Insightful article into the near past:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57288-2003Apr29.html

Hitler's burnings of good books were a surpressing of Grand Ideas...and an unburned emergence of his twisted values.
This is a far cry....as related in the article posted above...from a church burning Harry Potter books. You can say the same for The Dixie Chicks getting banned and battered because they exercised their freedom of speech, or other musical artists gettting their CD's burned or trampled on because lyrics are offensive to some.
The "Can of Worms" ...is when, to the 'great mass of civilization' ...is presented the terribly bothersome question:
What is good?
What is evil?

In today's society, thanks to immediate mass communcation and ear bending, evil and good have blurred their places of residence. To express a value before the world, is to ask to be executed as your breath pushes against your vocal chords to vibrate the sounds of language.....

IS it valid to say that ...an Book Editor who strikes-away paragraphs and sentences and even single words, is "Censoring"... even if it's according to his own, or the company's editorial values? But everyone calls it 'editing'.

When quite a few of us are upset at Michael Moore using 'Fahrenheit 911' for his film project, we are not censoring the choice of words, but considering the stance of his erring judgment.

CENSORSHIP:
Supervision and control of the information and ideas that are circulated among the people within a society. In modern times, censorship refers to the examination of books, periodicals, plays, films, television and radio programs, news reports,and other communication media for the purpose of altering or supressing parts thought to be objectionable or offensive. The objectionable materials may be considered immoral or obsence, heretical or blasphemous, seditous or treasonable, or injuries to the national security. Thus, the rationale for censorship is that it is necesary for the protection of three basic social institutions: The Family; The Church; and The State.
(Not mine, but Funk and Wagnalls definition in Volume 5, Pub: 1986)

A few random and disorganized thoughts ...

I fail to see the significance of distinguishing "Grand Ideas" from, say, Harry Potter. Who sits in judgement of what is worthy, what is dangerous, what should and should not be burned? That is the slippery slope of censorship.

As far as the difference between the Nazis burning books and a church group...let's not forget that the Nazis weren't always "The Government". They used weapons of fear, ignorance, racism, hatred, etc. to come to power. And their greatest weapon of all may have been the silence of those who should have known better.

I don't remember Jesus burning any books, besides. Though I'm sure anyone who wants to can find bible quote to support the idea. Times like this I'm grateful to be an atheist.

Book burning is an act of terror and oppression, and I would think any church would want to be careful about associations between Nazism, book burning, and witch burning.

The 21st century is a great place to live. Wish everyone would join in.

Well, I'm grateful not to be an athiest at times like this, but I'll be the first to concede that religion is certainly capable of embarrassing itself with some frustrating frequency!

I am not really comfortable with the suppression of ideas. I am very comfortable with the founding fathers' idea that the free exchange of ideas is what will allow the best ideas to float (or fight their way) to the top. I loved Bradbury's afterward to F451 where he responds to people telling him to change the book to go out and write their own books.

If people don't like the ideas expressed in books, they should make a personal decision not to deal with them, or they should produce a book that presents a counter-argument or counter-proposal. Let the marketplace of ideas hash this stuff out.

In 1644, Milton wrote a great essay called "Areopagitica" that argued against restrictions of the press. It is absolutely great. I find it amazing that we battle the same issues 300+ years later.

Burning any book is an ignorant, violent act, from Harry Potter to Plato, but Christians burning "witches" is an example of religious violence at its worst. If any one line from the bible should be censored/burned, it is the one on which the Salem witch trials so heavily relied: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Exodus 20:18).

I'm sure that "good" Christians then and now would rush to persecute men, women, and children who read Harry Potter or anything Ray Bradbury writes. Religion, in the wrong hands, can be dangerous. Look around you.

It should read Exodus 22:18 in last post.

When I was but a lad, Dungeons and Dragons was the Devil's tool. Also Led Zeppelin. And Ozzy Osborne--oh how evil Ozzy was. Now I watch the Osborne�s on MTV and wonder...just what the hell was anyone afraid of?
Time tends to put these things in perspective. But I think we will always have more to fear from book-burners than from books themselves.
As for witch-hunters, anyone interested in reading the publication of notorious self-proclaimed Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins is welcome to cruise over to my web site: http://www.davidanaxagoras.com/discoveryofwitches.htm


[This message has been edited by WritingReptile (edited 04-30-2003).]

Hi, Writing Reptile,

About the following:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by WritingReptile:
[B]Who sits in judgement of what is worthy, what is dangerous, what should and should not be burned? That is the slippery slope of censorship.

Er,um, I do. As do you, any time you decide to purchase a book. As Ray has said, there are many ways to burn a book. By failing to purchase any in particular, you've made a choice. Which goes directly to Mr. Dark's statement of the marketplace of ideas thrashing these things out. A church burning a book? Hardly worth getting upset about. After all, the book is readily available just about anywhere, even Wal-Mart. So I think you're making a tempest in a tea pot, if you will. We've got freedom of religion in this wonderful country; let churches burn all the books they want. We'll write new ones.

As for your slippery slope statement, I don't really buy into many slippery slope arguments, if at all. It seems to deny our ability to make free choices. To say if you outlaw one thing, that will lead to the outlawing of something else is absurd. We can make decisions on each thing as it comes, can't we?

For instance, surely you'd agree that child pornography should be illegal. No problem there, right? But if we were to adhere to your slippery slope argument, we wouldn't outlaw such things because, well, that would lead to the outlawing of (insert your favorit skin magazine's name here.)

What do you think?

Sincerely,

Pete Terranova

In this present society, evil and good have been blurred and the true meaning of censorship has been lost.... The posts above confirm it! Gee, too Bad!

If you think censorship shouldn't exist....why isn't anybody in the last chapter of "Fahrenheit 451" walking about ... memorizing pornography? Why are only the esteemed and so-called moral 'visionaries' being spoken verbatim?

I'm not quite ready to make a blanket statement that "good christians then and now would rush to prosecute . . .". I think any philosophical system -- not just religion -- in the wrong hands, can be misused. I think people -- acting in pure random violence (i.e., looting, lynchings, and mob violence) -- can be dangerous. Man's ability to commit heinous crimes against his/her neighbor has never REQUIRED religion or philosophy to provide a springboard. Violence, greed, anger, lust -- all operate for violent ends without any systematic justification.

Also, I would argue that there were "good" christians -- even in the Salem witch trials -- that opposed, vigorously, the prosecution and execution/imprisonment of accused witches. It is historically inaccurate and morally unfair to paint all christians with the sins of some.

The paintbrush sweeps in the above post are just too broad. There are good christians and good athiests -- just as there are terrible christians and terrible athiests.

Additionally, as terrible as the Salem witch trials were, I think the actual number of executions numbered under a hundred. This is hardly comparable to the massacres in the name of religion by Nazi Germany, The Crusades, the killing of christians and "lesser" Muslims by other fundamentalist Muslims, etc. Let's be careful with our claims and be sure they are really tied to history and to human nature.

Also, I agree with Pete that we make individual judgements all the time. The great thing about being in a free society is that we GET to do this.

re: "As for witch-hunters, anyone interested in reading the publication of notorious self-proclaimed Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins is welcome to cruise over to my web site: http://www.davidanaxagoras.com/discoveryofwitches.htm

This made for pretty interesting reading. I think the guy needed some Freudian analysis there!

[This message has been edited by Mr. Dark (edited 04-30-2003).]

I can't CHOOSE a book, or not choose it, if it's been burned up. I can't tune in to my favorite TV program if it's been ripped off the air by broadcasters succumbing to threats from vocal "morality" groups...because I chose to remain silent.

Freedom of religion doesn't entitle anyone to acts of oppression and terror. "Let them burn" is a dangerous and irresponsible attitude. In our silence we consent to the act and to what it represents.

As for the child pornography analogy...I think it only proves my point. A mother in a photography was arrested a few years back when she took nude photos of her child for a class assignment. Was it pornogrphy? It takes a lot of careful thinking and informed debate to navagate these issues...not the sort of thing likely to be found at a book burning.

I think acts of terror and oppression are far more likely to occur where freedom of religion is NOT provided for. I may be misunderstanding the intent of your comment there.

I agree that sometimes the line between pornography and nudity is a fine line, but when we talk of child pornography, we really aren't arguing (I hope) about haggling over what would be called "hard core" child porn. Echoing the claim made in another post above, I think we are capable of making distinctions. Pictures of cherubic little infants laying on a rug have been around for a long, long time. I really don't think that is considered child porn. As to the case you allude to, I would need to see the picture. I find it hard to believe that this mother was arrested for "innocent" child nudity, nor do I know the context or manner of display. If she was arrested unfairly, I have to hope it was cleared up pretty quickly. In either case, the existence of some extremists doesn't negate a society's ability to make some judgements on boundaries of acceptable behavior. Again, the advantage of a free society is that at least these things can be discussed.

As far as shows being taken off tv because they violate "community standards", this is more typically a marketing call by an intimidated station than an example of government censorship. As with the Dixie Chicks, when people withhold support for something they disagree with, that is thier right to exercise free speech. Free speech does not guarantee an audience or a forum.

I definitely agree that this is a free country and that, in general, there should be no prior restraint on the press. It is hard to read F451 and not feel this is the appropriate default in a community.

As far as the point made earlier that there was no pornography in the book communities at the end of F451; there is no evidence that Bradbury intended for that to be an endorsement of prior restraint. Maybe with limited resources these individual people made their own choices to select the best of the best. Also, this goes to the importance of free societies being committed to education, so individuals have some kind of criteria for determining what is good and valuable and what is not.

I used to be Really Stupid!
Now I am just kinda Plain Stupid!
But reading some of these posts above remind me of those good ol' days... when ignorance was truly Bliss!

I believe in freedom of religion and I'm not saying a church can't barbeque a few books in their parking lot if they want to.

What I'm saying is, I refuse to remain silent about it. I refuse to be complacent in the face of fear, ignorance and stupidity -- especially when someone else's narrow interpretation of a belief system is being used to persecute or oppress others.

I refuse to let the only "voice" that is heard be the voice of those extremists to which you refer.

I don't think it's creating a tempest in a tea pot. It think it's important that people be aware of the implications of book burning and the suppression of information--even when it's NOT the government that is responsible.