# "I read banned books!" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 15, 2008, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864 "2008-11-15T14:52:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/21 "2008-11-15T18:21:44Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > if we weren’t so damned lucky to live in free places and times we’d damned well know the difference. Quoted for truth. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/22 "2008-11-15T18:31:02Z")
I don’t really get the point of the OP. As others have suggested, you don’t have to have government-ordered removal and burning of every copy of a book everywhere in order to use the phrase “book banning”. It’s bad enough that some idiot parents got a book pulled from a library or a classroom because of its dangerous, subversive ideas. It’s not The Complete Destruction Of Our Civil Rights By Jackbooted Thugs, but it _is_ book banning, and if you want to call attention to it by a T-shirt or button, fine. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/23 "2008-11-15T18:44:35Z")
So when I read a copy of Spycatcher, which was banned from publication in the UK, after buying a copy of it in Germany, I wasn’t reading a banned book? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/24 "2008-11-15T18:44:49Z")
They make buttons and T-shirts that say “I read banned books!”? _Why?_ Anyway, if you want an anti-censorship shirt, get the one that says “Fuck Ce\*\*orship!” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CaerieD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@CaerieD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaerieD)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/25 "2008-11-15T19:00:35Z")
While I’m not as passionate about it as the OP, I can definitely see what **Zsofia** is complaining about. What has been a terrible and sometimes life-or-death struggle is reduced to sloganeering, so that people who read Harry Potter and crappy comic books can prance about, putting themselves on the same level as those whose lives have been ruined by censorship. Reading questionable books is good. Reading classic books that were banned in earlier generations, or books that are banned in other countries is good. Refusing to allow small minded people to prevent others from reading is good. Fighting so that books that have been challenged are never banned is very fucking good. It _isn’t_ the same as reading books which are currently banned in the country you are in, though. There’s something obnoxiously smug about claiming a place amongst free speech martyrs because you went down to Borders and picked up a book that a local church lady doesn’t like. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/26 "2008-11-15T19:19:52Z")
Thank you, **CaerieD**. The “ALA Banned Books Week” table at Barnes and Noble is not the same thing as your hidden samizdat press under the floor, for which you could _die_. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/27 "2008-11-15T19:22:03Z")
> [@CaerieD](#): > > While I’m not as passionate about it as the OP, I can definitely see what **Zsofia** is complaining about. What has been a terrible and sometimes life-or-death struggle is reduced to sloganeering, so that people who read Harry Potter and crappy comic books can prance about, putting themselves on the same level as those whose lives have been ruined by censorship. Just out of curiosity, is someone who wears an “I voted!” sticker prancing around, putting themselves on the same level as those who lives were ruined in the struggle for suffrage? It is those small reminders that what we have is fragile that I’d bet most of us are going for, not prancing, not faux martyrdom, not putting on airs. _If we don’t defend it, we lose it_. What strikes me as smug is a dismissal of freedom as nothing we should celebrate or fight for as long as no one is getting decapitated over it. The fight isn’t over, it’s just gone my way for a while. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/28 "2008-11-15T19:24:08Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Thank you, **CaerieD**. The “ALA Banned Books Week” table at Barnes and Noble is not the same thing as your hidden samizdat press under the floor, for which you could _die_. Actually, it is. It’s a difference in degree, not in kind. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/29 "2008-11-15T19:29:32Z")
So it only counts if someone chops off J.K. Rowling’s head? Sorry, I don’t buy that definition. If a book is made inaccessible by any authority because that authority believes the ideas in the book are dangerous, I consider that a banning. You may be able to go to another country to buy it; a child or a poor person probably can’t. Any restriction of access to the press is, to my mind, problematic, regardless of the relative importance of the book. To the OP, any particular reason to call people “dumb shit”? I don’t see how that improves your argument. ---
**Author:** ![CaerieD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@CaerieD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaerieD)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/30 "2008-11-15T19:33:35Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Just out of curiosity, is someone who wears an “I voted!” sticker prancing around, putting themselves on the same level as those who lives were ruined in the struggle for suffrage? > > It is those small reminders that what we have is fragile that I’d bet most of us are going for, not prancing, not faux martyrdom, not putting on airs. _If we don’t defend it, we lose it_. What strikes me as smug is a dismissal of freedom as nothing we should celebrate or fight for as long as no one is getting decapitated over it. > > The fight isn’t over, it’s just gone my way for a while. I don’t see “I Voted” in the same category as “I Read Banned Books”, though. Yes, you really, truly did vote. You’re not pretending what you did was on the same level as the people who died for that right. “I Read Banned Books” is, to my mind, more along the lines of wearing a sticker that says “I Voted _When It Was Illegal_.” The right to vote and free speech are both sacred rights that shouldn’t be taken for granted. We can appreciate them without overstating our own personal efforts. As I said, I’m not as passionate about this as the OP, but I do agree that overstating it and ignoring that there is a difference in degree weakens our awareness of just how bad it could be. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/31 "2008-11-15T19:48:00Z")
A challenged book is one that’s _escaped_ banning. We damn well should recognize that! Censorship which happens in small ways is every bit as pernicious as mass book burnings. It’s so easy to say, “oh, well, it’s only a silly book about wizards, - it’s only one book about a girl’s period, - it’s only a book with a few curse words. Let’s just remove it so we don’t offend anyone.” And it’s not just fiction books that get pulled either - nonfiction books about abortion, sex education, religion and gender issues get challenged all the time on the grounds of being offensive to ‘community standards’. Censorship by the government happens because individuals accept that censorship is a good idea - that certain ideas are too offensive or too scary. We should pay attention to the small incidences because they are what makes the big incidences possible. Standing up to your neighbors can be just as hard as standing up to the Big Bad Government and it’s every bit as important. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/32 "2008-11-15T19:55:28Z")
“_I read books that are occasionally challenged, taken off school library shelves, banned at various times in the past or in certain places around the world._” doesn’t quite fit as neatly on a button. ---
**Author:** ![CaerieD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@CaerieD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaerieD)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/33 "2008-11-15T20:13:06Z")
Oh, fine, **garygnu**. Just go ahead and make a concise and perfectly logical point there, why don’t you? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sonnenstrahl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@Sonnenstrahl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sonnenstrahl)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/34 "2008-11-15T20:17:21Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > It’s so easy to say, “oh, well, it’s only a silly book about wizards, - it’s only one book about a girl’s period, - it’s only a book with a few curse words. Let’s just remove it so we don’t offend anyone.” That’s a good point - I was just going to write a reply expressing incredulity that people were proud of reading banned books when they had read Harry Potter. I mean, I adore those books, and I don’t live in a conservative area at all so maybe I underestimate the real reaction to them, but I hardly think of Harry Potter, one of the best-selling books ever, one of the most commonly seen books in public (certainly number one for being read on the bus round here), as a banned book. But I take your point about not dismissing it, or “Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret” which should only be put out to pasture because it’s ridiculously outdated to be held up as the bible for adolescent girls. I think I understand the distinction that **Zsofia** is making, and I agree that it’s a bit self-important to say that you are making a political statement by reading a book that wasn’t in a school library in a certain school district. How about “I read controversial books?” 🙂 (Can I get a t-shirt saying that I distributed banned books? I worked in special collections at my university, and that was the only place to get the _Anarchist Cookbook_ as well as some books on erotic art. While they might have wanted to track access to the Cookbook, I think the art books were there to prevent them from being used for, uh, unsavoury activities. One guy argued with me for ages about why he couldn’t take the Kama Sutra home. I wanted to tell him that was because I didn’t want to touch it when he was done with it, and that’s what the internet’s for, anyway.) ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/35 "2008-11-15T20:20:50Z")
I’m not following this, really. How big an institution or government has to ban a book before it can be considered to be banned? I’ll bet the Vatican has banned shitloads of books, and we wouln’t necessarily ever hear about it in the US. Or Togo, or some other little pissant country. Or, say the state of Indiana or Birmingham, AL. How many shelves does a book have to be removed from before it can be said to have been removed from shelves? ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/36 "2008-11-15T21:27:49Z")
> [@CaerieD](#): > > I don’t see “I Voted” in the same category as “I Read Banned Books”, though. Yes, you really, truly did vote. You’re not pretending what you did was on the same level as the people who died for that right. “I Read Banned Books” is, to my mind, more along the lines of wearing a sticker that says “I Voted _When It Was Illegal_.” I wear that “I Read Banned Books” button for one reason: to start dialogs. I’m an author, I own a bookstore, and I publish a community newspaper, so I’m a pretty fanatical supporter of our first amendment rights. Every time someone asks me about that button, I have an opportunity to explain book challenges, bans, burnings (you’d be amazed how many people don’t realize that book burnings still happen in the 21st century in the U.S.A.), and censorship. During banned book week, I make it a point to find a book that was banned somewhere (not just challenged) and read it–or at least read part of it. I visit schools during that week and talk to the kids about our rights and the economics of book bannings and challenges. Only through knowledge and awareness can we fight the insidious monster that book challenges and book bans represent, and that button helps me to do it. So yeah, I wear a button that says “I Read Banned Books.” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/37 "2008-11-15T22:44:31Z")
I’m banning all books from my kitchen (they could get water damaged). Now every book on earth is a banned book. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/38 "2008-11-15T23:27:03Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > In 1989, when the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his _fatwa_ against Salman Rushdie, Thailand banned _The Satanic Verses_. The country is always trying to tow the line no matter the religion; they almost banned the film version of _The Da Vinci Code_. My father was still alive then, and I had him mail me a copy from the US. That was a really special feeling, knowing the post office here had delivered it into my hot little hands. I took extra pleasure from sitting on the porch of my house up North reading it. The day after I bought my copy of _The Satanic Verses_, someone fire-bombed the store I got it at (the late, lamented **Cody’s** , Berkeley). That’s some serious effort at banning right there! ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/39 "2008-11-16T00:06:29Z")
> [@stretch](#): > > that leads people to wonder why i’ve been banned. [del] **stretch** [/del]a BANNED NAME! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864/40 "2008-11-16T00:32:39Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > The day after I bought my copy of _The Satanic Verses_, someone fire-bombed the store I got it at (the late, lamented **Cody’s** , Berkeley). That’s some serious effort at banning right there! I’ve actually seen it on the shelves here in recent years. Either they quietly unbanned it or, more likely, everyone forgot about the ban after a few years once the fuss died down. Glad they didn’t fire-bomb the store while you were there paying for your book! :eek: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-read-banned-books/472864.md?page=3)