Stupid Reasons Stupid People Try to Ban Books

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William Haskins

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It's Banned Books Week! But people are trying to keep great books out of libraries and schools every hour of every day, year round. And often, people's reasons for challenging these titles are really, really... outlandish. Here are 12 SF and fantasy books that people have given incomprehensible reasons for banning.
...

4. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Reasons: Promoting masturbation, talking animals, that smoking caterpillar.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has the distinction of being banned in multiple countries. It was banned in the US in the 1960's because of all the hookahs and mushrooms; and then again in the '90's, in New Hampshire, because the novel was supposed to promote "sexual fantasies and masturbation."

It wasn't drugs or sex that got this book in trouble in China in the 1930's though—that was all the fault of the talking animals. The Governor of Hunan Province banned the book, arguing that it was "disastrous to put animals and human beings on the same level."
http://io9.com/the-12-weirdest-reasons-for-banning-science-fiction-and-1639136022/+katedries
 

Taylor Harbin

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Alice in Wonderland...and sex? I'm not buying it.

But China will ban anything the Party doesn't like.
 

nealraisman

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And people in the US will try to ban books they think are contrary to their"truths". Stupid people ban books.
 

Amadan

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I wonder how you translate The Jabberwocky into Chinese.
 

VeryFairy

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These things say more about the banner then the books.
People have nasty dirty minds.
A spider licking her lips makes you think of sex?????
 

William Haskins

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The Governor of Hunan Province banned the book, arguing that it was "disastrous to put animals and human beings on the same level."

the irony is thick with this one in light of the inhumanity that would follow in the decades to come.
 

Amadan

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Obviously the governor just liked Dickens better than Carroll.

‘You are to be in all things regulated and governed,’ said the gentleman, ‘by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You must discard the word Fancy altogether. You have nothing to do with it. You are not to have, in any object of use or ornament, what would be a contradiction in fact. You don’t walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You don’t find that foreign birds and butterflies come and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls. You must use,’ said the gentleman, ‘for all these purposes, combinations and modifications (in primary colours) of mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discovery. This is fact. This is taste.’
 

Perks

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I might try to get Gone Girl banned. I actually liked that book and I think Gillian Flynn is a very good writer. But she always has to say something horrible in every one of her books.

The gaggy gem in Gone Girl is a vegetable tray at a party with a tub of "semeny dip".

Really, it should be banned.
 

Cyia

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The Governor of Hunan Province banned the book, arguing that it was "disastrous to put animals and human beings on the same level."
Someone should have sent him a copy of Animal Farm.

All animals are created equal, but some animals are created more equal than others.

And some people in the USeverywhere will try to ban books they think are contrary to their"truths".

Fixed it for you. That's not limited to the US. It's pretty much the definition of why books are banned anywhere. "I don't like this," and "I don't want my kids reading this," turn into "This should go away and not exist for anyone," and thus gets banned.

Especially with the internet and the easy access kids now have to books they're not allowed to read at home, parents know that they can't control what their kids read or see, so they try and make it disappear. It's not really feasible, but at least e-books are making book burnings less impactful, even as a symbolic gesture.
 

William Haskins

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Someone should have sent him a copy of Animal Farm.

All animals are created equal, but some animals are created more equal than others.

china did not yet possess a time machine in the 1930s.
 

JustSarah

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Sounds to me more like they are banning the book based on the author rather than the work itself.

But as for the book itself, I'm really just not seeing it. There is nothing about the author, that one should ban the book. The except is obviously if your Sam Taylor Mullens.

If China possessed a time machine, I'd wonder if they'd keep it for the rich upper class. I would actually dare wonder if that would happen here too. Or anywhere, if you're of a sensibility.
 
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Kevin Nelson

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I have to say, this "Banned Books Week" event has always rubbed me the wrong way. First of all, it uses a remarkably elastic definition of "banning." Seriously, is removing a book from a list of recommended titles the same as banning it? If a library chooses not to buy your book, does that mean they're banning you? I don't even know what Biller and Anders mean when they say Alice in Wonderland was banned in the US in the 1960's. The book was widely sold and widely read throughout that decade, all over the country. Using the phrase "banned books" that way only trivializes real bans, where selling or possessing the wrong book can get you jailed or worse.

Second, the sponsors of this event always adopt a strategy of highlighting the most ridiculous "bans" they can find. It's awfully easy to laugh at people who want to ban The Wizard of Oz. But the subliminal message is that banning is only bad when it targets a book that's really quite innocent. The further implication is that there might be some not-so-innocent books out there that actually do deserve being banned. If the sponsors of the event want to stand up for an absolute principle that book-banning for any reason is always wrong, they should highlight fewer titles like The Wizard of Oz and more like Mein Kampf. To really stand up for the absolute principle, you have to show how it applies even to the worst possible books, the books that would fill any reasonable human being with revulsion.

If on the other hand the sponsors don't want to stand up for such an absolute principle, then they have some serious explaining to do about just what their opposition to book-banning amounts to. Is book-banning all right, provided you choose the right books to ban? If so, what are the criteria for being ban-worthy? As far as I can tell, the sponsors have never made any attempt to address those questions.
 

JustSarah

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Banning could also be trivializing and making something culturally taboo. Even if that's make it a laughing stock among literary circles.

Yes I do think there are a couple of books I have in mind.
 

William Haskins

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Banning could also be trivializing and making something culturally taboo. Even if that's make it a laughing stock among literary circles.

Yes I do think there are a couple of books I have in mind.

no. that's criticism.
 

DancingMaenid

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I have to say, this "Banned Books Week" event has always rubbed me the wrong way. First of all, it uses a remarkably elastic definition of "banning." Seriously, is removing a book from a list of recommended titles the same as banning it? If a library chooses not to buy your book, does that mean they're banning you? I don't even know what Biller and Anders mean when they say Alice in Wonderland was banned in the US in the 1960's. The book was widely sold and widely read throughout that decade, all over the country. Using the phrase "banned books" that way only trivializes real bans, where selling or possessing the wrong book can get you jailed or worse.

I do understand your point of view, here.

But in the U.S., I think books being banned in schools or removed from libraries is the most common form of suppression, and a lot of bans are based on the idea that children shouldn't be exposed to certain ideas. And in my experience, Banned Book Week often caters a lot to kids and young adults, in which case it makes sense to emphasize books that are more likely to be at their reading level.
 

RedWombat

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don't even know what Biller and Anders mean when they say Alice in Wonderland was banned in the US in the 1960's. The book was widely sold and widely read throughout that decade, all over the country.

I was genuinely curious about this, and went looking. Apparently this is a tale that has grown in telling.

It wasn't 1990 in New Hampshire, it was 1900, in one single school, and even this claim is shaky. (I saw claims that all of New Hampshire had banned it, which would then link to a website saying one school stopped buying it, which then wound up at "The University of California said the school did, but provided no primary sources for this claim.")

I couldn't track down who supposedly banned it in the sixties, just that people thought it was about drugs and gave it the side-eye, but with no proper names attached.

One pill makes you larger, one pill makes you small, but the website's bibliography doesn't do anything at all...

(Incidentally, the SONG "White Rabbit" has been banned a few times for drug references, and once as an instrumental version by a marching band.)
 
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JustSarah

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For drugs? That has to be about the flimsiest excuse to ban a book. I can see if there were in fact beheadings.

With drugs, there isn't even an empathy excuse. Unless one of the main characters were like a drug runner. Or maybe I'm used to reading high tech; low life.
 
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