Quote:
Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
I hate to break this to you, but very few events are truly predictable in this fashion.
I also find it rather hilarious that you describe Amazon as though they were Luddites who resist changes. Amazon sparked and/or capitalized on numerous major changes in book retail (online sales, long tail, pushing ebooks, self-publishing). They are hardly dinosaurs of an earlier era.
There is absolutely no way to know.
Practices that were tolerated, accepted or downright expected in Ancient Greece and Rome (homosexuality, pedophilia, death in sporting events) became outlawed, taboo and unacceptable in subsequent eras. A nation like Lebanon could swing from a relatively relaxed and liberal attitude towards social behaviors, to more restrictive social codes if the government swings towards a strict form of Islam.
Or, the Hispanic population -- which is heavily Catholic and not especially tolerant towards homosexuality iirc -- could continue to grow in the US, and may put the kibosh on some of these types of recent changes.
History is not teleological nor guaranteed to move in a particular direction.
Nor can we take unknown future attitudes as a viable guide for ethical behavior. Either you believe that gay marriage is acceptable, or you don't. There is no point cowering in fear over what judgment some unknown future observer will pass upon the present. |
In terms of banning books, I think you can look to the past to see how the future will judge you. In the ~3000? years of written human history, when a government or company has banned a book do we look back and think that was a good idea? My book banning history is very bad, but looking though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...by_governments
and
http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocac...sics/index.cfm
It seems like banning is Always a bad idea, (but I might be wrong, please show when banning a book was a good idea for a company or government.)