Well said, WR. Seems this site clings to the exception and not the rule, like Bradbury himself, exploring the dark and light of it!

Viva La Difference!

This is a very good community with a lot of good will and a lot of quality input. I'm proud to be a small part of it.

Now I'm feeling all oogie inside.

Seriously, in my my view, these kinds of sites don't get any better than this. Where else would you get the above kind of discussion?

Pete

WritingReptile:

On your post...way way up there, third one down...you mention...

"...who sits in judgment of what is worthy, what is dangerous...what should and should not be burned..?"

Ah, but that's my whole point. Read my post again, right above yours (way, way up there)....and I make the comment that ...what is good, what is evil...has been 'blurred' by a society as a whole, not individually necessarily, but as a society in total...
Society today says....'You have a truth, I now have a truth, that there person over yonder now has a truth, and everybody has their own truths'. Unfortunately, a Truth, perhaps, just so far...but not Truth in its fullest expression...
Go ahead, just ask anybody that is born before 1940. There was no such thing as questioning what is evil, what is good. Everybody pretty much knew right from wrong. Not nowadays....

Nard wrote:

"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."

Although I often keep out of these types of discussions, my two cents are begging to be deposited, so here we go:

I see no difference whatsoever between the mindframe behind Hitler's book burnings and those of any church who would burn Harry Potter, except for one thing: Hitler had more power, so was able to express his twisted values more vigorously. If the people who burn Harry Potter had such power, I bet any conflagration they might create would be just as great...And just as dangerous to the intellectual, emotional, and imaginative freedoms of the world.

Although I consider myself a Christian, I loathe the narrow-mindedness of fundamentalism, and whenever I hear of a Christian organization (or any organization for that matter) burning books, likening Harry Potter to a demonic force, etc., it makes me ashamed to be stuck under the same umbrella. Writing Reptile's comment about joining the 21st century is quite astute.

People in the US may have the right to burn books because they live in a free country, but it doesn't make those people who choose to exercise that right look any less foolish or asinine ... And it doesn't make them any less dangerous, either.

Burning a book or CD is not merely a way of saying "I don't like this." It is, in fact, a symbolic way of stating the belief that "this should not exist."

So no matter how blissful such book burners may be in their ignorance, I don't pity them...I fear them. And, yes, loathe them. Defend their RIGHTS all you want. Don't, however, defend THEM and expect to win any respect or sympathy from me.

That just about uses up my two cents.

-Greg

[This message has been edited by Greg Miller (edited 05-01-2003).]

Nard: It's possible to some extent that we do agree. But I admit I'm not entirely sure I understand all of what you say.

I'm not sure how society has blurred the lines of good and evil. To what does this refer? The Twinkie Defense? Gay Rights? Abortion? All of the above? I don't mind living in a society where these issues are freely and openly debated.

"a Truth, perhaps, just so far...but not Truth in its fullest expression..."

Are you saying that anyone who claims to have total ownership of Truth, or a direct line to God, etc., is suspect? I would agree. But how do you know if you don't question?

"There was no such thing as questioning what is evil, what is good. Everybody pretty much knew right from wrong."

That's probably too broad a statement for me to cop to. I think we've made a lot of progress since WWII. Especially socially. We tolerate discrimination less and less. We're not so keen to excuse child abuse and wife beating. We no longer look at women as "asking for it" in cases of rape. Incredibly, we still have a long way to go on some issues.

Perhaps I'm missing your point, or overthinking, or both.



[This message has been edited by WritingReptile (edited 05-01-2003).]

WritingReptile:

Overthinking?
Hmm. I think we are all overthinking a bit lately...
So, how about just ..."thinking"
Try this, maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. Depends on the modem, I 'think'.

click on, or type into finder....and then follow instructions: http://www.rubberchickencards.com/PlayCard.php?U=198

Nard, you do have a knack for knowing just when a diversion is called for!

Care for some feminine insight?

Several years ago I moved from "sin city" New Orleans to the "Bible Belt" of Mississippi. You can only imagine what the Baptist ministers had to say about Harry Potter. Disapproval was the lay of the land. I'll never forget being in Barnes and Noble and hearing a mother tell her young child, paraphrased, "Those books are bad for you, son. Get away from there - Don't look at them."
It has been the concensus of most devote Southern Baptists to follow that line of thinking. There have been a few book burings in the area, but it seems to have subsided, probably out of the publicity generated, which fueled the forbidden fruit scenerio. However, just 60 miles away in the Big Easy, J.R. Rowling continues to rule in the juvenile fiction arena.

So it makes me wonder. Ultimately, how do you think the young boy in the bookstore will be influenced? By his mother's castration of all things Potter or perhaps the book burnings that perpetuate the absurdity? I think and even hope that child will be more compelled to read the books and perhaps embrace them in later life as a result of the childhood censorship. If you could have seen the look in his eyes when the option to read Harry Potter was removed from his tiny world.

When an idea, a book or a statement is banned, burned or expelled from a society, the first question that should be asked is, Why? The second thought in the minds of a free-thinking society should be...Maybe that's something we need to take a closer look at.

Oppressive governments and over-zealous churches will always try to rule the parts of us that resist conformity. Book burnings and pulpit censorship are very strong signals to seek individual opinion before jumping on the flaming bandwagon.

The People Of Salem Have The Excuse Of Frying Their Brains Out From Consuming Ergotized Grains And Livestock. But Our Village Still Suffers From Mass Delirium, Paranoia And The Never Ending Need To Choose Sides, Squelch Your Detractors And Root For The Home Team.

Greg: thanks for the two cents. Jump in more often.

Celestial: thanks for the anectodes. I greatly sympathize with that poor kid who couldn't have the Harry Potter book. You're right, those kind of restrictions often backfire. My Grandmother was a Born Again Christian, and we couldn't eat deviled ham because it had a picture of a cartoon devil on the package. If only she could see me now...

This thread is two pages already! I've never seen a topic grow so fast. Ironic that the file folder icon is burning....

Writing Reptile:

Are you a devil or a ham?

Perhaps a little of both. Don't tell me you eat that stuff?

(Sorry, can't resist finishing open-ended sentences. Something about those ....)

[This message has been edited by Celestial (edited 05-02-2003).]

Greg--
Your two cents just went up in value. Here, here!

I find myself wondering how the "bible belt" and (forgive me) narrow-minded people everywhere such as have been discussed above would cope if C.S.Lewis's Narnia books ever regained as much popularity as the Harry Potter books. Here we have the two sides of the coin- witches, talking animals... and more Christian allegory than you could shake a stick at.
The way that people act is either indicative of how they think... or how they don't think. We burn books because it's easier than thinking. We burn books because sometimes people's ideas are in the way of what we want. And we burn books because we're afraid and suspicious. If the Potter books were only mildly popular, innocuous things that attracted a good amount of readers without becoming a "sensation", we wouldn't be seeing this reply. We say that we are trying to keep magic and the occult away from our children, but the real result is that we assasinate thousands of little imaginations every day. We've forgotten the most important lesson, I think, when we share these types of books with children- that magic is only "real" in our imaginations, but, maybe, that is where almost anything of real value comes from anyway. Day after day I see more and more that convinces me that reality is something that operates from the inside out.

And sometimes we need a rubber chicken.
Dan