Dua Lipa wasn't doing a photo op with Maus. In the photos she's posing with modern books that are still being promoted by their publishers. I'm not familiar with all of them, but a quick search shows one of them is not appropriate for elementary schools because it includes essays debating which sexual acts are appropriate for feminists to perform and other adult topics. Why is it "authoritarianism" to say that a book like that doesn't belong in my kids' school library?
This is a promotional stunt, and I'm surprised more people aren't seeing through it.
And no one really pretended that these cases were cases of "banned books".
The problem is when authority bodies (school, government, ...) start to include, in these "normal non-appropriate" books other books not because they have bad societal consequences when the reader is not mature enough, but because they don't like the content for ideological reasons.
I think it would be a very bad faith argument to argue that reading Maus will lead to people less socially adjusted.
And, sure, some "banned" books may be inappropriate. But as soon as these authorities have open the doors to arbitrary banning books, they poisoned their own well: maybe under "normal" evaluation this book should be removed from the list, but they removed it "the bad way", they failed the process, and therefore the ban itself is illegitimate.
It's a bit like the procedural miscarriage of justice: if you mess up when arresting someone, they can be freed even if it turns out they were guilty. Or in a more topical subject: the Fifa can reverse some decision, but if they do it in the context where they received phone calls from the US president, then it's a big failure in the process, even if a "normal" re-evaluation should indeed have concluded to reversing the decision.
“Bad societal consequences” is entirely subjective, though. This is the crux of the issue.
On one hand, you have someone who says that exposing children to sexual or violent content can have an impact on them. This is something that has been studied, sociologists, psychiatrists, doctors, ... have concluded that this is true.
On the other hand, you have someone who says that an ideology they don't like will lead to the ruin of the society. At the same time, communities, and often whole countries themselves, don't see the problem with these ideologies, and the catastrophe that this person has predicted does not occur. The only reason they claim that is because they are intolerant and want to impose their ideology, not because they want what's good for others.
So, yes, there are __some__ subjectivity. The same way that there is subjectivity around "good and bad" and yet "murdering" is universally considered as "bad" but "not going to the catholic mass" is not.
Societies that practice(d) slavery and human sacrifice clearly do not share such a "universal" value.
A murder is specifically an unjustified killing. And as far as I am aware it is universally considered bad. Which makes sense because murder being considered bad is pretty much baked into the definition.
I can’t think of a modern society that does not condemn going into a random person’s house and killing them. Nor any past ones for that matter.
Now in some backwards ass country they might not consider it murder if that random person was homosexual. Or a killing might be justified in the context of a revolution. Or to bring rain. Or when shooting some guy fleeing with your tv in the back.
Sure, "murdering" is not "100% always in all circumstances considered 100% bad" (but I still think that "universal" was not a bad choice, the same way "universal healthcare" does not mean there is no illegibility criteria and therefore exceptions). And of course, there is a lot of discussion to even have on what people mean by murder, but that is, again, missing the point.
But that is totally ridiculous to then pretend that it means that "murdering is bad" has therefore as much legitimacy as "touching your nose with the left hand index finger is bad".
The fact that is subjective does not mean that you cannot say anything anymore. It feels like a common bias in "technology" people: some of them think they are so smart and are condescending to "social science", and yet they are lost on concepts that social science considers as obvious.
Two things can be true at the same time: a book can be both banned in one place, and used to promote someone's brand in another. Somebody in a deeply repressive and abusive home will not have a better or worse life if Dua Lipa did not exist.
Who exactly are you to say what is or isn't appropriate for elementary school libraries?
It's authoritarian because it's about people with authority (parents, teachers), telling people without (students) what kinds of media they are and aren't allowed to consume, which is about controlling which ideas they're allowed to think about. You don't like children thinking or learning about sex, but there is no moral or rational reason for that. You just don't like it, and you wish to use your authority to impose your preferences on people who have no power to stop you. That's authoritarian.
And no, I don't think parents should be able to control their children's media diets, the idea that parents get to control their children is itself authoritarian. You don't own your kids.
So it should be ok to stock movies like Martyrs[1] or Men Behind the Sun[2] in elementary school libraries, because who are parents and teachers to decide whether seeing a woman flayed to death or a child vivisected is something that a 6 year old should be allowed to see?
My real takeaway here is that you probably don't have children.
Let's just be honest about that at least.
The issue there isn’t that kids are being exposed to these items, the issue is that other parents are censoring what _my_ kid can be exposed to. They are infringing on _my_ rights.
Meanwhile I’m not requiring their kid to go into a library and checkout Maya Angelou.
The books aren’t banned.
Would you prefer forbidden? Barred? Censored?
As an example, starting a fire could be called “firing”. If you say you’re going to “fire the stove”, that isn’t typically said, but everyone would know what you meant. If you call your friend group a “squad”, again, this isn’t typically said, but everyone would know what you meant.
If your friend group goes camping and works together to light a fire, you could say that you’re part of a “firing squad”. But, that already has such a strong connotation that it would be confusing and you would have to constantly explain what you actually mean because “firing squad” as a phrase is already taken.
That is of course a synthetic example but I think it illustrates the point. When we say “banned books”, that has a certain connotation. If what we mean is more like “curated books”, because they aren’t actually banned for sale anywhere, even at the local level, then saying “banned books” is confusing in the same way and it carries an undue emotional charge from the typical usage of that phrase.
If that undue emotional charge seems to be getting weaponized, then using it and acting innocent about it is going to ruffle some feathers.
No librarian, or teacher, or admin or parent in the other school districts gets any say.
That’s a ban. People may not like that their state is engaging in authoritarian behavior, and it’s less authoritarian than other behaviors, but it’s a ban by the simple facts. Doublespeak doesn’t change that.
While "everything is political", I can still see some differences. What was presented as "banned on neutral, apolitical basis base" in the previous comment can be seen as political at some level, but they are way less political than "let's ban this book because I don't want my children to be exposed to lefties ideas".
It feels like there is an order of magnitude less importance to "maintaining our children unexposed to others' point of view" in the cases of left-wing book-banning than in the right-wing side. After all, right-wing book banning often works on "leftie keywords" or themes (gender study stuffs, inclusivity, ...) while I don't think there is a real movement to ban books because they use too much of "right-wing keywords" (free market stuffs, nationalism, ...).
Well, sure, but it's not possible for the religious parent groups to be apolitical either (nor do they make any attempt at even ostensible neutrality). Teachers and administrators are well trained, often have or have had children, and are generally a part of the community where they work and teach. It's not like they are 'coastal elites' making lefty decisions for the community; by and large, they share similar worldviews to the kids and their parents. I think we should give them more of our trust in making these decisions.
I do think that. It's rude to assume that I haven't thought my position through.
> So it should be ok to stock movies like Martyrs[1] or Men Behind the Sun[2] in elementary school libraries, because who are parents and teachers to decide whether seeing a woman flayed to death or a child vivisected is something that a 6 year old should be allowed to see?
Sure.
> My real takeaway here is that you probably don't have children.
I don't, but I was one, and I accessed all kinds of stuff on the internet that my parents and teachers didn't want me to see. Including gross violence and sex stuff. It didn't kill me. It didn't even hurt me. I'm fine. I'm a better person for having exposed myself to those things than I would be if I'd been sheltered from them.
No one else provided any, either. If you have strong evidence that exposure to media you don't like is bad for your children, please provide it. If you don't have any, my anecdote is better evidence than you've provided.
Two people calling out an opinion as extreme does not make it extreme, and an opinion being extreme does not make it wrong.
> Who exactly are you to say what is or isn't appropriate for elementary school libraries?
parents
If you want to go full anti-authoritarian, you are literally advocating anarchy. One in which you have no right to jail someone for killing someone else.
There are many moral systems! Some of them are based in Christian ethics, which many people prescribe to. In fact it's the one the United States is based on. You can also choose something like liberalism. Many or most people would at least agree that "killing randon people at random times" being advocated in a book is not a good thing. And if that's not a good thing, then there is a moral judgement to be made to "ban" said book. I'm not saying that book exists, but if it did - would you "ban" it?
No one "owns" another person, but there are many other forms of relationships between people that allows for one person to dictate a media diet for another.
Parent-based rights arguments are perfectly adequate for the 80%, but degenerate in some horrific ways for the rest of the population. We need community-level input on how to raise kids so that the leftover 20% don’t just get fucked up by parents that “know best for their kid”.
Anecdotally know of a few times where kids were taught that their molestation was their own fault (both sub-10yo), and had friends whose parents actively pushed them to kill themselves
I don't have a solution for you for all types of families, but this doesn't change that miyoji's take is fairly extreme.
Everywhere throughout all time is obviously not authoritarian, so the definition fails. Sorry, you are wrong.
The Romans nailed Jesus to a cross, the American south bred human slaves, Europe regularly had crusades and pogroms, post-war America supported a crazy number of military dictatorships, the Iron curtain, Communist China and so on.
If I'm prevented from bringing my dog into a restaurant, that doesn't mean that dogs are banned. It means I have to go to the restaurant on the other side of the street.
If McDonald's doesn't serve any hard liquor it doesn't mean that alcohol has been banned in the country.
They will have all the time and opportunity in the world to read and try anything they want to when they're older.