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Post by Nimras on Oct 4, 2011 18:33:11 GMT -5
EDIT: On the subject of religion, I know there are kiddie Bibles and things, and that's just fine. But what about kiddie Rig Vedas or Korans or whatever? All I've seen are Christian stories edited for kids to read (but I haven't been searching everywhere either). I know this is probably a no-brainer for some of you, but my opinion is this: if you're going to have a book centering on one religion, kiddie or otherwise, no matter what religion it is, then every other religion also deserves a place. The question of the Koran is a difficult one, because many people who are of the Muslim faith believe that it's wrong to translate the Koran into any language other than the original language (even into more modern Arabic). Unless the child is fluent in early-Islamic Arabic, they would be unable to read the story. Additionally, simplifying the story (as what happens often in kiddie-Bibles) is also often considered to be wrong. For many Muslims it is instead preferable that the child would hear the story orally from an adult who could read it, and then explain it to the child. Translations of the Rigveda into English have been nightmarish for the poor translators. *grin* I suspect that if one were to go to India one would find many kids books centering on verses. There is a Hindu section at my local bookstore that has a lot of kids books, but since I can't read the titles I can't say how many of them are simplified religious books for kids. Continuing on that thread, there's a lot of simplified kiddie-Bibles in English because there is a centuries back Christian tradition of creating Bible story books for children. Other cultures don't have this tradition, and I don't think it's right to force them to meet some imagined "quota" just because our culture expects it.
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Post by M is for Morphine on Oct 4, 2011 19:31:39 GMT -5
He wrote it in prison, putting all his nazism thoughts there. Disguting. I totally believe this book should be BURNED, all of the copies. Every single one. >.< I'm not sure if you're aware just how amazingly ironic this statement is. The nazis held massive book burnings where they destroyed literature that they did not agree with or whose authors they hated. Books on communism or books by authors known to be sympathetic to communism, books by Jewish authors, anything that they thought diluted the ideals of the Reich.
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Post by Dju on Oct 4, 2011 19:55:00 GMT -5
He wrote it in prison, putting all his nazism thoughts there. Disguting. I totally believe this book should be BURNED, all of the copies. Every single one. >.< I'm not sure if you're aware just how amazingly ironic this statement is. The nazis held massive book burnings where they destroyed literature that they did not agree with or whose authors they hated. Books on communism or books by authors known to be sympathetic to communism, books by Jewish authors, anything that they thought diluted the ideals of the Reich. OMG! XD Haha, I didn't notice that! It is indeed ironic! XD
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2011 20:00:25 GMT -5
I'm not sure if you're aware just how amazingly ironic this statement is. The nazis held massive book burnings where they destroyed literature that they did not agree with or whose authors they hated. Books on communism or books by authors known to be sympathetic to communism, books by Jewish authors, anything that they thought diluted the ideals of the Reich. OMG! XD Haha, I didn't notice that! It is indeed ironic! XD Probably the Nazis felt the same way about us as we do about them today - disgust. Just for different reasons. The destruction of knowledge isn't something I would went even if I do disagree or even hate the knowledge. Sometimes it is appropriate to put boundaries in place, but to destroy it completely is to rid ourselves of a little piece of human history, and to me everything is important, be it good or bad.
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Post by Cow-winkle on Oct 4, 2011 23:20:06 GMT -5
Hitler's book is really, really horrible. It talks about races, about extermination, it's...unhumane. My teacher said this book has such a terrible reputation I even feel watched talking about it. I'm not sure exactly what it talks about, but my History teacher said it's so wrong. In every way. O___O He wrote it in prison, putting all his nazism thoughts there. Disguting. I totally believe this book should be BURNED, all of the copies. Every single one. >.< Oh please don't arrest me, I'm just telling my friends how racism is awful and how something written by Hitler can be dangerous and incredibly offensive!I can't make a long comment right now, but I will say that my high school had a copy of Mein Kampf, mostly because of its historical significance (and no, my hometown was not a white supremecist community). For example, if I were going to write an essay on Hitler and the Nazis for a history class, it seems to me like it would make sense to quote Hitler himself, not as a credible source of information but just to give some context to explain his later actions. If you want to buy them privately, you go right ahead and do that, but there's no way in Hell I'm letting my child into a library that stocks books written by pedophiles about how to stalk little boys. (Yes, this happened. In Australia.) Maybe, but what about a book aimed at parents warning them about strategies that child predators use? If I were a pedophile (a hypothetical I try not to think about too often) I imagine I could extract equally "helpful" information from both books. Another question people sometimes bring up is books that instruct people how to, for example, make bombs. A coherent filtering process for libraries that bans such books would have to find a way to distinguish it from a) a physics textbook that explains how such explosives work, b) a novel in which a character makes a bomb using the same instructions, c) a legitimate pyrotechnician certification manual which explains how explosives work, etc. --- Okay, I'll try to steer myself back to the original questions: In public libraries, I can think of a few things that I think could reasonably be banned, or at least avoided. I think outright pornography -- that is, movies and written publications specifically marketed as pornography -- doesn't have a place in libraries. I'm not morally against porn at all, but if you've spent any time on the internet, you're probably aware of how powerful a force the porn industry is when it has free reign. As far as written and visual media goes, porn is a universe in itself which I think should be separate from public libraries. I would not classify all depictions of nudity or even all sexual content as porn in this sense. I can see reasons for banning pamphlets and books put out by hate groups, such as Holocaust denial literature or anything written with the intention of promoting violence against other people. I know I mentioned Mein Kampf earlier, but my reasons for having it in libraries have to do with its historical importance, and certainly not the quality of its content. For example, I think an annotated version of the book (I'm starting to get uncomfortable typing out the title) with commentary by a professional historian, or at least a preface explaining the history, would be appropriate for a public library. In children's/elementary school libraries, I do think the rules should be a bit more stringent. But it's getting late and I've already talked too much.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2011 16:59:48 GMT -5
If you want to buy them privately, you go right ahead and do that, but there's no way in Hell I'm letting my child into a library that stocks books written by pedophiles about how to stalk little boys. (Yes, this happened. In Australia.) Maybe, but what about a book aimed at parents warning them about strategies that child predators use? If I were a pedophile (a hypothetical I try not to think about too often) I imagine I could extract equally "helpful" information from both books. Granted, if you were especially worried for your child's safety and you wanted to know the details of such things you might want to go and buy the book for yourself. I still don't want to see it in any public domain.
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