Thursday, October 11, 2007

Censorship...Becareful what you write, read, speak or think

You can respond to all or pick just one...
1. Is it okay to have books on making bombs in the school library?
2. Will banning books keep people from reading them?
3. Television shows are censored, so are song lyrics—what makes books different?

56 comments:

Unknown said...

1. I do not think that it is okay to have books on making bombs in a school library. Who knows what certain students would do with that information? It could lead to some very bad things. If they look up that information at another library and do something with it, atleat it was not found in the school library and they can't blame the school on what the kid does. It would be safer not to have information like that in a school where you do not know what the students will use it for. Also, why is it necessary to have that kind of material in a school library? There is no good reason.
2. Banning books will definately not keep people from reading them. Everyone has different opinions, and therefore they might not agree on a certain book being banned or challenged. I know that there are certain books I have read, and I had no clue that they were banned. Also, some of the stories are very good but they were banned because of things such as bad language, or animals talking. I think that is a little bizarre, and no, it will not keep people from not reading them.
3. Are books not censored? I am confused what you mean by that. If it is that they delete things from the material then I have no idea why a book should be any different. Books are written by people, and it is therefore rightfully theirs, but so are songs and television shows. So, what does make books different?

josed said...

1. I, for one, would care less if there were bomb-making books in the library. That stuff is on the internet for people who want that information. It doesn't matter: they can still get the materials if they look hard enough.

Not having that information in school libraries changes nothing. Its like trying to stop up a river with a piece of cork.

2. Banning books will not keep people from reading them... it just makes them harder to find. Depending on the ban, people can be arrested for retailing books. In governments where a book has been blacklisted, having it is a federal offense.

People have wills of their own: the government is not our collective brain, is it? Reading is a form of expressing individuality, since you can like one type of book or another. It is a way to express a desire to learn. Therefore, we are protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution to be able to read it. If your favorite book was just banned, would you stop reading it?

Banning a book is like trying to stop a river with a giant cheese grater: sure, you can stop up most of it, but some will seep through the cracks. It makes no sence.

3. Television shows and songs are different in that those are mass media- EVERYONE watches Grey's Anatomy or The Simpsons or Family Guy or SOME SHOW. Have you known a little kid with a TV that doesn't watch cartoons? The same with songs EVERYONE listens to SOMEONE. Books are just not as popular. There is a greater number of people who cannot read than people who are wholly excluded from these two mass mediums.

Television and songs are passive entertainment: You Don't Have to Think About It Kind of Entertainment.
It's
Not like a book
that makes you picture
what's going on.

Passive entertainment takes out all of the thinking: you are given a solid image of the protagonist, you are given the plot, and the setting with no room for imagination. And with songs: in old days, you either had to sing (or play) it or be rich and get your own band. Guess which of those two options is going to give your brain a better workout? When you are given no parameters on which to work your imagination, and the TV is telling you what to think, context becomes more strictly defined, and the F-bomb and other... choice words are more repeatable. Truly, TV does in some respects rot the brain: it atrophies creativity, and makes people into "thought-slaves" of the Television.

Censorship is placed so that the TV doesn't tell you something bad, or so that CD doesn't give you a new vocab word. In books however, there are applicable mental parameters, such as "well, that's not a good word, but it expressed his rage," or "This tells me he's not in good mental condition." Books can be Interpreted! Rember our Macbeth Discussion tests, where everyone had their own ways to interpret the book? Well, the same goes for every book. Since words in a book can hold connotations, by censoring a book you may be destroying its meaning.

On top of that, books are the direct expression of a person's inner feelings. Censoring that is saying, "we don't care what you think since it's inappropriate." We all know that human thought isn't always "clean:" tragedy can make people think in darker ways, and blocking that out when it's in writing only makes a person feel worse inside.

Well, those are my two (hundred) cents!

Elisabethc, BOOKS ARE NOT CENSORED: THERE IS NO BLOCK OVER SWEAR WORDS. YOU ARE JUST DISCOURAGED TO READ THOSE MATERIALS THROUGH BANNING

kristinah said...

1)I dont think that it is a necessity to have books on making bombs in the library but it doesn't really make a difference. If the students have access to computers then they can just look it up on the computer if a book is not provided. In my opinion, they shouldn't have them in the library because it is not something that you should be making at school.

2)Obviously not because we are about to read a banned book in class. Just like it is illegal to murder that does not mean that people wont murder, people still do it. If the person has enough determination to do something,they will do it no matter what the law is. The only difference that banning a book makes is that people will question whether they want to read it.

3) When reading something you have the choice to read or not to read certain words or even certain books. As opposed to a song, you cantturn on and off your ears to certain words, and you dont have the choice of which words are in the songs. Also, you dont have the option in public places what songs are being played. No matter what form of speech we use we should not take that freedom away from people, we should however monotor and listen to what we want to listen to or read what we want to read.

katyj said...

1. No, it is not okay to have books on making bombs in a school library, school shootings like Columbine should prove that. While most students would probaably just ignore those kinds of books, some students would see them as a way to so damage to the school or people in it.
2. No banning books will not keep people from reading them. There are many books that i have either read or own that i did not know were banned until now. Just because they have been banned from a school, doesn't mean that someone cannot acsess them in a public library or book store.
3. people have a chioce whether or not to read a book, so it is a little different because if people don't like a book's content they can just put it down.

Ryad said...

1)I'm having a hard time taking a position on this because if there is a book on building bombs in a school library then the school can be held responsible if a bomb goes off in a school. It's also just as easy to find instructions on the internet like josed said

2) Banning books will have no effect if somebody really wants to read the books. People do things they aren't supposed to everyday.

3)I personaly don't get the point in sensoring things. It is not that hard to figure out waht the beep or whatever they did is replacing. People do it to "protect kids" I figured it out when i was really little. I have no idea why books aren't sensored but it's kind of nice not to have that fake covering over it.

Katy- You can put a book down but you can also change the channel and skip the song.

Anonymous said...

2. Banning books can't stop people from reading them. I mean, look at what we're doing now.

Also, alot of people who read banned books don't know it's banned.

mattw said...

2. I completely agree with kekek. If anything, banning something just makes people want to read it even more. If somebody says you can't do something, it's human nature to want to prove them wrong. If somebody said, "Matt, you can't read that book because it's not OK for your age group." I would want to know why, so I'd read it.

1. Ya I don't care if they have books on making bombs in the library, because somebody who's gonna spend enough time in the library to find out if ther's a book about bomb-making in there, probably isn't going to do it. Like Jose said, if somebody wants to make one soooo bad, it would be easier to just go online than to check out a book called "suicide bombing for Dummies".

3. Uh, I guess books aren't that different, but for some reason people thinks its worse if you can actually hear or see something that should be censored. I also think Rya has a point because if something is "bleeped" out of a show, then it's just as easy to figure out what was supposed to be said there. But it is kind of nice to see how things are supposed to sound.

Even if a show or song is censored, that doesn't mean you'll never hear that "word" at some point in your life. I mean just at school you can hear just about every single word that has been bleeped out of every form of media or music in the past two years. Personaly, I get tired of hearing it, but It helps having a short attention span.

Brian c said...

2. I don't think that banning books will keep people from reading them, in fact, it might even cause more poeple to read it or at least make the people that do read it read more carefully and thoroughly.

amyw said...

I don't think banning books will keep people from reading them. My church strongly encouraged us not to read the DaVinci Code because it had ideas in it that questioned the church's ideas, and this really made me want to read it! I think that when a book is banned, it only makes people want to read it more. Everyone wants to figure out why it was banned, and becasue it's "forbidden" that automatically makes it more interesting. And lots of people know that books are banned for stupid reasons a lot of the time. So no, don't think banning books will keep people from reading them.

jordanh said...

1. I think that if a school library has a book on making bombs, then it is for educational purposes. Maybe a student would need that for a project or something like that. But I truly believe that if someone wanted to make a bomb, they wouldn't want to research this in a library in a school. Why should the library get to decide thatif a book is about something bad, then it will be used for something bad.

2. Banning books doesn't do anything from stoppin someone from reading that book. Nothing and nobody can ban a book form being read ultimately. Sure, maybe the place that the book is banned in will be "protected", the reader doesn't hagfe to read it in that place.

3. I think that books are different because they are something that can be a little bit easier to manage. For example, it would be easy for a kid to see or hear something on Tv or in a song that was innapropriate because they are more modern forms of information and are much more common than a child opening a book and finding thr particular part that could be innapropriate.

ashleyf said...

2. i think its interesting how the reason books get banned is because there are poeple who dont want to, lets say, thier children to read them. But the second they find out it's banned, it makes us all curious and more likly to read them.

JohnB said...

1) I guess it would be okay, but only to a certain extent. Like, maybe for survival; a life or death situation. But it depends. I wouldn't want a book just on building bombs. I wouldn't want to end up brutally injured by an explosion in the school.
2) Absolutely not. It's the whole "challenge the system" thing again.
3) Books aren't as popular. People for some reason don't want "open" censorship.

aaronw said...

1. I don't think it's okay because they would be showing that they don't ppl making bombs... and that's dumb
2. No it would not, because the ppl would just be challenging the system, so it's a cause to read it.
3. I think that books can be interpreted many different ways, so some would have to be censored...

amandah said...

1. I don't think it's okay to have books about making bombs because it promotes it and it will make the students think that its okay.
2.No, because when someone tells you not to do something they're going to do it anyways. Banning or prohibiting something will just make people want to read it more.
3. Books are different because its how you interept them, when on tv or in music you see someone else's interpretation.

maddief said...

3. I think that books are different because if your five year old kid turns on the T.V. and sees something inappropriate, that image is stuck in their mind. They didn't mean to see that, but it was there. You have the option of reading or not reading a book, it's not just open like on T.V. Also, if you turn the radio on and the lyrics contain the "f" word, it wasn't your choice; you had simply turned the radio on and the word was there.
2. I don't think that banning books will prevent people from reading them because people are naturally curious and stubborn. If an adult tells their child not to do something, they always do the exact opposite and do it. People read banned books because it challenges the system and makes them feel rebellious.
1. I think that schools have to show discretion in what their libraries contain because the books show what is okay. If a book about making bombs is in the library, a student might think that it's okay to go home and make a bomb and bring it to school. Books have a large influence on our lives because they represent the ideas of the author, and can encourage others actions.

Liap said...

1. I don't think it's a good idea, because it is like a promotion of the book, whether or not the person reading it decides to make a bomb or not.
2. I think that banning books makes people want to go out and read them more. Banning books makes them somehow more intreaging, because now there is the question of why it was banned.
3. I think it is just harder to censor books, and you can't always bleat out a word or take out a sentance, because it might mess up the whole scene and it doesn't always flow with the rest of the story.

nilec said...

1. I dont think it is ok to have books about bombs in the school because it makes the school seem like they support making bombs. If a company doesn't support something they won't advertise it so why would they school have bomb books if they don't really support it.

Louiseb said...

1. I don't think that it is appropriate to have books on making bombs in a school library because it makes it seem ok. It is like to school is promoting it.
2. Banning books will deffinitly not keep people from reading them. You may not be able to read it at school but no one is stopping you from reading it at home.
3. Music and T.V. are very public and everyone who is in the area when the word is said can hear it, there is really no way to close peoples ears so that they can't hear what is going on around them so the best way to keep a bad word from spreading is to censor it. When you are reading the word is just in front of you and unless you are screaming the words while you are reading no one else is going to hear the words, it will just be in your head.

Alyssa S. said...

1. I don't think it is okay for schools to have books about making bombs because, like Nicole K. said in class, if a school had it in the library they would kind of be promoting it.
2. No, I think that it will make them want to read it even more. It seems that when someone says you can't do something, you want to it even more so you can see what is wrong with it and try it out for yourself.
3. I think that books can be interepted in many more ways than song lyrics or TV shows can. People can take many different perspectives on books because when you watch TV shows, it flat at shows and says things, whereas in books you can percieve it in several ways.

kristenw said...

1. I agree with nicole when she said that if we put a book about making bombs in the library it be like saying it's ok to make a bomb.

2. No i don't think banning books will cause people to stop reading it. I acually think it will make more people read it because it brings attention to it.

3. It would be kind of hard to censor book because thre's no way to take back all the books that have been distributed and censor them. With TV shows they can just censor it write there. Also I agree with Mark in saying you can't stop something from seeing tv show cuase it's going to play no matter what but with books you can choose not to read it.

alexd said...

1. I do not think that it is okay to have books on how to make bombs at school. There is no reason that there would need to be a book on that at school. I can not think of one logical justification to have that at a safe place like school.
2. Banning books will not keep people from reading them. Banning them will just make people want to read them more.
3. I think that T.V. is more open and out there than books so they have to censor it more.

nilec said...

2. I think banning books will make people want to read them more because alot of people enjoy going against the grain and challenging the system. And if doing something as harmless as reading a book is enough to challenge the system I think people would do it.

meganu said...

I don't think it would be a very good idea to have books on making bombs in the school library. It would be advertising the idea of making bombs and possibly blowing up the school or something. I don't think a school would want to give its students the idea of making something explode. I'm not saying that everyone who saw the book would get the idea to blow up the school but there is a possibility that someone will.

ZachH said...

1.) It's a touchy subject. In a vague way, it goes back to Freedom of Speech. I mean, as American citizens, we have the right to knowlege if we want it. I don't think it is a great idea to have books that encourage or promote violence in a public school, but i think to prohiibit students from seeking knowlege they might be intrested in is wrong.

2.) Unless a book is taken off the shelves everywhere, it wont stop them from being read. For example, the bible is banned, and it would be very hard to get churches to not allow their worshippers to read the bible. So many of the "classics" are banned and they are still very widely read.

3.) I think it is easier to censor TV or Music than books. Plus i think it is difficult to censor books since so much of it is left to your imagination, you can't really censor idea that people have.

NickB said...

1) My veiw on having books about books on building bombs in the schoool library is that kids in high school don't have full control of their emotions, so if the school district provide a quick, easy way to let that anger out is a bad idea. this let out of anger is very destructive. i think they should not have books on how to build bombs in the library just for the fact that kids at this time of their lives are a little too unstable

Unknown said...

1) I don't really think that would be an issue. I don't think that an elementary student would even want to check out the book in the first place. But, other views can be said.

2)I highly doubt it. Some libraries also have them and do not confiscate them...

That's all I want to answer on.

Unknown said...

1) for clarification, It wouldn't be a good thing to have a bomb book in the school library, but I'm just saying that I doubt that a little kid will want to build a bomb for destroying purposes.

ParkerH said...

2. Banning books will not keep students from reading them. If anything, that will make people read them. People have common sense. For instance, this other application. If there is a big scary house, kids won't go there. Unless, of course, there is a rule against going there. Then they will. So banned things almost hurts the cause.

beckyg said...

I really don't think that having books in the school library about making bombs is not right, and by having books ike that, it is encouraging violence and destruction. The government should have the right to bann this book, because the governments job is to protect the people. This doesn't mean that it will keep people from reading it, because they might find it, but putting it in the school library is going to far.

Laurenc said...

1) Personally I don't think it is necessary to have books on bombs in the school library. Why should we encourage learning something so dangerous in a safe secure place? If someone is messed up enough to really want to make a bomb, they can probably find the information elsewhere. It is a true fact that making bombs are bad and I think banning books about making bombs it a smart way to prevent some bored and stupid kids from making a dangerous thing that could kill tons of people.

2) I think it depends on the person whether or not banning books wll prevent people from reading them. Some people will only be encouraged more to read something that other people think is bad. Others however will wonder why it is banned and look into it. After doing that then they will make their decision and sometimes they will decide that they really don't want to read it

3) Well books are more provate then say songs or tv shows. Songs are played on the radio for everyone to hear including small children. Same with television shows. Books are a more private thing that can be kept to specific people and kept out of say, small childrens hands

lesliel said...

i totally agree with Steven because if you are really drived to make a bomb you can go to a library and find it yourself.
I think that banning books will make people want to read that book even more. By banning books, it publisizes it more.
When you read books, you can control how, and when you want to read a section of a book. When you're listening to something and a cuss word it blurted out without anyone being ready for it, i think people could get affended by it.

macm said...

1) I think that you could have a book on making bombs in the library. Some people may use that info for a project or something, not actually making a bomb. Also they could just purchase the book or find the same information online.
2) No, as I said before, people will always be able to find information, especially now that we have the internet.
3)I think this is because tv shows and songs are more public, they are shown on television or the radio, so they are protecting people. With books, little kids probably aren't going to be looking at that kind of thing.

alexf said...

2. I think that banning books will at least hold up some people from reading them. In other words, someone isn't going to be like, "Oh, I'm bored. Lets go get a banned book!" If someone wants to read something badly enough, they'll find it...and it doesn't have to be by using books. But i think that it will prevent some people because they may not be looking for a banned book and if they can't find it, it will kind of prevent them from reading it

Anonymous said...

1. I do not think that a book about making a bomb should be allowed in school libraries. Although it is knowledge, it is knowledge that encourages violence and destruction. And for the kids that have a desire to hurt other people, having materials to fuel that behavior so readily available increases the probability for those kids to act on the behavior.

2. Banning books will definitely not keep people from reading them. It will prevent the effort required to get a hold of the literature, however if someone has a desire to read it enough then they will get a hold of it and read it. Banning books almost make people more interested in reading them because humans have a natural desire to know what they are not supposed to know or what is so bad about the book.

3. Television, radio shows, and such are more public then books. Books are much more private learning and more of an individual choice on whether to read them or not. The radios and television are broadcasted to everyone even families and therefore they need to be careful. However, everyone makes a choice whether or not to listen or watch certain things, so it is similar to books.

Anonymous said...

2. Banning a book doesn't keep people from reading them because of human curiousity. Forbidding things make it seem more desirable so human curiousity makes people want to know more about it. I think that just because there are bad things out there, that doesn't mean everyone will make use of that. Just because there are books like the Anarchist's Cookbook doesn't mean that the general population will buy the book and make a bomb simply because there is a book describing how. Ideas like that are everywhere so banning one book with that idea doesn't change society.

Tylerg! said...

1. No, this book should be banned, we don't want kids, who as much as we hate to admit it, can't handle things like bomb building books. So we should not encourage this behavior no matter wat.
2.No, people have resources everywhere, books can only stop kids from using a book there is internet and tv and songs so it doesn't have to much of an effect
3.Books are written, it is different when someone is talking and u can see who is saying it

catem said...

1. I think that a book in the library about a bomb, wouldn't have that much of an effect on someone who wants to make a bomb, if they really wanted to make a bomb, you would find a book somewhere anyway, and if you didn't want to make abomb, you wouldn't read the book. If it would have any affect it would be postive, because how exciting does making a bomb sound when the information is available to everyone.

ryanm said...

1.i think it is okay to have a book with bomb making in them, because students (at least in most schools) have enough integrity and sanity to be able to read that kind of material without the intent to build a book.

2.I extremely doubt that banning a book would stop people from reading it. infact, it would pique many people's curiousity and more people would readit.

3. books are moreof a private thing, instead of television shows and songs which are publicly broadcasted to millions of people. Books are one to a few people who know, there are reasons that the book they are reading is challenged and or banned.

Laurenc said...

This is relating to what Ms. Smith just said about the other school districts having even worse filters,

I think if you keep someone away from the internet then they will want even more to go and discover it. If you never teach students the difference between who is normal and who is phsyco on the internet then they will never know.

plus, kids will just go to the library to "study" when they are really on a social site

mitchl. said...

i think that banning books from a school library will not stop people from reading them because you can always either go to the public library or just look up the book on the internet and read the online text. Also , i don't think that librarys should ban the books on how to make bombs because it doesn't matter if they are banned or not, they could look up how to make the bomb online in the library, so i don't think that not having a how to make bombs in the library would make that much of a difference, it would only have another resource to help them make a bomb.

beckyg said...

Well some censorship is okay, but some things are just over the top. Also, just because they keep certain words off the internet doesnt mean that they can keep it out of the hallway.

Ryad said...

I have really strong feelings about sensorship. I feel that it is compleatly pointless because people do figure things out. It is impossible to protect your children from the harshness of the world. Just walking down the street you will hear something you don't want to but nobody is going to censor the world. I understand that things are public and maybe songs should be censord just to protect the little kids but how far is it supposed to go? Is it right to interupt someones art with a loud beep?

Selenam said...

1. Jodi Picoulti wrote a book about the life of a woman who found out late in life her father kidnapped her when she was four because she had an alcoholic mother. The father goes to jail to await his trial, but during his time in jail he meets a druggy and finds he sells meth because he can't find a job and he has a kid to support, and otherwise he would starve and die. Scattered within the book is the recipe for meth.
If the book is exclusively on building a bomb, then I can understand why it would be banned, but nobody would hunt through a random book and hope that it has instructions for making a bomb.
The book is well written and meaningful, and bannning the book because the recipe for meth is in it would deprive the world of meaningful ideas.
Face it, if someone really wanted to build a bomb, they would be able to find the information somewhere.

beckyg said...

Well one thing I have seen a lot of people writing is that you see and hear bad words and things on the street or in the hall. I agree with this, but I also think that hearing it in a song is different. If a small child hears it on the street, they will just think it is another big word they don't understand. If it is in their favorite song however, they might sing it in public, inocently of course, but nonetheless singing it. Also, they might begin to use it with friends and at other inappropriate times because they think it is cool to use a big word. If they hear it on the street, they probably won't even remember it.

maddisonm said...

1) I don’t think it is ok to have books on making bombs in school. If someone wants to know how to make a bomb then they should spend their own time researching that outside of school. It would almost be hypocritical of the schools saying it is bad to have bombs and it is a threat and you can’t even bring a plastic bomb to school, and then turn around and have a book on how to make a bomb right at the fingertips of all these students.
2) I definitely don’t think that banning books will keep people from reading it. I mean we are all assigned to read a banned book. By banning a book it almost makes you wants to read and find out why it is banned.
3) T.V and radio is more out there for the public and is more available. You could just be sitting in a restaurant and look over at the T.V and see something that you “were not supposed to”. A book is more private and more if the individual’s choice to read it or not.

Lukez said...

1) I don't think that its approriate to have books about building bombs in the school library. Mostly because that only thing that could be done with that book is build a bomb. But if there was a book that happened to have explosions in it, that would be alright.
2)I also don't think that banning books will stop them from being read. In fact, I think that banning a book brings it to the publics attention and would make a lot more people want to read the book. Even if its just to find out the reason that its banned in the first place.
3)I think that its different when a book is banned because that involves so much imagination. TV and songs don't require very much thought at all. I also think that reading a book is a much more personal thing and can have a much greater effect on people then a tv show could ever have.

melissaz said...

1) I think that it is hard to say, because there are 2 sides to it. Many people would say that it is a bad thing to have books about making bombs in the school library, but there are also some people that think that it would be just fine, there is no problem with that. I think that it would, in a way, be almost promoting bomb making in the schools because teachers are always telling us to keep reading and the books in the library tend to be stories that they are showing to the world to read and "expand our brains". It could be a bad influence in the schools.
2) I don't think banning books really holds that much authority in the world today. If a book is banned in one place, chances are there are many more places they could access it if they wanted to read it that much. For some people it may interest them and draw their attention, this could cause more people to read those books.
3) I liked what someone said in our class today, I can't remember now who it was, but they said that books are a much more "private" thing that can be read and shared in a private personal setting. Songs and TV shows are open to most of the public; everyone can see them, even little kids. I think that it is just a way to maintain some sort of protection in areas that are so widely used and seen every day.

KatherineM said...

1. No, I don't think it is okay to have books about making bombs in school libraries. Making bombs is not something that teenage kids should be encouraged to do, and they shouldn't have availabe resources that would tell kids how to make them. Also, if a kid decided to bomb a school, you wouldn't want to lay the blame on the school, because they had instructions on how to make a bomb in the libaray.

2. No, banning a book would make someone want to read the book even more.

3. Like we talked about in class today, books are more private while songs and tv shows are more public.

MollyS said...

1. I don't think it is okay to have books on making bombs in the library. I don't the government has the right to censor what people read, but making dangerous things like making bombs available in a school library, that isn't necessary.
2. I don't think banning keeps people from reading them. I think it only will encourage people who actually KNOW the book is banned. I find that i don't know about most of the banned books, and that kind of defeats the purpose of banning them. But those who know that a book is banned may want to read it just to challenge the system and possibly see what the government is trying to keep from you
3.I think books are more of a 'personal' experience, like what was said in class, and tv and music are easier to access if you are part of the public.

chelseas said...

1. I do not think that it is okay to have a book on making bombs in the school library. On the other hand, though, this might not be the solution to violence. I mean, kids could probably just get that information online, and not having a book there wouldn’t stop them from making it. I think that this just promotes violence even more to have the book in the library. If the authorities make it harder for a kid to check out a book, they might be less inclined to try to do something violent. People may check into what the person is trying to do, if they go around asking for books on how to make a bomb.
2. I don’t think that banning books will necessarily stop people from reading them. Like we talked about in class, when a book is banned, people sometimes want to read it to see why it is banned. I agree with what Beckyg said when she said that even if the words are taken out, that it doesn’t mean that they will disappear entirely. Many things that are shouted down the halls are things that are taken out of TV and movies. Why aren’t there worse consequences if we want to be a polite and censored society?
3. I think that books are censored less that TV and music because more watch TV, or listen to music. Many times, a parent might be out of the room, and their child might turn on the TV, and hear some bad words, and then start repeating them. In a book, people often times will not focus on the bad words, because they are so involved in the book. Many times, a book will be too hard to censor, because it would have to be removed from bookshelves everywhere. When people read a book, they often feel more secluded, and don’t feel like it is hurting others when it is read by them.

stefo said...

Televison and radios are brain option activies. With books the brain is always engaged, visualizing and connectinf throughout the book. The offensive information is remember and put to use easier because the brain is more engaged. With televison you could sit in front of it and not remember a single thing

morganw said...

2) Banning books will not keep people from reading them. We are living proof. Banning books is merely a way for finicky people to exert their power over others. They believe so strongly in whatever it is they believe that they are willing to take oportunities from others just to level the playing field. Some people refuse to let others ideas out because they feel threatened by their self-belief. I am not saying that all books that are banned should not be, however, their are a few that the majority of the world agrees should not be allowed to be read.

Also, how many people do you know who have gotten arrested or fined for reading a banned book? I thought so.

mattf said...

About number one. The information is out there. If someone really wanted to build a bomb, they could just use the internet or go buy a book on it. They the question becomes what should be done to prevent people from building bombs.

phoebef said...

1. schools should be careful about putting unacxeptable books in labraries. For instance a book about making bombs could encourage someone to do so. Another side to this issue is that when books are banned it makes people want to knpw about it. for some this just consists of learning why it is banned, but for others i could be finding a way to make a bomb jus because it was banned. This is a persons way of chellenging the system.

clarao said...

No, I don't see how it would be okay. If there are books like that at the library, people would feel like the school supports that kind of thing. Still, students tend to want to do what they aren't allowed to do, so maybe they woold actually not be interested in those books, since they are available.

I think that since people seem to be naturally rebelious, it would only make them want to read that book more, to see what it is that people don't want them to see.

Books can be held, while music and tv is shared by the public. Books can be more personal because of this. They have to be taken care of. It wouldn't feel as right for books to be censored, and I think it would actually be harder.

SerenaL said...

1. I don't think it is okay for a school to have a book on making bombs in the library. This gives the impression that the school is okay with students creating bombs.

2. No way. Banning books would probably boost there ratings. If someone hears that a book is banned, they would probably have a desire to read it. I would want to read a book that was banned more then a book that wasn't because I would be curious why it was banned.

3. I think it is to show emotion and because of kids. If a young child hears a bad word outloud, they might start saying it, but in a book they wouldn't know the pronounciation so there wouldn't be as much of a problem. Also, in a persons voice, and facial expression, you can tell if they are happy or sad, so inappropriate language isn't needed. In books, it is hard to show emotion unless someone is extremely descriptive.