What gets me about banning books

[vercetti2021]

Is that it can't really work in today's age of technology and access to online books where teens can get ahold of the book that (insert whichever moron GQP members name here) decided to restrict in schools. You take away books, you raise interest in that book of why its banned. These stupid fucks really do not get it. You can ban it physically. But you'll never erase it online. Unless they decided to go full N.Korea and control what's on the net.

Good luck on preventing teens from reading such "controversial" material.

[3catwoman3]

1. The surest way to get a teen to do something is to...

...make it forbidden.

[Ocelot II]

2. If you're an author who wants to sell a lot of books, figure out how to get it banned.

[Whatthe_Firetruck]

3. Amazon and Kindle...

...should have sales saying, "The book that (person/group/place) doesn't want you to see! What are you missing? Get it now."

[RockRaven]

4. Yep. The internet doesn't just undermine book banning efforts in general, it renders

book bans executed at the local school/library/district level utterly laughable. It's a genuinely stupid idea at this point.

You generate tons of attention and curiosity, meanwhile whatever you are trying to hide is accessible on almost anything with a screen and an internet connection, and probably for free.

[LoisB]

5. It wouldn't surprise me if many teens have already read most of the books to be "banned".

[rownesheck]

6. Conservative dipshits

live in a constant state of "1950s-ism". They still think banning shit has the same effect as it once had. Either that or they're in cahoots with the authors of these books to get a kickback from the increase in sales.

[Coventina]

7. My nephew told me he saw "Two Girls and a Cup" in his single digit years.

Which is super gross. I've never watched it myself, but I know about it.

Kids are exposed to all kinds of inappropriate stuff at a young age anymore.
"To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Maus" are hardly what parents should be worried about.

[MissMillie]

8. Once again, the effect is more dramatic to the poor

Those w/o the means/access to the technology to get that reading material are harmed the most.

[NightWatcher]

9. Maus is now backordered everywhere I looked. Tell me I cant have something and I'll buy two copies.

I'm not actually buying this at this time, but the publisher and author are going to move some units now.

[greenjar_01]

11. And yet, it's still not going to be taught in they Tennessee county's schools

[NightWatcher]

12. What are the odds that it was going to be covered there anyway?

I'm sure this isn't the first thing that Tennessee schools have dropped from discussion.

Public education these days is like a very tall fruit tree. It's not going to drop anything in your lap besides old, rotten fruit. If you want something good, you'll have to work hard and climb to the top and pick it to be nourished.

[greenjar_01]

13. Probably pretty good if it was on their list

I think people here misunderstand these book bans. Everyone's acting like it's a big win that Maus is a bestseller again. The purpose of the book bans is to cut the connection between the book and an institutional imprimatur, and an organized manner of engaging it in classrooms. That's the danger point for conservatives, not the general availability of the book.

Having a book on an official school reading list and actually covering it in class gives a book and an approach to culture a legitimacy and importance that can't be matched by its general availability. It says that the book relates and constitutes part of our collective cultural and social experience. And, yes, that actually happens. Standard literature shaped our social views. We think a certain way about democracy, mobs, and human nature because we all read Lord of the Flies in middle/high school. The shift to including books by African American authors in standard school curriculum was instrumental in forwarding a civil rights agenda. That's what the conservatives want to cut, and they know you don't have to eradicate the text from society to do it. Just get on the local school board. And it's working.

[greenjar_01]

10. They're banning the book from that school activity, not eradicating it from society

That's why it doesn't matter to them whether students can get it elsewhere: they won't get it through an official function, is the point.