book-banning in the U.S.

[JBI]

The economic element to it is a good point, Mortal.

Personally, piggybacking off Red-Headed and JBI's comments, if I ever publish a book I would be so lucky that conservative Christians should grow angry enough that they purchased all my books for the sake of burning them. Free publicity with a touch of controversy for the newspapers, plus the idiots bought all my books and are giving me royalty money!

It's actually a strange thing even cross-nation. China, for instance bans books, but I think educated people there read a wider array of viewpoints (in translation) than, lets say the average Canadian reader, who doesn't read China at all except through a lens accepted by the American publishing market.

So when it comes down to it, you really have 6 or so American media giants deciding what is read and what is not read anyway, more or less. Whether banned or not barriers always construct themselves, and invisible workings really decide what is read or not.

So, for instance, a novel with a strong capitalist agenda from the US may have been banned in China, but how many socialist novels from China ever made it to the US, or Canada?

The actual censorship is relatively irrelevant - the actual forces that control as Innis phrased it, "why we attend that to which we attend to," are the ones at the end of the day that matter.


Culture necessarily bans books. It may not burn them, but it will just push them into oblivion. Every discourse has its ideas, and only some will leak in and change the discourse - if a work isn't fitting with a criteria, naturally it bans itself.

Within the Christian context then, the discourse was controlled by a church who, importantly, were the main ones reading texts anyway, so it didn't quite matter. In the context now it is merely media giants who decide what is read anyway, and institutions like universities. To ban a book now is to praise it, to ignore a book is to kill it.

Once something is banned, it becomes a controversy - controversy reshapes culture, even if it is slightly - therefore, Thomas More for instance, taking a rather violent stab at William Tyndale in the 16th century did all that was possible to ensure his survival. Strangely enough though, their whole argument has never been published separately (outside of the collected works from what I know) and as of yet, has never been edited into modern spelling. The discourse actually reshaped the whole image of More around Utopia, ignoring the darker image, as apposed to banning it, so that nobody but academics know the text, and only as a footnote to his other works pretty much.


As it goes, usually people who come up with the ideas to burn stuff are stupid - most of the book burning crowd are, to be honest, but it doesn't matter.

If a text is relevant, it will survive any censor - Confucius, for instance, was banned worse than any author ever before or since, to the point where owning a copy, or studying him was punishable by either intense forced labor (of which many people died from) or death (the most famous of which being the live burial of the top Confucians of the era). But even then - after all that, it would appear that Confucius had influence on par with Jesus Christ after that, far more so than anybody else.

It seems that the Christian texts originally went through a similar process - whenever there is real merit, no matter how much banning, it always seems to remain and resurface twice as large.

[Jazz_]

The impulse to read a banned book may increase due to the controversy, but the banning would limit the amount of access to a book. Many people may not know of it's existence if it can't be found in a store or library.

The decrease in circulation may kill many books - only those which receive publicity and are available for a while before being banned would have a good chance of survival. The banning itself does not ensure a books survival.

Many books which were once banned (such as Shakespeare) were already considered classics at the time, and were able to survive the period of repression. Other lesser works may not have survived...

[Red-Headed]

I believe that the Russian Communists had a novel approach to this predicament. Authors like Dostoyevsky weren't actually banned but, apart from not being represented in libraries, their works were made available only in expensive editions that most people couldn't afford.

As an outsider to the USA, it does genuinely appear to be a highly censored society to me, in indirect ways, if not official censorship. I suppose a similar case could be made for any country though. At least Thatcher is not PM any more in my country & cases like this have ended.

[virginiawang]

May I know what sort of books will be banned? If an author does not write things that most people will agree with, will his book be banned? If he mentions a little bit about something in the evil world, will anyone in authority issue a ban on his book?

[Dinkleberry2010]

xxxxxxx

[MarkBastable]

More books have been banned and censored by communists, leftists and progressives than by conservatives.

I have no idea whether that's true, or whether it matters, but I'd really like to know how you arrived at the two figures.

[Babbalanja]

More books have been banned and censored by communists, leftists and progressives than by conservatives.

Ah, tu quoque, where would the Internet be without you?

Regards,

Istvan

[Red-Headed]

More books have been banned and censored by communists, leftists and progressives than by conservatives.

I very much doubt it. What about the Nazis? What about Islamic & Christian conservatives? I would like to see some *statistics on this asseveration.



*Bearing in mind what Disraeli thought of statistics.

[MarkBastable]

....whenever there is real merit, no matter how much banning, it always seems to remain and resurface twice as large.

It would be nice to think that were true - but if it were not, how would we know?

Or to put it another way, who knows how much work of real merit has been suppressed and will never resurface?

[mona amon]

I'm not sure I understood the opening post.

I remember only one book actually getting banned in my country, The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. The reason given was that it would create a law and order situation if the book was allowed to be sold. As far as I know the ban was never lifted, and I've never set eyes on a copy.

Was any book banned in the US in this way? Surely not?

[Virgil]

So when it comes down to it, you really have 6 or so American media giants deciding what is read and what is not read anyway, more or less. Whether banned or not barriers always construct themselves, and invisible workings really decide what is read or not.

So, for instance, a novel with a strong capitalist agenda from the US may have been banned in China, but how many socialist novels from China ever made it to the US, or Canada?

The actual censorship is relatively irrelevant - the actual forces that control as Innis phrased it, "why we attend that to which we attend to," are the ones at the end of the day that matter.

That's ridiculous. If businesses decide what to publish on the ability to provide returns, that's the way of the world and has nothing to do with banning. Why don't you provide me with your bank savings so I can publish my book?

I'm not sure I understood the opening post.

I remember only one book actually getting banned in my country, The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. The reason given was that it would create a law and order situation if the book was allowed to be sold. As far as I know the ban was never lifted, and I've never set eyes on a copy.

Was any book banned in the US in this way? Surely not?

No Mona. What they seem to be crying about is that because some publisher won't publish their book they are being banned. They feel they have a right to publish whatever they want at someone else's expense. Actually it's really childish.

[JBI]

That's ridiculous. If businesses decide what to publish on the ability to provide returns, that's the way of the world and has nothing to do with banning. Why don't you provide me with your bank savings so I can publish my book?



No Mona. What they seem to be crying about is that because some publisher won't publish their book they are being banned. They feel they have a right to publish whatever they want at someone else's expense. Actually it's really childish.

It isn't ridiculous - the media giants are synergies. So they may not make money on a book, but another one of their companies may prosper. What people know about is severely monitored by the medias from which they receive it - print media is no different. If I wrote a book criticizing Disney, for instance, all the publications owned by Disney, including news papers and magazines either would ignore the book completely, or try to discredit it - there is a lot more political and structured scheming behind the scenes than people know.


Benedict Anderson (and he isn't a post-modern theorist so don't even go there) argues that mass print is responsible for a collective consciousness of people, and inevitably is the driving force behind nation - in that sense, the force that is banning books is necessarily tied into it. The force that decides which books are read is part of the same process - if a small press publishes you, may you will be lucky enough that a few readers notice you - there is no way to break a major market on a small press, so ultimately, except in select circles, small press books go ignored - the same is with self-published books.

As time progresses, from what I understand of the industry, the game becomes even more difficult, as things are heading toward a 1000 authors with ten sales each instead of 10 authors with 1000 sales each market. What that means is there is a bigger burden on gaining exposure.

Naturally, things like best seller lists come into play - but what exactly goes into them? They are based on the amount of books BOOKSTORES buy of said book - meaning, unless you are published in mass volume, you aren't a best seller no matter what, and even then, there is a selection process within the periodical putting out the list itself which essentially edits the books they want in there.

That is why people don't really seek to too outwardly ban holocaust denial, and racist books with any enthusiasm - any real press won't publish them, and the only people who really buy them are bigots in the first place - they become functionally harmless.

The only reason why books make the ban list in the first place is because they are promoted by other medium. The content at this point needs to display something that is controversial, yet at the same time a little bit true.

It's the same with Jesus, for instance - the Christian faith posed a contrary message than the traditional Roman doctrine, and as such, sought to undermine the authority of the empire. Numerous cults and beliefs popped up, but none showed such radical threat. None were as progressive at this point, with any political strength.


Twain is challenged, because Twain shows a portrait that people would rather forget. One would think David Duke would be on top of the most protested books, but, ironically, Judy Blume is the very top - a children's author of merit.

Why then do we challenge the books that we do? Why do we read that which we read? What makes a book challenge-worthy, or ban-worthy?

I wager it needs a little press time before it gets there, something reliant on the six media giants I mentioned earlier, and their power in determining what is read.

[Virgil]

Benedict Anderson (and he isn't a post-modern theorist so don't even go there) argues that mass print is responsible for a collective consciousness of people, and inevitably is the driving force behind nation - in that sense, the force that is banning books is necessarily tied into it. The force that decides which books are read is part of the same process - if a small press publishes you, may you will be lucky enough that a few readers notice you - there is no way to break a major market on a small press, so ultimately, except in select circles, small press books go ignored - the same is with self-published books.

That is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. It's a business decision. If you and someone esle writes a book on the same subject with essentially the same ideas and he has selling power and you don't, you lose. Grow up and face reality. It wasn't banned. This is so childish. Publish your own book.

The criteria for banning is whether a subject is prohibitedly not allowed to be published. I see no such subject in modern day western nations.

[JBI]

That is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. It's a business decision. If you and someone esle writes a book on the same subject with essentially the same ideas and he has selling power and you don't, you lose. Grow up and face reality. It wasn't banned. This is so childish. Publish your own book.

The criteria for banning is whether a subject is prohibitedly not allowed to be published. I see no such subject in modern day western nations.

Oh yes, so what is the criteria to ban Twain? And why hasn't Duke been banned? Can you explain that?




As for an above poster on the rates of banning in communist countries - outside of academic circles, I have never really heard much about texts from communist countries other than Russian ones (and even then, it is through a lens of selection that texts seem to surface here).

So, for instance, much Western stuff was banned during the cultural revolution in China, but how many books from the Maoist era have made it to the West? How many have you guys read in the first place? It seems that in translation, there is a somewhat huge gap between May Fourth Movement authors, and contemporary authors - as if the Mao years never happened, and nothing was published. And even then, that which we have now is a minimal fraction, even of the "accepted texts".

I hear Socialist Realism from Russia is becoming accessible, though I have yet to hear about much besides a few cliche names outside of academic settings.

If we are going just within the nation though, it is clear that that which is published is that which fits the publishers agenda - equating the banning, or not publishing of books to a flaw in communism is as absurd as claiming it never happened, or happens in Western countries. Simply put, people were persecuted for being reactionary in China, or for being reactionary in Russia, but Bertold Brecht, Arther Miller and others were also brought before panels.

Where is the credibility in the argument?

[Drkshadow03]

No Mona. What they seem to be crying about is that because some publisher won't publish their book they are being banned. They feel they have a right to publish whatever they want at someone else's expense. Actually it's really childish.

Actually I thought everyone was originally talking about the kind of petty censorship that happens in libraries when redneck conservative Christian demands they remove Heather has Two Very Excited Daddies or liberals want books removed from library shelves because it caricatures or is belittling to a racial group (yes, liberals censor too).