowdsourcing our outrage like this is a hugely destructive behavior, and yet it’s one that both “teams” engage in regularly. News sources on both sides are in the business of telling you what will make you engage the most, and usually that’s whatever makes you the angriest. You really do need to look into things for yourself. When you do you’ll often find that there’s way more nuance there than you thought, no matter how straightforward the original reporting seemed to be. If you can’t spare the time to do that, you have no business engaging in activism pertaining to that topic.
This was the entire point of talk radio: mobilize the historically politically-inactive by inciting them with a summarized issue of the day. Or basically TED, except for anger instead of hope.
Crowdsourced rage on platforms other than radio (e.g. social media) is the same theory, different medium.
What's disgusting is that Meta/Facebook et al. avoid doing anything about it, while profiting directly. And by "it" I mean "engagement algorithms that reward outrage," not "content." Attempts to moderate content (or not) are a red herring, and useless, as addressing content doesn't change the underlying engagement systems that incentivized that outrage in the first place.
I don't think Tom Snyder or Larry King were intended to "mobilize the historically politically-inactive." The revocation of the fairness doctrine[1] is what made talk radio what it became.
It had been weaponized by Democrats against Republican-leaning media, so it was no surprise that Reagan stopped it. The perhaps unexpected result of that is that the fourth estate was divided by the two major parties and we have our choice of political propaganda or political propaganda with no objectivity or government oversight.
One possible solution is to consider another fairness doctrine. One with standards set so as to not be controlled by the two party political system.
If we don't moderate content creation, we'd have to moderate content consumption or deeper incentives (ad money). Solutions to those seem more abusive of freedoms.
Both of the post-fairness rules above that survived for a while seem reasonable to reimplement. Roughly, if either a person is attacked or a political candidate endorsed, the person or the unendorsed candidate must be afforded airtime to respond.
Those 2 rules alone would drastically alter the business of the major 24/7 news channels.
And I think realistically what we're talking about are "major media outlets." Which I'd define either by total viewer/listener count or local market share.
If you want to go off on your blog about someone, free speech seems to hold. But if the main radio station in your area decides to relentlessly beat the drum for a candidate / issue... well, that's probably a problem for democracy.
On one side you get abstract arguments about "freedom" but no specifics. You get no specifics because the specifics are mostly bad, like taking bodily autonomy away from women.
In this case, white parents took offense at a book about a romance between two minority children at a relatively recent time in history that makes readers think about society not being done with the work of dismantling racism. There is not a way to defend that. It is about racists being made uncomfortable. There are not two sides to that, except to engage in whataboutism.
You mean extremes like literally burning books [1], or banning a broad category of books from the largest bookstore in the world for ideological reasons [2], or using copyright to censor the most popular American children's author [3]?
I'm against censorship, and I think banning books from school libraries is ridiculous [4]. But a single school district in Texas banning a book is not really comparable with the scale and significance of the corporate/woke censorship.
[3]: Guardian: "It's a moral decision': Dr Seuss books are being 'recalled' not cancelled, expert says" https://archive.fo/SPBMh
[4]: A school library has limited space, and obviously can't hold all the books in the world, so the librarian have to make a choice. But selection should be based on things like what the students would like to read, exposure to a broad diversity of views, etc. instead of ideology.
It's disingenuous to use the Dr. Seuss example, since it was his delegated agents who made the decision. The way it's worded in your post - "using copyright to censor" doesn't reflect the fact that his estate chose to do this, on their own, using their uncontested property rights. What could represent freedom more than that?
I am not sure that I follow. I think "using copyright" does imply that it is done by the copyright holders. I disagree that it being done by the copyright holders makes it a non-issue.
There are other examples of using copyright for censorship. The infamous book by the mustache man was prevented from being reprinted in Germany until 2016 by the copyright holder (Bavaria's state government) [1]. Use of DMCA notices by corporations to suppress disparaging news about security vulnerabilities is another example.
Do you believe these are not instances of censorship?
> I disagree that it being done by the copyright holders makes it a non-issue.
Not the GP, but I assume they meant that it being done by the copyright holders makes it a non-issue in terms of censorship: Censorship is something that's done to copyright holders. What they themselves do is something else.
[EDIT:] So, yes, I would say at least your Knausgaard -- oops, no, the other guy with a similarly-named book -- example is not censorship. Something similar, but not quite the same thing. [/EDIT]
I don't think censorship really has much to do with copyright. A book can certainly be in public domain, and still be censored.
It is mostly about infringing the restricting the ability of individuals to choose what they would like to read, hear, and watch; and also infringing their right to free expression.
:-) On the topic of the book by he-who-must-not-be-named, I beg to differ. The intention is quite clear, copyright is just the means to achieve it.
Here is a Gedankenexperiment: assume that there is a jurisdiction in which the state, instead of the estate [1], automatically becomes the copyright holder after the author of a work passes away. [2] If the state starts making rules on which books by dead authors cannot be published, wouldn't you call it censorship?
[1]: Sorry for the a-maize-ingly corny and unfunny dad joke, couldn't resist.
[2]: This is not too far fetched, apparently this is roughly what has happened with you-know-what in Bavaria.
I just think "censorship" means something directed at whoever is trying to say something a la "I've been censored!". Trying to stop people from hearing a message without a specific sender, that's just "out there", is somethnig slightly different so IMO it should also be called something different. "Suppression (of ideas)", perhaps? Something like that.
But yeah, I agree: Let's not mention Kn***rd's name again.
What’s the difference between something like the Dr. Seuss issue, and an estate not releasing something written in the first place? Neither seem remotely close to censorship to me, but I’m curious if you think the key difference is revoking access to something once released.
They've got two parts: individual freedom to do what you want with the property, and control over what other people can do with the property
More freedom would mean anyone can do what they want with the property, eg if somebody wants to read or copy the book, they can, regardless of what the author says
My perspective is that this concept of "freedom" is so vague as to be useless. EG, for property rights, my freedom to decide how others use my creation vs. other people's freedom to use my creation. It's just a word that has lost all meaning, especially in the US.
I’m unconvinced book banning is as big a deal on the left. The one example you bring up was apparently attacked across the board in Canada and the other two are non government institutions, the last one literally being the family of the author.
Maybe more importantly though I’m unconvinced that book restrictions are actually universally illegitimate, but certainly some motivations are. If as the article claims it is mostly multicultural books being attacked despite similar books in terms of sex being left alone, then that is worse than books being restricted because people feel they’re racist because racism is bad. I would for example completely support restricting middle schoolers access to books supporting “race science” at least without the proper context being provided
I think you are correct in implying that the current wave of censorship is mostly non-governmental, but that doesn't make it look any better in my eyes. This is a discussion about culture, not who has the legal right to do what. Banning "inappropriate" books from school is most likely legal in the US [1], but that doesn't automatically make puritanism and prudishness good.
I disagree, I think book restrictions are Orwellian, but that's another discussion.
[1] - Those books shouldn't have been destroyed and this was widely decried. Quote at the bottom of your article from one of the authors of a destroyed book was interesting though.
>André Noël, a Quebec journalist, noted on Twitter that his book, Trafic chez les Hurons, published in 2000, was among those removed from shelves. In a Twitter thread, Noël wrote in French that the removal of his book “surprises me and seems excessive.”
“But I fear that this controversy will distract us from the real scandal, which we have not yet fully measured: the destruction of Indigenous lands and the oppression of Indigenous peoples by Europeans and their descendants, including in Canada and in Quebec,” he wrote.
[2] - Private company can sell what they want.
[3] - Private company can create whatever products they want.
[4] - The argument in the article is that there are marginalized students who want to read these books.
On (1), that quote is quite irrelevant to the current discussion, and I don't want to get into that. I'm glad that we all agree that burning books should be condemned.
On (2) and (3), neither of these are true in reality, and most don't think they should be true either.
Even if you are an extremely principled libertarian, I am sure that you don't think that every single thing a "private" entity does is inherently good. We, the "private" citizens, certainly can (and should) criticize their actions.
On (4), as I said in my comment, I very much disagree with the prudish/ideological banning of the book from school libraries, so I guess we agree on that?
Are you advocating that private companies have to sell and produce items they don't want to? Amazon doesn't want to sell those items and the copyright holder of Dr. Seuss doesn't want to create them. Are you saying the government should force them to sell and produce those products?
I simply think Amazon should not censor books, and people who are against censorship should try pressuring them into not doing that.
As for government intervention, at least for the case of Amazon banning books, it seems practically infeasible to me. Large and vociferous factions of the ruling class do want censorship, and Amazon et al are doing it in part to appease them.
For social media censorship, there might be a better chance of effective regulation, as probably more people care about it than banned books.
The outrage regarding the Dr Seuss issue baffles me. The decision was made by the rightholders of the work since the author is dead. There was no public pressure that forced their hand. There was no sizable conversation about this issue until the decision was already made by the rightsholders.
How is the right-wing viewpoint seemingly that the author shouldn't have the right to be able to stop the publishing of their own work? Is it censorship because I can't buy JD Salinger's The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls because he didn't want it published until 50 years after his death?
They certainly have the legal right, but I think it is still censorship. See my other comment for other examples of censorship by copyright: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29729059
I do not know much about the case of Salinger's book, but it seems a bit different as apparently he withdrew the story before publication, it was done by the author himself, and the intention does not seem to be ideological. [1][2]
[2]: I think the ideological intention does kinda matter, e.g. curation of the books in the school libraries is inevitable (unless we abolish copyright and make them all a portal to libgen :-)) and is not censorship. But it _is_ censorship when it is driven by ideology.
> They certainly have the legal right, but I think it is still censorship.
Because you have been fooled. Seuss’s estate decided to cease printing some of his lowest selling books, cited some problematic elements as a justification, and conservative media decided to manufacture a wedge issue out of it. Could they updated those elements? Sure. Seuss himself did at least once. But why bother? They were among his lowest selling books. Books fall out of print all the time.
Not really, they most likely did it for ideological/virtue-signalling reasons. You are right in that they probably did it in a way that would hurt their profits the least.
Their statement [1] explicitly says they are doing it after consulting a "panel of experts, including educators". A few days earlier, a school district in Virginia had decided to stop reading Seuss’s books on Dr. Seuss Day. [2] Some school boards in Canada outright banned his books. [3] I think some people lost their jobs because of protesting these in off-color Facebook posts. After the prices for used copies of the books skyrocketed, eBay delisted them. [4] Biden avoided using the author's name in his Dr. Seuss Day statement [5]. Don't you find all of these a tad suspiciously Orwellian?
Also, FYI, I don't really appreciate your personal attack there.
[2]: CP24 (Republished from CNN): "Publisher to stop printing six Dr. Seuss books because they perpeturate racial stereotypes" https://archive.ph/HOhAw
So there's a "Read Across America" day, and you consider the very act of not reading Dr. Seuss on that day Orwellian? What is they read Dr. Seuss every other year—is that worth 0.5 Orwells? Are there any other authors that must be read on that day to keep our Orwell-o-Meter down? I agree we should never go full Orwell, but as long as we keep it below 0.66666 Orwells (repeating, obviously), I think we should be safe.
Except that "Read Across America" is Dr. Seuss's birthday, and "Dr. Seuss Day" is the other common name for it? And, what about the rest of the events?
I think you are merely trolling, and not really arguing in good faith. In that case, I'm done replying to you here. Wish you a happy new year, and have no scruples: we all gonna end up loving the Big Brother anyway :-)
You are making a distinction here between the author of the work and the rightsholder. Are you suggesting part of the reason for the backlash is that the author should be granted extra rights over their work which can't be transferred to a third party? Because that isn't a particularly right-wing view either.
suggesting that anything that mentions "both sides" as having a problem is a reductionist argument, is itself a reductionist argument, and a major logical fallacy. It is perfectly possible for there to be issues that affect "both sides" to either different or equal extent, and an extreme position that one of those sides has on some other issue is irrelevant. Just think about which "side" is worse on the drug war and the incredible damage it has caused? If you come up with an answer of "which side" is worse, does that mean that everything the other side did is totally cool, totally non-destructive, etc? Of course not.
sorry for the lecture, but this argument is one of the few that triggers the hell out of me. the other one is, "I don't care about privacy violations because I'm not doing anything wrong"
I didn't say extreme positions since that is subjective. One side is using tactics like creating laws that let a state legislature overturn the Presidential vote; the other side is not doing that.
What do voting laws have to do with the problem of outrage circulating on social media, or the harm caused by the drug war, etc? If you want to argue that "both sides" are not equally bad on voting rights, I would agree (with the caveat that I've not researched that issue so could certainly encounter information that changed my mind), but that seems entirely irrelevant to the question of whether both sides are equally bad when it comes to circulating outrage on social media
The issue is that you see one side versus the other, like the US is a football and two rival teams are fighting for possession of it. I mean, that might seem to be the case but it shouldn't be competitive, it needs to be co-operative.
Authoritarian people are going to find ways to be authoritarian no matter their political persuasion.
Both sides can be a fallacy--but it isn't always. But I think its very reasonable to conclude "both sides" are engaging in social media mobs, censorship, and cancel culture. Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird are on the list of most "challenged" books for 2020 because they upset liberal sensibilities. It's not just a right wing problem.
What is your definition of "challenged"? I believe the liberal position is not to ban those books from libraries, but that there are newer books that can replace those books in the classroom.
“Both sides” just provides cover for the really heinous side. Anything that categorizes evil and really-really-evil into the same bucket, benefits really-really-evil the most.
It *can* be used to do that. But there is nothing inherent in that.
And hardcore partisans always think the other sides is the really-really-really-evil side and they are on the side of angels. So your line of thinking can be used to justify bad behavior because the other side is worse.
You can certainly point toward Newberg school district in Oregon. They banned all flags except the US and state flag to get politics out of the classroom. All media coverage specifically says they banned rainbow flags and BLM flags...but thats not what the rule says. Trump and NRA flags are just as banned...but that doesn't make a good liberal outrage story quite as much as saying BLM and LGBTQ flags are being banned...
Is it the case that the schools were also flying NRA flags or did this "fair" rule just happen to only affect rainbow flags?
"In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread." -- Anatole France
I think the initial cause was a BLM flag that a parent took issue with being in the classroom. Initially they were going to just ban BLM flags due to the highly contentious nature, but extended the ban to all flags except the US and state flag.
Similar to this book "ban"...is it unreasonable that teachers not bring their own personal political view points into the classroom and push them on to children? Is a political and judgment free classroom an unreasonable expectation?
How about if a teacher is a Trump supporter and wears a Trump hat to school...do we expect them to be fired because of it? This happened to someone I know...and I don't see any huge outrage in the media because of it.
> Is a political and judgment free classroom an unreasonable expectation?
Probably? It always comes down to history, with art and literature being a reflection of it.
An objective reading of all history, were there time, would still be disliked by any who place political allegiance above greater good. Add in the necessary summarization that must occur, to be able to fit a large amount of material in a smaller amount of class time, and it becomes even more fraught.
Fundamentally, whether to teach a part of history, and how much emphasis or context to put on various parts, is a politically-adjacent question.
He also was intentionally an instigator and I wasn't present to see what his educational process comprised, but I'm guessing not much. There's a "thing" about "owning the libs" which doesn't have any interest in building consensus or anything like it (in fact, the opposite -- it's literally the whole point of it). He played dickhead poker and lost. Whomp whomp.
re Trump vs BLM flags, the former refers to a specific person of a specific party and that flag is literally a representation of fealty to same.
In the latter, the words that comprise the phrase cannot be contested (but actually are, which only increases the validity and urgency of the phrase). If you want to throw in another color or flavor there then fine, because that statement comes from a position of inclusivity. Yes, all lives matter but we all know that life ain't fair and certain groups of people have it less fair than others.
For many, unfortunately, the phrase BLM matters too because they've been conditioned to associate that phrase with purely negative connotations. So for those individuals, seeing a BLM flag they see the flag of their enemy and that, of course, must not stand.
So to compare and contrast vis-à-vis Trump vs BLM, with the former you have "Hail to The King" and the latter being "let's end police abuse of power" that has been rebranded as evil by its opponents. They're coming from completely different intentions and intention matters a lot.
BTW, I wouldn't support Biden flags in the school either.
But putting up a flag that might comfort LGBQT youth in a world that is hostile to them? Or a flag that explicitly states that they matter? Your homework assignment is to compare and contrast those flags.
It's another zero tolerance fail, however I understand the conundrum and why they chose it.
But equivocating Trump and NRA flags w/ BLM and rainbow flags is a stretch -- they're coming from different places with drastically different intentions.
I loath the NRA but if they hewed to their stance in the previous century I'd even give them a pass.
> they're coming from different places with drastically different intentions
Are they or is that just your perception of the person who put them up?
If a person that puts up a LBTBQ flag is doing so just to show that they support equality but isn't actually LBTGQ themselves...is that different than putting up an NRA flag showing that they support the NRA organization (or at least parts of it...I don't think most people can get behind all of it)...or a BLM flag showing that they support a cause even though they don't agree with everything done in the name of BLM. Who makes that call...or should anyone be making that call? Is it easier to remove any possibility of politics or conflict from politics from classrooms as that is not why kids are going to school.
> If a person that puts up a LBTBQ flag is doing so just to show that they support equality but isn't actually LBTGQ themselves...is that different than putting up an NRA flag showing that they support the NRA organization
Depends: Does the person putting up the NRA flag belong to the NRA or not? Your alternatives aren't equivalent.
What? What does that have to do with anything, you ask? Yeah, that's what I was wondering, too. So why did you put "isn't actually LBTGQ themselves" in there?
Kids don't get harassed for not owning a gun. They do if they're not "normal".
You're looking at it in the context of "my team vs your team". My point is the context is "our team". If you can't see the difference your ignorance is willful.
A website that reviews books and suggests when they are age appropriate says this book is suggested for 15+ year olds. The story is talking about middle school libraries...
It also says this book is A+ for educational value...it just has a significant amount of mature subject matter.
I don't want to see districts banning books frivolously. But I think it's worth keeping things in perspective. Individual school districts do silly things all the time. There are more than ten thousand of them in the country. I sometimes wonder if our liberal outrage over these conservative stunts isn't just giving more fuel to the fire.
Just offer a free digital copy to any student who can supply an ID from that school district. You can get wound up about it: it is your right. But it might be good to stop to ask whether you need to.
The problem is that Texas, as a state, is the second largest consumer of school books in the nation. This gives Texas massive influence on the overall school book market and impacts other states because publishers don’t want to publish multiple versions for multiple states. This may be more a problem for textbooks than for novels, but I imagine it applies to both to some extent.
I understand but this is a single district in Texas, and it's a library book, not a textbook. If the whole state banned the book it would be a bigger deal but I still question how productive getting outraged about it is. If anything, making this a statewide or national issue would probably increase the likelihood of the book getting banned elsewhere, although I reckon it would also be good for sales.
This is but one symptom of a larger curriculum disease being inflicted on schools across the country. "Just" providing a digital alternative to the book doesn't solve the root problem.
It's multiple districts in Texas, just around the Austin area they are attempting to remove these books from both LISD and RRISD. The Williamson County commissioners recently tried to withhold CARES act funding from both these districts because of these books, however, they had no problem releasing funding for other school districts within the county even though their school libraries have the same books.
This is all political stunts pulled by various right-wing groups. They are specifically targeting LISD and RRISD because these areas have recently trended towards Democrats.
That's true on both sides of the discussions. As best I can tell, the whole "CRT!" issue has been fueled by decisions and events in a handful, if that, of specific classrooms or districts.
So we get a handful of, generally smaller and ideologically homogenous, places doing absurd things, and then suffer the backlash as those events are elevated culturally. And that elevation gives way to a movement, and then a backlash to that movement, on and on and on.
But I think it's absolutely worth getting riled up about.
I can imagine that would find mostly references to what we used to have for screens and TVs back in the old days.
Central (book) Repository of Texas, perhaps? (You know, where a guy is supposed to have been hiding with an old [Mannlicher?] carbine just over 58 years ago...)
Thank you for this. This is a really thoughtful and nuanced comment and I'm grateful for it. Sorry for the reply with no substance, but I'm so rarely impressed by comments as much as this that I wanted to let you know.
"silly thing" in my comment is a euphemism. I agree it's not good to ban books frivolously. I said it in my original comment, so I think you should understand that I agree with this view.
What I'm questioning is whether the ever ratcheting level of outraged dialogue is the optimal response. We have been trying that for the last decade or two and it doesn't seem to be moving us in the right direction. Maybe it's time to try something else.
Yes it can be, it depends of course on scale. If the Johnson family bans a book from their household, it's silly and turning a blind eye to it (i.e. just letting them run their house the way they want) is not silly.
If the US government bans a book, we should be (figuratively) marching in the street with pitch forks.
We've got conservatives pursuing and implementing rules against anything that conflicts with the myth of American creation, or pays homage to anything LGBT. So I'm not sure we can dismiss this as a conservative "stunt" and then accuse liberals of driving the issue by being concerned about books being banned.
I think the bigger issue as of right now is that this book banning and "anti-CRT" nonsense is actually becoming a major rightwing talking point driving voters and is backed by coordinated dark money groups which are trying to take over school boards and harass / oust all educators who don't toe the current propaganda line. These folks are working now to take over at the local government / local level then start working up the chain to impose whatever crazy talking points they're currently drowning in.
So the people on the right have learned from the people on the left (I guess it eventually happens) and are now doing what they did.
Progressives have forty years of work to dominate school boards, starting with University administration, on down through K-12 administration, to the point where some elementary schools are teaching "white" children they should feel guilty for being born "white." No, this isn't happening everywhere, but it is happening in some schools.
Progressives have blown past Martin Luther King's "content of their character" and haired off into Animal Farm territory. This is why MLK is now being claimed to be "problematic." His way led to reconciliation, rather than a new dominance hierarchy. Progressives in general seem to be playing to "win" not to solve, as MLK was.
When one force pushes that hard, it's likely to cause a reaction. I think we're seeing it.
> backed by coordinated dark money groups which are trying to take over school boards and harass / oust all educators who don't toe the current propaganda line
I believe this is what they call, "the iron law of woke projection".
It's well known that unfounded conspiracy theories are hallmarks of the right, not the left. An example is the irrational and dangerous suggestion that George Soros has been doing what the Koch brothers have clearly been doing for decades.
Is this actually banned? Ie, if a student posses this book at home they face school discipline?
Or is that the school libraries won't stock the book?
There is a somewhat big difference between a school library not stocking a book and a school district banning it for all students.
Iran school district bans bible might be very different from this texas "ban".
Why is it so important that children have access to this book? Do (local) parents working with a (local) school district not have some right to input on these things?
"In Lake Travis ISD, all copies have been removed from library shelves. And just last week, Keller ISD, north of Fort Worth, restricted access to Out of Darkness in all high school libraries, citing the book’s “violence and difficult imagery.” Students in the district must ask a librarian for the book and show proof of parental consent."
I see your concern that a district choosing not to stock a book is not news, but in this case it sounds like the book was available and used in the curriculum in many districts for the past 6 years, and then only banned this year after the video by Kara Bell was publicized.
The horrible part is that we're teaching kids to destroy ideas that contradict our ethos instead of using our intellect to overcome them. You don't defeat fascism by killing all the fascists, you defeat it by showing people liberty and egalitarianism is superior.
Quick note, I'm not 100% against killing fascists. There's a time and a place for anything (eg: d-day).
I don't think they are saying the destroy it...but postpone access to it until people are mature enough to read it in context.
Careful what you say about killing fascists...using violence to squash an ideology you don't agree with is basically fascism. People calling themselves anti-fascist but attacking people who are exercising their right to protest something is extremely stupid and hypocritical.
Then it's clear why texas might not stock a book right?
I let my kids look at Nat Geo Kids. I don't have them looking at hustler. This is parenting 101 stuff. Every study shows that letting kids be kids is a good thing for their development.
Yes, some kids (often without good parental involvement) get exposed to "adult" topics much earlier. This is correlated with plenty of miserable and sad outcomes.
Let me ask you this. Why should you, who is not a parent of the kids in this school, have a right to force violent imagery on those kids? Or force the procurement and availability of this material? Or of any material?
Answer that question - and you will answer your own question.
This novel crosses some legal boundaries with the adult/child abuse and rape scenes. It is VERY detail, vivid, and graphic. It includes descriptive scenes of the main character being sexually abuse by her father. Years later, her pastor encourages her to marry her stepfather as a child.
This book continues to get worse as it include graphic images of children violently harmed. Eventually, a bomb goes off at school and her little sister is killed- graphic descriptions of her body parts are all over.
This novel is a canvas, showcasing child abuse. There isn't any healthy themes or solutions.
The poster demands your child be exposed to this - no regard to age or your own parental views.
"Parents have a critical role to play when it comes to what their kids read, and Out of Darkness isn’t for everyone. But it is a book that matters to someone, and that student deserves to be able to find it in their school library."
... except for it being the school library. A library, yes, but I understand a school library not having it.
Why? My high-school library had a large selection of books with controversial topics. Should we remove "Catcher in the Rye" or "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "Huckleberry Finn"?
They purged those in some places already. This is also middle school. Fantasies of rape for a 12 year old? let me pass.
My 8 year old got "Our House on Fire"(the Gretta story) as the holidays reading. It is a hilarious fear porn with multiple bullshit claims. Idea is to scare, make the kid feel anxiety and get them to do "something". Reminded me of the old posters in USSR, What did you do for the 5 year plan???!! In some ways I am glad I can start working with her on recognizing this shit early, never though I would need to after I immigrated in my teens here... but here we are.
I wonder if she will bring a rewrite of Pavlik Morozov and COVID for summer light reading.
Oh, like these 12 year olds don't watch King of the Hill where the exact same words are mentioned. e: Do you see the black community in Texas agitating to ban Styron's Confessions of Nat Turner where the title character has an explicit fantasy of raping a white woman?
Heck, the Virginia governor-elect cashed in on this "faux outrage" because a high school senior was so mentally injured by the book Beloved, one of the most regarded pieces of American fiction in the past 50 years.
I think it was two rape cases by the same person at two different schools I believe...and that the first case was covered up and/or dismissed by the school admins.
Why do some people feel that all college age kids needed a day off for mental health because Trump won an election or safe spaces because life is hard...but at the same time it's ridiculous that a high schooler was troubled by reading a graphic depiction of rape?
I mean, it could be flipped around to ask why do some people feel that we're infantilizing our young adults, but at the same time think we need to clamp down on any viewpoints or topics that could make a young person mildly uncomfortable?
You need to define "we"...because that is part of the point. We as parents should be setting our kids up to deal with adult issues...schools should stick to learning the basics and not necessarily expanding the minds of middle schoolers with graphic books.
And what of those kids whose parents do not prepare them? Are they to be left behind?
I view the responsibility of schools to provide at least the minimum needed for graduates to be contributing members of society. That means they need diverse perspectives of our society and history. Sometimes graphic or hyperbolic language may be necessary to force students to truly consider such perspectives, so I don't see such language in and of itself as a reason to ban something. Though such works should
probably only be read with age-appropriate support.
I don't think they idea that children might be "troubled" by reading a book is what people are upset about. I think the fact that someone is using the possibility to that children may be "troubled" (in some undefined way) as a reason to raise such as fuss that the book is removed without following the normal processes.
It's even expected that some books will make children uncomfortable. Good books reveal uncomfortable truths about people, society, or even ourselves. We do our children a disservice "protecting" them from such truths.
agree that it was a little ridiculous to require a mental health day but Trump's presidency DID cause significant physical harm to a lot of people vs perceived mental trauma.
Not to mention the number of foreign national students who suddenly needed to reconsider their travel plans for the coming year (in light of Trump's promises regarding foreigners coming to the US).
It's a novel that begins with a school disaster and includes all kinds of violence, including sexual.
Deciding what books are appropriate for a high school library isn't an exact science, and it's often down to a few people carrying out a district selection process. It's not as simple as "you have to stock every book else you're guilty of censorship", regardless of the motives of people seeking to exclude (or include) specific books.
And for what it's worth, thousands of books are rejected each year by American school districts. Publishers, authors, and other interests push hard to get 'their' books into schools.
Yep. One of the worst disasters in school histories. The app autocorrected 'disaster' to 'shooting'. I edited my comment. But the point here is the inclusion of a disaster that killed hundreds of children, not my grammar. To be clear--since this is HN--I haven't read the book and don't have an opinion about it's inclusion in a school library. But I do resist the temptation to accept articles like this at face value, without context or critique.
I have a question: how has a 2015 fiction book by an author who does not have even a Wikipedia page ended up in all the school libraries? It's #102,753 in Amazon's bestseller list so does not seem to be some kind of Hunger Games or Twilight phenomenon, do school libraries just buy everything that comes out?
#107,324 in Nov 2015 (400K earlier),
#7,147 in Jan 12 2016 seems to be the highest it was recorded in the wayback machine, never broke 4 figures after that (Jan 19 is already 40K).
I don't think so. The first thing to understand about US politics is that almost 40% of the population is evangelical. There can be no constructive political discourse with that type of demographic skew. In addition to the generally irrational beliefs held by evangelicals (e.g. the earth being 6000 years old), they tend to vote as a unified block. The remaining 60% of the population generally has disparate interests and doesn't have a strongly unified vote.
If accurate, that would mean that there was no constructive political discourse in Europe period prior to the 20th century and certainly never has been any in the US, South or Central America.
I disagree, so I think that's probably not the first thing to understand about US politics.
Oh, also, you're incorrect - according to Pew it's closer to 25%.
As of 2020, the number was 34% responding yes to "Would you describe yourself as a "born-again" or evangelical Christian?". In 2019, it was 37%, and 42% in 2017.
"born-again" and "evangelical" are not interchangeable terms, though there is significant cross-over. That's why you'll get a higher number if you ask if someone is either born again or evangelical than if you ask if they are evangelical alone.
No, I am not. I'm saying that if the 'demographic skew' of a large percentage of the population actively practicing one religion prevents meaningful political discourse, that would have prevented it in the places I mentioned.
The other stuff about this specific religion having 'irrational' beliefs I think extends to most religions generally so I don't think is that useful as a differentiator.
I'm saying that if the 'demographic skew' of a large percentage of the population actively practicing one religion prevents meaningful political discourse...
"The first thing to understand about US politics is that almost 40% of the population is evangelical. There can be no constructive political discourse with that type of demographic skew."
Again, I don't think that the 'irrational beliefs' of evangelicals are unique to them, so as I said before if that's the point it also fails.
Yes, I know it's longer, but that's the reasoning for the statement, not the statement itself.
Breaking the argument down:
Statement:
The first thing to understand about US politics is that almost 40% of the population is evangelical. There can be no constructive political discourse with that type of demographic skew.
So there can be no constructive political discourse because 40% of the population is evangelical. Why?
Reasoning:
1. In addition to the generally irrational beliefs held by evangelicals (e.g. the earth being 6000 years old), they
2. tend to vote as a unified block, and
3. The remaining 60% of the population generally has disparate interests and doesn't have a strongly unified vote.
As I said, throw out #1, because it isn't unique to their religion and you have two things: 1. an organized voting block with the sole unifier being religion and 2. a disparate remainder of the population with varied interests and religions.
The first part of the remainder is also bunk, because only 56% of evangelicals lean republican. 28% lean democrat, the remainder are unaffiliated, according to Pew. So even if you took the 40% total which isn't accurate, you'd have a voting block of only about 21%, with 10% going the other side.
But even if it were accurate, it again applies to any organized religion, unless you think that evangelicals are for some reason unique in their being aligned solely on the basis of religious belief. That would be a really weird argument given the wars fought over religion prior to the formation of protestant religions.
the second part, sure, the population has varied interests. No disagreement there.
Regarding point 1, the belief that the earth is 6000 years old is much more commonly held by evangelicals: Of all the major religious groups in the U.S., white evangelical Protestants are the most likely to reject evolution. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of white evangelicals say that humans and other living things have always existed in their present form, while roughly one-in-ten white evangelicals (8%) say that humans evolved through natural processes.
The rest of your argument hinges on the rejection of evolution being shared among other groups and therefore being invalid, but as you can see, the rejection of evolution is largely a evangelical phenomenon.
It's interesting to see how quickly a discussion of US "evangelicals" turns into a discussion of US "white evangelicals." As if they are the only ones that count.
Sure, in present day United States it's largely an evangelical phenomenon.
In 19th century Europe and in modern central and south America, however, this is not associated with evangelical protestants, though protestants generally are more likely to have an issue with evolution.
Still, that's not really it - you've got a ton of irrational beliefs held by the catholic church. Unless you think those specific beliefs are what prevent constructive discourse?
>... US politics is that almost 40% of the population is evangelical.
They claim to be. But when some of them unironically rolled out a literal golden statue of their human leader, I saw no outrage from the rest of them. I saw no condemnation from the rest of them. I simply don't believe their claim.
> They claim to be. [...] I simply don't believe their claim.
But does it even matter whether we, you and I, believe them or not; isn't the main issue whether they themselves believe it? (And I'm afraid enough of them do.)
Keep in mind that a large chunk of the voting population does not vote. 2020 only had a ~66% turnout. That leaves quite a large number unaccounted for. Also that 60% is more concentrated in a handful of states while the 40% is more evenly spread out.
How do you define leftist? I think I hear this complaint online about nearly every country. I think something about the population’s opinion would be how I would define it
Leftists favor emancipation of the people from the capitalist system. There is no significant anticapitalist party in the USA. A Democrat who is narratized as "left-wing" in the USA for supporting universal health care, trans rights, etc. would be considered centrist anywhere else in the developed world.
Well first no, the democrats position on trans rights for example is more left than lots of places just look at the UK. Even some position on healthcare don’t universally line up as centrist. But more importantly shouldn’t we define these terms by the political situation on the ground? The dems are at very least on the left wing of American politics
Don't forget that what is considered centrist has shifted over time. Hell even giving fair and equal civil rights to all peoples was a radical leftist idea not too long ago. Before the civil rights act passed the country was very much in favor of a lot of the "far left" ideas being proposed today.
Totally, my point is less about what's right. Honestly the trans stuff is a big reason I can't see myself living in the UK right now, but about where the parties exist in the range of public opinion and the US democratic party is a left of center party by most definitions I can come up with
Looking in from the outside, it looks like the Democrats are 50% centric and 50% leftist. Not sure where else you would put Bernie and friends if not "leftist".
There's a somewhat leftist portion of the Democrats, but Bernie's signature positions - a public option for healthcare, parental leave, free college, etc. - are the sort of stuff that are table stakes in Europe, even for the center-right parties.
If the Democrats were 50% Left then Bernie would be president right now. I would count less than 10 people as real Left wing in the party. The qualifier should be do they actively push for progressive values? Because if they just join the progressive caucus that does not mean anything if they don't actually do anything to promote progressive causes.
Speaking as someone who volunteered for multiple real progressive candidates across the country: The Democratic party leadership absolutely despises the real Left wing of their party. They don't want them but need their votes. They will continue to do everything to undermine them. There is no left party, just a far right corporatist party and a centrist corporatist party. Thats all.
A parliamentary system of government with multiple political parties may do well in the US. Here in Canada we have at least four parties; Liberal, Conservatives, NDP, Green. It is more than likely each election will result in a minority government which means the popular parties 2nd place maybe even 3rd have a say as well.
The problem is the US would also have to allow elections at any time with a parliamentary system. The leader of the party in power is the Prime Minister and if he or his party screw up a non-confidence vote can be cast. Then we go to the polls again.
It has to be elections anytime, multiple parties, possible minority governments they all go together.
I would argue we have two leftist parties and no conservative parties, but I suspect I lean to the right of US mean and you lean to the left of the US mean?
It would look like complete loss of credibility for the US as a country to look up to(and the consequences that go with that). Our hero is in another castle.
I feel like a conservative party would abolish whole classes of social programs and remove the complexity of taxation instead of a constant debate over what percentages were correct while the national debt shoots out of control on their watch. They would be isolationist instead of different flavors of world police. They would be incredibly self-limiting constitutionalists which would dramatically limit their own power, instead of the constant fascistic expansions of power.
It would absolutely help. We humans divide ourselves politically into groups. Washington's lament of the rise of factions was noble but naive.
We need a voting system that enables political parties in the United States to rise and fall. People need more than two choices.
I believe changing our electoral systems for all levels of government to something like Ranked Choice or Approval (or multi-member systems) is the defining institutional change needed of our time.
It won't directly solve every first-order issue directly (taxation, spending, social safety nets, military, scope of government, etc). It will, however, allow us to break ourselves out into more representative groups of ideas. It will force politicians and parties to compete on the merits of their own ideas rather than "not the other party". It will allow voters to vote for ideas rather than against others. The concept of "lesser evil" will be weakened if not broken.
I believe it is critical for the culture and political survival of the United States to move away from first-past-the-post voting.
That's what centrist would mean in a vacuum, but in the US it generally means concern-trolling the Left while being a full-time apologist for the Right. I have yet to meet a "centrist" who is more concerned about what the Right is doing than they are about how the Left speaks about what the Right is doing (tone-policing and such).
Seeing that both US parties are right wing according to most definitions in the world, a new US center party would be nice to the left of the democrats. Might not be a bad idea, as it might make the democrats more acceptable to republicans?
Serious question from a German here: why are school boards democratically elected in the first place, and why the f..k do they have the power to censor books from a library that violate no laws and have been selected by the administrative staff responsible for maintaining the library?!
Because parents are the primary stakeholder group for public schools, and elections provide a mechanism for a modicum of accountability. Although it's rare for parents to get outraged enough to actually turn up en masse for school board elections and vote for substantive change.
As for why school boards have editorial oversight... What do you do if a school librarian goes off the deep end and starts spending 100% of the library budget on say, Scientologist propaganda? It's not against any laws and has been selected by the administrative staff, so how would that situation be resolved without oversight?
> Because parents are the primary stakeholder group for public schools, and elections provide a mechanism for a modicum of accountability.
Here in Germany, we have an entire bureaucratic apparatus (the Ministries of Education) to hold school staff accountable. For me, the US system is simply incomprehensible because it is plainly visible that the system can be commandeered by tiny minority action groups that have a lot of free time (i.e. conservative pensioners).
> It's not against any laws and has been selected by the administrative staff, so how would that situation be resolved without oversight?
Ideally, you'd have a set of policies that would put a serious limit on political, religious and sectarian propaganda materials... and in the case of disputes, it would be the job of the school administration (=the principal / vice principal) to deal with them.
> Here in Germany, we have an entire bureaucratic apparatus (the Ministries of Education) to hold school staff accountable. For me, the US system is simply incomprehensible because it is plainly visible that the system can be commandeered by tiny minority action groups that have a lot of free time (i.e. conservative pensioners).
At least in my experience, most of the people who bother to research candidates and vote in school board elections are parents with kids in the public system. Turnout is typically low because those people are the only ones with skin in the game. Pensioners typically don't care as long as their taxes don't go up.
The plus side to this system is that you get much more direct accountability. In the German system, if your Ministry of Education is performing poorly, how would you effect change? Vote for a national party and hope that they have the will and political capital to fight an entrenched bureaucracy that will delay and fillibuster any attempt at reform?
From the US side of things, it's incomprehensible that you'd have so much faith in a bureaucratic entity that makes competition (homeschooling) illegal, and would want less direct democracy by voters.
> In the German system, if your Ministry of Education is performing poorly, how would you effect change? Vote for a national party and hope that they have the will and political capital to fight an entrenched bureaucracy that will delay and fillibuster any attempt at reform?
You'd vote in the state elections which are every four to five years. As for the bureaucracy - if there is one thing we Germans are famous for, it's the neutrality of our apparatus. With the exception of the police and military (which tend to be more on the authoritarian right scale), it does not matter who is in government - there is no "deep state". All the people in the administration are not employees, they are state servants ("Beamte") who have sworn an oath on the Constitution and to observe political neutrality while carrying out their duties.
As for home schooling, this is actively distrusted in Germany because our education system is decently funded and the only ones actually wanting to homeschool are religious nutjobs.
School boards are much more local affairs. So rather than a state, it's just your town or a small group of towns in a rural area.
That means that upturning the entire system is actually quite difficult, but allows for much more flexibility with regards to community norms. We're traditionally nonhomogenous in aggregate in the US but have a lot of communities with shared values and have decided the best way to administrate that is to allow for flexibility within state guidelines.
So, it seems the author is worried the current middle school kids don’t have enough good books to read, so, they have to read this book?
Should a middle school kid read books proved overtime? I believe they still have enough time in their life to build the immune systems for such controversial topics.
School districts curate the material in their libraries and curricula to make available the selections appropriate for the age of the students. Restricting inventory in the school library to appropriate material is not "banning" the material. It is well within the power of parents to complain to their school boards about inappropriate materials, and well within the school boards' power to decide the curricula and materials available to students on campus. There is nothing wrong with this and happens all over the country on a daily basis.
In this case, it is reasonable for parents to complain about a book containing descriptions of anal sex being in a library available to teenagers. One may disagree, but that is why the school board had a public meeting to debate this issue, and the school board properly decided. Describing this as some sort of book banning or book burning is misleading and should be avoided.
Nothing is being banned anywhere, per se. School libraries have to pick and choose which tiny fraction of available books to stock. Different schools will make different choices about which books to include. What about all of the other millions of books this school isn't including? Are all of those banned as well? Certainly not, they just didn't make the very-very-short-list.
This author is suggesting that because HER book, in particular, wasn't chosen by this particular school, that she is somehow aggrieved. I disagree. But I with her well and I hope she finds her book in other places. Sounds like an interesting and thought-provoking read.
> because HER book, in particular, wasn't chosen by this particular school
It was specifically removed from shelves: "Lake Travis ISD removed all print copies of Out of Darkness from its middle school libraries", blocked: "banned from use in classroom libraries and the school book clubs", restricted: "Keller ISD, north of Fort Worth, restricted access", etc.
This isn't "some schools didn't stock my book" at all.
Complete quote: "In Leander, students are currently allowed to check out my book from the school library, but it is banned from use in classroom libraries and the school book clubs." That's a pretty narrow ban.
Also "And just last week, Keller ISD, north of Fort Worth, restricted access to Out of Darkness in all high school libraries, citing the book’s “violence and difficult imagery.” Students in the district must ask a librarian for the book and show proof of parental consent. " - Meaning it's still available from the library, but parents have to give consent. Also well short of a ban.
Look - I'm very liberal in my beliefs about speech. If it was my school it would be treated like any other book. But we have to accept that different people in different places will have different values and educational priorities and standards. It is not completely unreasonable to put guards around the material we expose our kids to, especially in middle school. Would you feel differently if this book were about other topics you might feel are sensitive? What about guns, Nazism, Marxism, lizard-people, etc?
Sure but it's still a world away from "This author is suggesting that because HER book, in particular, wasn't chosen by this particular school, that she is somehow aggrieved" which was your original claim.
> Meaning it's still available from the library, but parents have to give consent
Yes, like I said, "restricted". But again miles from "wasn't chosen".
> It is not completely unreasonable to put guards around the material we expose our kids to
Indeed not and if this particular book were being argued about in good faith, I'd have zero problem with it being taken out of schools. Choosing particularly salacious out of context quotes and mischaracterising it is 100% not "good faith" though.
Its not so much that her book wasn't chosen, it that her book was singled out for removal. It also probably means she'll never get one of her books in a Texas school again because no librarian or school board will want to touch her with a 10 foot pole.
What strikes me is that people like Kara Bell are so hellbent on removing content which doesn't fit their narrow moral outlook. Nuance, perspective and anything else that comes along with intellectual curiosity is irrelevant to them. It just one step removed from a mob yelling "burn the witch".
It does seem that perhaps parts of the book are more mature than what should be on the shelves of middle school library (although that could be taken out of context because I haven't read the book). I'm not sure why people are up in arms that parents feel like they should have some say in what their kids are being taught or what access they have to specific material. They aren't 'banning the book' so much as saying it's not appropriate for kids of a certain age. This isn't like Nazi Germany where books were not allowed to be owned or sold...and it certainly isn't because the author's race or religion.
The idea "parents should have a say in what their children are taught" sounds well enough, until you consider the conflicts and overlaps that type of argument leads to.
If your conclusion from that is that it’s ok for the school to enforce one group’s values on the children of parents who disagree, then I don’t think you can have a principled objection to the “banning” of books. Sometimes you eat the bear…
Personally, I would look for solutions that maximize the chances of everybody getting what they want. Maybe parents can sign a waiver for their kids to get certain books, maybe this is all an argument for school choice. Just because government funds the schools doesn’t mean we have to put parents in this zero sum position where they’re fighting over who gets to present their values to the other side’s kids.
Personally, I think it’s good for kids to be presented with a lot of different perspectives. I’ve read several of the books on these lists since they started going around and haven’t found one I think is inappropriate for a high schooler to choose to read.
But I wonder how many books raising explicit concerns about trans issues are stocked in these libraries? If they stock How To Be An Antiracist, do they have books that are critical of that?
Also, I think it would be helpful if the people defending these books focused on a substantive defense of the content instead of trying to invalidate the opinions of their critics based on identity characteristics.
My middle school had a "parental override" of some sort that parents could use to deny their children access to certain books of certain topics. Worked great.
In terms of "but is the library stocking enough books on conservative views", who knows what that even means. Is there a book out there that serves as a sufficient counterpoint to Roots? Does a library have to offer The Turner Diaries if they're going to stock Dawn?
I think I gave some pretty specific example areas, but to get even more granular: I wonder if they will stock McWhorter’s “Woke Racism” or Abigail Shrier’s “Irreversable Damage.”
As to the question “what about books I think are really bad?” I don’t see how that’s much different than what these parents are asking.
And personally, I would expect high school libraries to have Lenin’s “What is to be done?” and Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” I wonder how many do?
The librarians I know generally want ALL THE BOOKS, especially the good and or "important" ones.
The trick is generally what defines "Good" and "Important". Just because a book presents a counter-perspective, it doesn't mean the book is worth stocking because the book isn't "good" (filled with inaccuracies, lies, whatever). But sometimes, even a "bad" book is "important". But sometimes it's not. So edge cases abound.
But, just as a check, the Chicago (super liberal city run by super liberal everything) public library system does have "Woke Racism" available.
As does the Austin system.
High School libraries are more limited, so they're obviously not going to have every book, and I'm sure gaps exist for any ideological/partisan view.
‘The librarians I know generally want ALL THE BOOKS, especially the good and or "important" ones.’
By and large I agree with them. But, I don’t think that when the people running a public institution disproportionately represent one cultural perspective, we should automatically trust what they believe about what is “good” or “important,” especially when they are making decisions over the objections of another group in the public. Like I said above, I don’t think you should dismiss a person’s perspective only because if immutable characteristics, but when one group controlling an institution treats its own preferences as an objectively correct “view from nowhere” you should be suspicious. I was persuaded to this idea by my fellow lefties, who seem to forget it entirely when the group running the institution is like them (college educated. Likes PBS) and the group objecting is one they don’t like (conservative white Christians).
“People like me have views that are right and good and children of The Other will be better off if we can teach them the backwards, ignorant values of their parents are wrong” is the view of the “parents should have no say” crowd of today and the “Indian residential schools are a good idea” crowd of the past.
If a person thinks that to the greatest degree possible the preferences of conservative / working class parents shouldn’t hamper access for other kids, i’m with them. If they think “the experts” who happen to be the same SEC / social class as themselves are neutral arbiters of goodness, I think they should reflect on what that generally looks like.
As for Austin and Chicago, we’re talking about public schools here. A context where parents who aren’t well off are forced to send their kids to be taught by agents of the state. It is a much bigger deal if the public schools only represent the views of the liberal college educated class.
We don't have to automatically trust them, and challenging is important. I basically agree with everything else you said, but I also don't think it's that big a deal outside of edge cases.
My main issue with this story, and stories like it, is that parent's aren't arguing "we need the library to stock more books which present my beliefs in a favorable light".
They're generally arguing "I don't want books available to any child that present anything I don't personally agree with."
So, yes, absolutely, we should be cautious about institutional ideological blinders.
But I'm under no obligation to take serious anyone whose response to those blinders is to limit access instead of expand access.
> If your conclusion from that is that it’s ok for the school to enforce one group’s values on the children of parents who disagree, then I don’t think you can have a principled objection to the “banning” of books.
How is not banning / removing / restricting a book "enforc[ing] one group’s values on the children"? Just having a book available for those kids who want it is not the same as forcing all kids to read it.
>> How is not banning / removing / restricting a book "enforc[ing] one group’s values on the children"?
The sentence you quoted literally presumes that that is the case. I say if you think it’s ok for one group to impose its values on kids as a whole you should think what these parents are doing (trying to impose their values) is ok.
But I suggest we should instead try to look for non-zero-sum solutions where neither group does that.
But just offering the book, without forcing them to read it, is not imposing one's values on kids. What the parents are doing, forbidding the kids from reading it, is imposing their (not the kids'!) values. They're not equivalent.
IMO the non-zero-sum solution is exactly where neither group imposes their values on the kids, i.e. making the book available for those who want to read it (which will have to mean available for all of them, since we can't know in advance which of them will want to), without either making it mandatory to read or forbidding them from reading it.
Seems to me one of the sides of this issue is a lot closer to that ideal than the other.
Maybe parents should just have no say in what books are available at a school library? They don't like what their kids are being taught, they're free to put them in another school
So to be clear, you would be fine with removing these books if it were done in spite of the desires of the parents but not in response to the parents. After all someone gets to pick what’s in the library.
And do you feel this way about other government services “these people can receive government benefits too if they agree to sending their children to 3 hours of conservative political indoctrination per week. If they have a problem with that, I guess they shouldn’t be poor.”
Should citizens have influence over the police? I mean if they don’t like the service they can always just move to a rich neighborhood.
ETA: I should not have jumped to conclusions. Maybe you think poor and middle class parents should be able to influence their kids education too. Maybe you’re pro vouchers or something.
Is there much overlap when discussing a book in the middle school library that talks about dreaming of sexual assault? That seems to be the issue at hand here.
What about if those libraries had movies and they allowed rated R movies in middle schools? Would that be acceptable...or would it be censorship?
Yes. I believe violent video games should be available to children, with their acquisition dependent on parental consent.
Which is literally how it works.
If some parents don't want their children reading certain books, those parents can limit their access.
At my middle school, due to religious parents, your library card could be flagged such that the librarian wouldn't let you check out books on specific topics.
Behold. The books were available to all, but could not be acquired by all.
That's the point here...this book is available to middle schoolers without parental consent. And video games are available to children if their parents purchase them...the same as kids seeing rated R movies if accompanied by an adult. People aren't outraged by violent video games or the newest rated R movie because society has setup a consent system...that's not the case in most school libraries so the parents have no oversight.
Sure and it's still at the public library. This isn't a public library where parents take their kids and approve of the books they are getting. This is a middle school library where books are curated to the audience of middle schoolers. Same reason there isn't porn mags at middle school libraries...
Do you feel super violent video games should be accessible by young kids as well?
This sort of jibes with my experience living in Texas. There are many personal freedoms that Texas will not let you have.
That’s the big contrast for me between Texas and California. CA has lots of personal freedoms. TX has lots of economic freedoms. Ideally, I want both. But having to choose between the two, I think I prefer the relative liberty the Bay Area offers me.
What would be cool is if we had a digital school library. Authors could make their book available to school students who had a school ID anywhere in America.
What economic freedoms does Texas have that California does not? Do you mean, like relaxed environmental regulations (note that California's strong constraints on the emissions of cars and trucks that came after dangerous pollution in LA, leading to policies that are now applied more widely)? Lower taxes? Easier opportunities (due to law or economic climate) to start businesses?
A common cycle: lots of creative, hard-working people build a thriving business district, where it is thriving because customers find it an interesting place to be; then the banks want to locate there, which kills the vibe (people can walk around the banks, but density of interesting places matters), and the district stagnates as the original people sell out to uninteresting replacements. Does it not make sense to enforce some rules on who can move in next if you want to keep the place thriving? But the rules easily can go too far. For example, many a dog walker would love it if vendors could sell good, hot coffee along the dog walks or at the dog parks, but vending is forbidden nearly everywhere where it would be beneficial.
Honestly, it seems the other way. It isn't that the banks come. It's that people age but want to retain their earlier years so they prevent the next youthful replacement from coming. Then all the shops are shuttered because the owners are old and have quit and you walk past blight all the time.
What's a societal veto on businesses and how does California enforce it? Specific examples (and counterexamples) would be nice.
The main tool I see wielded in California is the Environmental Impact Report. I do often wonder if large cities in Texas will just end up following their counterparts in CA, specifically as quality of life drops due to "easier to build homes and faster to start businesses" policies. I imagine Austin is starting to feel a lot more like LA/SF these days.
A societal veto is required unanimity. CA cities (though not commonly CA at the state level) use CEQA reviews and planning commission approval as a weapon to stall things. This leads to spreading out of people, ruining the environment, and low quality of life as worthwhile businesses are unable to start.
I will supply two specific examples to get started, but think of it like you would think of the Bechdel test: it speaks about the population in aggregate, not about individuals.
Workshop Cafe in San Francisco. It was a really nice spot just to walk by. Always bustling and full of people and life. Through some nonsensical red tape they shut it down and the place was practically blighted soon after.
Articles in the Guardian are worse than useless to me (SF Gate too) because they're propaganda (and that's SF which is its own special snowflake of dysfunction).
I think it was the taxes being referenced. Other than property tax, Texas has significantly lower rates than California. And the property tax being higher in Texas is offset by lower overall property prices.
There is nothing wrong with the book and it sucks for the morons sending you hate mail - but I agree it doesn't sound appropriate for middle schoolers.
I remember secretly reading my parents' books as a kid and being puzzled at sexual references, racism and dark jokes.
They don't even have the tools to understand them.
> "Take her out back, we boys figured, then hand on the titties, put it in her cornbox, put it in her cornhole, grab a hold of that braid, rub that calico"
Ah yes, the pinnacle of English Literature. Very suitable for an eleven year old to be reading.
"She had strung together phrases from all over a chapter, but I still recognized the passage immediately. Creating it was painful, one of many times in writing fiction that I’ve had to depict harm that I wish did not exist in the world. Told from the perspective of the senior class at an all-white high school, the section of the novel that Bell pulled from captures the crude fantasies and dehumanizing attitudes that swirl around my main character, the only Mexican American in her school in 1930s New London, Texas. I represent these views in the book so that I can reveal their toxic effect; I don’t endorse them."
"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled."
That absolutely is the pinnacle of literature and it's part of life so it is important to talk about. And it's a very relevant passage these days, as men are culturally expected to actually have "genitals like those of donkeys" to be attractive.
If we are being fair, I think it is quite clear (as far as humanities go) that overall the Bible's literary value is much higher than the book in question. If we do a PageRank-like ordering of all books based on quotes and cross-references, quite likely the Bible will come on top.
That's a fair point. I guess you could try to correct for that by giving more weight to references by non-Christian authors.
However, I believe with almost any reasonable measure you choose, the KJV Bible has a very high literary value. Even Richard Dawkins would acknowledge that. [1] And for what it's worth, I am not a Christian, so I don't think I am biased by religious zeal or something.
> However, I believe with almost any reasonable measure you choose, the KJV Bible has a very high literary value.
I suspect people think so mainly because besides Shakespeare, that's the only thing most people know of that's written in this "cool" archaic language. Like Shakespeare, it's just on the limit of still being understandable, but full of thees and thous, which, the more people don't understand it, they love it all the more (as witnessed by the usage errors they commit when trying to use it, which judging from what I see online are more freqent than the cases of correct usage).
But when this particular edition was written it was in pretty much ordinary everyday language. And the stories themselves are the same old "vengeful old arsehole on a cloud smites sometimes his beloved semi-barbaric nomadic bronze-age shepherd people, sometimes their enemies" as in all other editions, so "great" as literature? Naah, I still just can't see it.
What "reasonable measure", exactly, makes it so?
> And for what it's worth, I am not a Christian
I am -- in name only (that's the first C in my username). I still believe in nominal determinalism in some cases, though certainly not in my own.
> so I don't think I am biased by religious zeal or something.
The liberals do it too argument is not entirely correct. Though both sides do engage in this kind of political theater, conservatives dominate and have disgust sharing as a central pillar of their politics. This is in part because the nature of conservative politics is to be more easily disgusted and to have moral judgements that instead of considering only harm focus on fairness and include purity, loyalty, and sanctity.
Some supports for this include The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt: righteousmind.com, the Is disgust a "Conservative" emotion? paper: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31619133, and the study of conservatives on social media by Politico in cooperation with the Institute for Strategic Dialog: isdglobal.org, www.politico.com/news/2020/10/26/censorship-conservatives-social-media-432643. Outrage drives much media, but favors conservative views and outlets.
One of the reasons I laugh when people talk about "escaping" to TX.
We are basically burning books, controlling women's bodily autonomy, blame green energy for the failure of natural gas plants during cold snaps (and then make citizens foot the bill for the next 30 years while they made record profits).
And when a fertilizer plant exploded due to improper storage and lax regulations, the governor went on a publicity tour bragging about the lax regulations (15 people died, mostly first responders)
And this news report from 2006 is a real gem:
'Peggy Fruge told me she'd welcome blacks to her neighborhood. Then she said this:
"I don't mind being friends with them, talking and stuff like that, but as far as mingling and eating with them, all that kind of stuff, that's where I draw the line."'
We do need people to come to texas to flip it blue. Just know this is a backwards place in many ways.
I have little doubt if it weren't for the decision in Lawerence v. Texas in 2003(!), Texas would still be enforcing anti-gay laws against consenting adults.
I think it's funny too when people talk about "escaping" to Texas, but you have to remember that different people are oppressed differently by the same laws. If you earn a high amount of income per year, you will be oppressed differently by tax rates in one area then you will another. Just like if you're a woman with an unwanted pregnancy, you are oppressed differently by laws in one state than another, even though someone not in your situation may not oppressed at all.
For some people Texas is a lot more free. For others it isn't. We can pretend we are just a collective, but when it actually comes down to it most people make decisions out of self interest (individuals) rather than collective interest. The expression "one man's trash is another man's treasure" feels appropriate here too.
>We do need people to come to texas to flip it blue. Just know this is a backwards place in many ways.
putting aside the specific political affiliations mentioned here, I find this sentiment generally offensive. what could possibly compel you to encourage people of a certain political persuasion to move to a specific region so as to topple the existing, different-than-yours, popular political persuasion? if you live in a Republic of fifty States, why can't you and everyone that agrees with you politically find another state to take your political values to? what makes you think that your perspective on how things should be should matter more than the millions of people already living there, such that your ideal worldview should replace the existing popular one in a specific state, via interstate mass migration?
obviously there's nothing wrong with people who live in a given state having different political values compared to the prevailing local political values and trying to change things locally themselves and/or with the assistance of other like-minded locals. but when you advocate for mass migrations of people to come and change things...
It's a value statement. You can't put away the specific political affiliations in this discussion. Examples:
"Putting aside the Uyghur genocide and one party system of China, who are you to say China should change any of their behavior?"
"Putting aside banning Christianity and subjugating women to be objects of their family and murdering journalists and activists in their embassy, who are we to wish Saudi Arabia would change their political behavior?"
I'm a lifelong Texan, and it's possible I will remain such. The Texas GOP is an embarrassment to enlightenment. As I've stated elsewhere in the thread, I wish we had more political parties so that "reasonable conservatives" had a party that incorporated good faith debate and values in their platform rather than hatred of the "other" and performative outrage.
That's why we need Texas to flip.
If you're a conservative or otherwise a GOP voter and live in Texas, I'd be interested in what drives you to that decision, though it may be off-topic for HN.
you didn't even read what I wrote, or, if you did, you didn't actually respond to it, and instead chose to try to connect entirely unrelated points. as I said, there is nothing wrong with trying to change things in state and local politics, it's the best part of our political system and woefully underappreciated by most. the point of my above post, which I repeated like three times within it to the point where I thought I was being overly-redundant, was that encouraging mass migrations of people in order to achieve your political goals, in a Republic of fifty States, is ridiculous. if everyone played that game, things would not end well for anyone. I was going to refrain from commenting on this directly, but if I "can't put away the specific political affiliations in this discussion," then, well: I've only ever seen this from "the left"/"liberals"/the Democratic party, and I find this interesting.
Ah, I see. Well, I disagree with your implication that by being a republic of fifty states, that one state does not affect the other. See, critically, the Senate.
You don't see the GOP mobilizing voters to flip states red so much, because the GOP is already over-represented in the Senate.
It's unlikely that liberals will move to Wyoming in numbers sufficient to flip it. But the demographics and economy and geography of Texas do seem to suggest that becoming a swing state is a possibility in the near future.
So to reiterate my answer to your question "Why move to other states instead of being happy to change your own?" - Because we are one country, and because until the Senate as an institution is dissolved or reformed beyond recognition, the political affiliations of each state matter to the others.
Extra credit commentary: We aren't functionally a republic of fifty semi-independent states. In many critical issues that require federal answers (climate change, welfare, healthcare, and military) we are one nation afflicted with a potentially lethal vestige of our Constitution: The Senate.
The miscommunication between you and me(and the other person) is that you don't see (or at least, acknowledge) how different states' politics affect each other's, whereas I and the other person took it as a given that they do.
I completely agree with everything you wrote above, except for the last sentence—I don't disagree that state politics affect each other because of the existence of a federal government, and therefore this is not the miscommunication between us.
the interesting part to me is exactly what you highlighted in your third paragraph: Democrat voters encourage each other to move to certain states that meet certain criteria, and, as far as I can tell, no other group of citizens in the country engages in similar behavior. I believe the miscommunication here is more ideological: I cannot imagine myself moving to a given state with given criteria in order to alter elections, or to otherwise bolster any kind of ideology or demographic.
this is really interesting to me because it for me this is just an idea that would never cross my mind, and I'm trying to figure out why that is, because this ideological distinction seems significant. I don't buy that it's just because of Senate seats.
> what could possibly compel you to encourage people of a certain political persuasion to move to a specific region so as to topple the existing, different-than-yours, popular political persuasion
My daughters' human rights as women supersede the misogynist wishes of Texas politicians
> why can't you and everyone that agrees with you politically find another state to take your political values to
I was raised to stand and fight for my rights. I don't need carpetbagging coastal elites like the Bushes telling me what texans want.
> what makes you think that your perspective on how things should be should matter more than the millions of people already living there, such that your ideal worldview should replace the existing popular one in a specific state, via interstate mass migration?
Texas has more democrats than republicans. My views align with the majority. Texas republicans are so terrified of democrats winning, they made it illegal to vote straight party line on ballots.
So I feel pretty god damn good telling people about the problems in this state and how they can be fixed.
like your sibling poster, you didn't actually engage with the point I made repeatedly above, which is the mass-migration-to-achieve-political-change part. do you believe that this concept is generally justifiable and everyone should be encouraging it everywhere to further their own goals of political change? or just this one specific instance?
1. I'm not sure my original comment was "encouraging mass migration"
2. People are free to move anywhere they like for any reason
3. If people from Connecticut can move here and change our politics, I see no problem with others moving here to change it back.
4. If corrupt politicians can rig the game in their favor, getting more legitimate voters might be the only ethical way to counteract such brazen attacks on our republic
I am not trying to "score points" or make "gotchas" here, I am genuinely engaging in honest discourse. I am unable to see how the sentence "We do need people to come to texas to flip it blue." can be interpreted as anything but literally "encouraging mass migration." as far as I can tell, Democrat voters encouraging mass migration of other Democrat voters to specific states that meet specific criteria is the only instance of this pattern of behavior that exists in the country right now, and I'm interested in digging deeper and trying to figure out why this is, where the ideological difference comes from. I don't think many people acknowledge that this is a core ideological distinction at play here, because it's difficult to imagine oneself as having the opposite worldview.
I gave several very specific examples of why people should NOT move to Texas.
And I don't agree that democrats are the only ones doing this. Visit some firearms\guns message boards if you need some examples of conservatives encouraging other conservatives to move to make sure those dang demonrats dont take our guns.
I would be very surprised if said message board posters were actively encouraging each other to move to California in order to sway gun rights laws there—let alone actually actively doing it in appreciable numbers.
Anecdotally, I went to a high school in Utah where the librarian would use a sharpie to censor sexual content. The weird thing was that she’d only censor consensual sexual content. I remember reading a book (I think it was maybe one of the Bourne novels?) that had big paragraphs redacted, but it included quite a few very graphic rape scenes that were left in.
This sort of censorship is why I think it’s absolutely critical that young people learn how to pirate stuff as early as possible. I think that self-directed learning is important to avoid children failing victim to the brainwashing of this ~culture war~.
I don't know, when a conservative book is removed from libraries I read that "librarians are free to stock their shelves the way they want".
The word "ban" seems exaggerated here. It's not banned- as in sanctions if you get caught with it - it's just not in the library. Like thousands of other books.
This isn't librarians choosing what to stock. This is librarians being mandated on what they cannot choose to stock. That is the librarian is in fact banned from choosing that book, because if they put it on the shelves they will be in trouble.
What "conservative" books have been mandated off the shelves?
Oh you're right, good distinction. And that makes this story even more of a nothing burger. It wasn't the authoritative and unilateral decision of a librarian. Tax payers brought forward a concern, made a case explaining why they were unhappy and the district agreed with them. That's the system working.
It was a loud small minority of taxpayers complaining about the books. Many of the people going to the school board meetings don't even have kids in the district or live in the district. The districts have processes in place for parents to request the district to review books available from their libraries. These people chose a different route by showing up to school board meetings, yelling at the board members (I know a few board members who have received multiple death threats), telling board members "karma is a bitch and it's coming for your kids", and in general making a mockery of the whole process.
When a school district bans a book, students who want to read it anyway can get it from somewhere else, though this is extra effort on their part. When Big Tech bans an article, users who want to read it anyway can get it from somewhere else, though this is extra effort on their part. If you think one of these scenarios really needs to be fixed, but the other is perfectly fine, then you're probably part of the problem.
Schools are part of the government and the government does and should have different restrictions on how it operates compared to a private for profit business.
I take no position on whether the books are pornographic--I haven't read them or investigated them at all.
But at least for young children, exposure to pornography is well-recognized as harmful. Not just morally, but psychologically. Maybe even as a form of child molestation.
For the same reason a 17 year old can't go to a movie theater and watch an R rated movie by themselves. Society has said certain aspects of life (violence, sex, language) need to be restricted until people reach a certain age.
I'm not confident that all kids could be like you, though. Even as an adult, I'd find it pretty disturbing if I were flipping through a book I liked, starting to identify with the main character, and then turned a page to see some side characters discussing their graphic sex fantasies about her.
That is not how it actually works. Sometimes it creates publicity about the thing, but most of time the book just disappears. Censorship actually works.
I don't think your analogy is completely valid as one is the state and the other a private company. Freedom of speech and information are not required of non-state entities. If people really want such freedoms, they should move away from Facebook and into Mastodon etc (as I and many other have)
Might be politically incorrect to say but if you are a kid and your home living situation is one where you don't have access to the Internet and there is no public library that is nearby - chances are that your financial situation is quite poor.
If you are willing to invest your time in reading - then any book that is being targeted by the current culture war is very likely to be an inefficient use of your time. Focus on books that will generate maximum value for you to become a productive member of society, who can be rewarded for the value that you bring to an organization, or learn topics that will enable you to build a business that provides value to paying customers.
Inflation is rising and times are going to get tough for you and your family. Provocative topics are for rich kids.
Who is to say if that is politically correct, but I think your statement is certainly wrong.
> If you are willing to invest your time in reading - then any book that is being targeted by the current culture war is very likely to be an inefficient use of your time. Focus on books that will generate maximum value for you to become a productive member of society, who can be rewarded for the value that you bring to an organization, or learn topics that will enable you to build a business that provides value to paying customers.
The article is about a book being banned in middle school. If you were in grade 8 concerned with whether the books you are reading will give direct profit to an organization, more power to you. But this isn’t the way that the majority of eighth graders think (nor the way that they should think).
The value of fiction books may be less direct that non-fiction reference (to which I assume you are referring, happy to be corrected), but the value is there nevertheless. A great banned fiction book is To Kill A Mockingbird- it has strong themes of right and wrong, justice, and of youth. Though I may have not identified those directly when I read it (in ~grade 8), it was fascinating and made me very excited to read.
Just because the value is longer term, doesn’t mean that it is of lower value.
I think a breadth of reading material provides intrinsic value that a myopic “does this provide a financial reward” kind of view does not. Indeed, I think the former probably ends up outperforming the latter financially in the long run when paired with good career choices.
Why? Breadth of material read encourages critical thinking, empathy, and consideration of view points not your own. As long as the material is challenging to read (develops your reading level) and well-written (spurs your imagination and ability to consider other viewpoints even if you disagree).
[0] https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/lake-travis-school-b...