Missouri public school bans Kurt Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse Five'.

[EatingPie]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

We have been discussing the "reason for the ban" since the first page of the thread. The only difference in your mind is that since you disagree with some people about what THEY perceive the reason to be, you have been accusing them of being illogical, etc. for not taking the board statements of "age-appropriateness" (i.e., your POV) at face-value.

At least, that is my perception of your posts so far.

As I said, we have been discussing the reason for the review. This was not the reason for the ban. The stated reason for the ban was the R-rated issue (so to speak).

-Pie

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by EatingPie

What evidence do you have the politician is being disingenuous in their quote? No evidence yet presented bears any of that out. Comments have attacked them for deciding on "religious" grounds. Okay, how do you know they did that? Can you present evidence that shows this to be the case?

What evidence do I have that the school board is acting from religious motives? How about the "evidence" that they examined a religiously-worded complaint instead of writing back a polite "I'm sorry, we don't base library selections on religious ideals. But thank you for your concern." Is that not a piece of evidence?

Perhaps you are arguing that ALL complaints must be examined extensively by the board? In that case, all productivity could be ground to a halt by a single person -- say, me, for example -- arguing that, say, every book in the library is offensive to Lord Xenu and must be examined for age-appropriateness. I'm sure the school board would quickly investigate my concerns in that case.

What "evidence" would you like presented? You've outlined this strange situation where the only way you will (apparently) accept "yeah, this might have been religiously motivated" is if the school board comes out and SAYS that. The fact that the Supreme Court has specifically ruled such behavior inappropriate will probably prevent the school board from openly saying that, though.

I am attacking them on religious grounds because:

1. Book banning does not occur in a vacuum. Slaughterhouse Five is on the "Most Banned Books" list BECAUSE it is frequently banned for religious reasons. The book has been banned for religious reasons so often, in fact, that the Supreme Court has had to rule on the situation. So when, say, Slaughterhouse Five gets banned, I'm not going to automatically assume, "Oh, they probably just didn't like the cover..."

2. The request to evaluate the book was openly and clearly phrased with religious terminology.

3. Several school board members abstained from the vote. I'm more likely to assume that they felt something was shady about the whole thing and wanted to distance themselves rather than "Huh. Must have been flu season."

4. At least one commenter has found an article saying that not all the board members READ the book. (I'm not going to look for it now.) That tells me that they were not deciding on the actual content, but rather on the perceived content as presented in the religious complaint in #2.

5. The board has followed this decision with a statement that they intend to ban all R-rated movies from the classroom. Since war/history movies are frequently rated R for violence, this indicates to me that the school board is not interested in education as a primary incentive. Since I grew up in a fundie environment that consider R-rated movies to all be sinful regardless of content, I recognize a dog whistle.

Please provide YOUR evidence that this wasn't a religiously motivated decision besides your repeated postings of BUT THEY SAID IT WASN'T PEOPLE. Otherwise, stop calling commenters illogical.

Originally Posted by EatingPie

As I said, we have been discussing the reason for the review. This was not the reason for the ban. The stated reason for the ban was the R-rated issue (so to speak).

-Pie

I'm going to say this once, very calmly:

The stated reason is not necessarily the real reason.
Nor is the stated reason necessarily the only reason.

This is not hard to understand. People rarely do things for only one, stated reason. You MUST know this or you would not survive 2 minutes on earth.

[EatingPie]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Hellmark, I loved that one, too, and I like the idea. Someone make an Urban Dictionary adjustment:

Scroggins: Verb; To ban a book, movie, or other source of information due to a perceived conflict between a fictional worldview and the banner's own narrow worldview. I.e., "Slaughterhouse Five was in the Missouri Republic School Library until it got scrogginsed." See also, "Bob has been scrogginsing for Slaughterhouse Five to be removed from the Texas school libraries as well."

Originally Posted by Hellmark

I loved this comment from the article.
Missouri sure has been scrogginsed up.

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

It will make a fine addition to the current definitions. I thought about posting some, but I think that people might find offense even if they are behind a spoiler.

Ah, now we are all on our moral high horses, aren't we!

Before you make that post, consider something. At what point would you request a book be removed from the high school library? Before you answer "none," you may want to consider how broad that question really is.

What if the author calls black people "niggers" hundreds of times and means it? Or supports racism directly, and is trying to convince readers that black people (or Mexicans, or Polish, or Italians, or Indians, etc.) are inferior?

How about a book that argues 90% of the time, rape is a woman's fault? Or 100% of time?

What about a book that totally objectifies women, and communicates to boys and young men that women exist primarily as sex objects?

How about a Norweigan terrorist's manifesto which claims that murdering liberals is a good thing?

How about Hustler magazine? Or other images of hard-core pornography? Do you think those are fine to put in a High School library?

I pulled all but 2 of these from real books that I know.

We all have our limits on what we decide is moral, good, right, okay... appropriate for kids of a certain age. It's just in this case, we disagree with Mr. Scoggin's reason, and are willing to attack him on it (ironically, I could cite Christian "religious reasons" for removing any of the literature I listed above).

Remember, there's a saying about pointing a finger at someone leaving three fingers pointing back.

-Pie

[mldavis2]

I'm going to try, once more, to back out of this. It is morphing into a speculative argument for and against the "R" word which is being applied, accurately or not, to the single person who apparently opened the censorship can. If, in fact, he was turned down, or not elected to the school board (perhaps because he home schools!?) then I still ask from whence commeth his influence. We have been warned by a moderator not to use this forum for P&R discussions, and I cannot see my way clear to continue without dipping into that water.

Let me back out by saying that there is no practical way you (we) can isolate our children from everything that is offensive to us as parents. I raised my daughters with the idea that they should be familiar with all manner of people; that no one person is necessarily 'better' than another; that use of offensive language was a personal opinion (after all they are just words) that may be distasteful to some but used transparently by others; that rape is not a sensual, sexual act, it is a horrible crime as it is treated in Speak; that they should know what drugs are and what they do so they will know not to be involved in them when encountered; and that ultimately we all experience all of the distasteful aspects of human existence, and not knowing anything about them in advance is potentially harmful to someone who might possibly be asked or forced to make a quick decision regarding their use or avoidance. I also strongly believe that it is better for children to learn and discuss 'bad' things under the oversight of an adult than on the street from their peers.

Ultimately, at least for the kids now in the Republic school system, Scroggins has undermined his own good intentions with the huge wave of publicity that has rightfully arisen from this issue. Back to reading ...

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by EatingPie

At what point would you request a book be removed from the high school library? Before you answer "none," you may want to consider how broad that question really is.

NONE
I did consider the broadness of the question, as well as your arguments, but I would expect that any book added to the library had some point for being added, some literary or scientific value.

Originally Posted by EatingPie

I pulled all but 2 of these from real books that I know.

Yes, they are in the Bible. And the other 2 examples not considered literature as far as I know.

[carpetmojo]

I'm sorry, but after all that's been said, and speaking as an outsider, I'm of the same opinion I was when I first read the title of this thread.

It's very very silly.

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by mldavis2

Let me back out by saying that there is no practical way you (we) can isolate our children from everything that is offensive to us as parents.

I would absolutely agree with this.

I would also say that high school is not necessarily the place to dig into controversial books just because they're controversial. Part of our job as parents is to filter the things that our kids are exposed to. We do it all the time - we don't let three year olds watch horror movies, we don't expose them to other violent imagery. Every parent (or set of parents) has to draw boundaries based on their own values, and filter their children's environment accordingly. That's practically a job description for parenting.

So in a public high school you have hundreds of students, all of whose parents have their own values. The district's values are going to reflect the values of the parents - and they should. In this case, the school board came up with a set of criteria, which was publicly discussed. Then that criteria was applied to three books, two of which did not meet the requirements to keep them in circulation in the school curriculum or library. If there are further complaints, they will be compared with the same set of criteria.

Again, the high school doesn't need to teach controversial books just for the sake of controversy. What educational goals was Slaughterhouse 5 meeting, and are there any other books that would meet the same goals without running afoul of the district's criteria?

[DiapDealer]

I'm sorry, but after all that's been said, and speaking as an outsider, I'm of the same opinion I was when I first read the title of this thread.

It's very very silly.

It is all very, very silly, isn't it?

Let me make my stance perfectly clear: I don't recognize any reason that may have been given (or may be given in the future) to remove Slaughterhouse Five from any high school curriculum/library as being valid. Period. Furthermore, I deem any such reason given (now or in the future) to be silly, and worthy of my disdain. That is all.

[anamardoll]

+ 1 to Sil_liS and DiapDealer.

Chiming to note that, based on Eating Pie's most recent post, he apparently thinks we should also ban Mark Twain books. (Cue cries of, "Oh, but Mark Twain used the N-word but he didn't MEAN IT," -- with all the Unfortunate Implications of "only I can divine what an author meant and everyone else can suck it" -- in five... four... three...)

Also really enjoying having what I will bet anything is a male poster telling me what I should think about books containing rape. [edit by moderation]

Lots of LOLS on Sil_liS' accurate retort regarding where quite a bit of that content can be found. I would like to also note that A CERTAIN RELIGIOUS TEXT THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED also contains a rather serious reference to horse semen. Throwing that out there for what it's worth.

I do not think a school board should ever consider pulling a book from the school library based on a religious complaint. Had Scroggins actually bothered to base his complaint on an "age-appropriateness" dog whistle, they might be justified, but since he didn't, they're not, IMHO.

[EatingPie]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

NONE
I did consider the broadness of the question, as well as your arguments, but I would expect that any book added to the library had some point for being added, some literary or scientific value.

You contradicted yourself. You said "none," then you limited books to those with "some point for being added, some literary or scientific value." Unless you are about to include Hustler magazine, or images of hard-core pornography (pornography, not scientific manuals discussing sexuality), then you do draw the line somewhere.

Yes, they are in the Bible. And the other 2 examples not considered literature as far as I know.

Where does the Bible use the term "nigger"? Where does the Bible argue rape is a woman's fault? Where does the Bible say women exist primarily as sex objects? Where does the Bible contain images of pornography? (The Bible does contain descriptions that would be considered pornographic.) Where does the Bible include a Norweigan terrorist manifesto?

The Jews are the chosen people in the Old Testament, implying that all other races are inferior. However, the New Testament is all-inclusive and expresses God's love for everyone.

Sheesh.

-Pie

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by GlennD

I would absolutely agree with this.

I would also say that high school is not necessarily the place to dig into controversial books just because they're controversial.

No? I rather think the Most Banned Books Of All Time List SHOULD be taught. Books aren't controversial in a vacuum. The alternative -- teaching the local "values" -- ensures that these kids are going to grow up in a Pleasantville-esque world where the real world they encounter later on will blow their sheltered minds.

People who think differently from them? How is that possible? Cue shrieks of rage and pain. I'm not even sure WHAT will happen if they run into someone from a different culture entirely -- presumably they will react something like the People of Krikket in the Douglas Adams' book "Life, The Universe, And Everything."

In my view, the point of education is to broaden a child's horizons, not to solidify the worldview they were born into. I recently said this in a post about the Harry Potter school houses and I think it's apropos to be repeated here.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by EatingPie

Ah, now we are all on our moral high horses, aren't we!

Before you make that post, consider something. At what point would you request a book be removed from the high school library? Before you answer "none," you may want to consider how broad that question really is.

What if the author calls black people "niggers" hundreds of times and means it? Or supports racism directly, and is trying to convince readers that black people (or Mexicans, or Polish, or Italians, or Indians, etc.) are inferior?

How about a book that argues 90% of the time, rape is a woman's fault? Or 100% of time?

What about a book that totally objectifies women, and communicates to boys and young men that women exist primarily as sex objects?

How about a Norweigan terrorist's manifesto which claims that murdering liberals is a good thing?

How about Hustler magazine? Or other images of hard-core pornography? Do you think those are fine to put in a High School library?

I pulled all but 2 of these from real books that I know.

We all have our limits on what we decide is moral, good, right, okay... appropriate for kids of a certain age. It's just in this case, we disagree with Mr. Scoggin's reason, and are willing to attack him on it (ironically, I could cite Christian "religious reasons" for removing any of the literature I listed above).

Remember, there's a saying about pointing a finger at someone leaving three fingers pointing back.

As I said before, I am fine with them pulling books from a school library because of not being age appropriate. In the case of Slaughterhouse 5, it was on the curriculum, so shouldn't it have been reviewed by the same people who voted against it in the first place? Why all of a sudden is there a problem now? If they had a problem with it, WHY ADD IT TO THE CURRICULUM IN THE FIRST PLACE? Also, if they are going to pull it for not being age appropriate, I want specific examples cited. If it is because of the F bomb usage, they need to show counts and page numbers. The more information they give, the more they show they honestly reviewed the material, and tried to validate their decision.

[EatingPie]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

As I said before, I am fine with them pulling books from a school library because of not being age appropriate. In the case of Slaughterhouse 5, it was on the curriculum, so shouldn't it have been reviewed by the same people who voted against it in the first place? Why all of a sudden is there a problem now? If they had a problem with it, WHY ADD IT TO THE CURRICULUM IN THE FIRST PLACE? Also, if they are going to pull it for not being age appropriate, I want specific examples cited. If it is because of the F bomb usage, they need to show counts and page numbers. The more information they give, the more they show they honestly reviewed the material, and tried to validate their decision.

From what I can garner, the complaint caused them to come up with standards, which went into effect on April 1st. That's implied in the article.

I agree that the standards should have applied in the first place, if they existed. But the squeaky wheel and all that I guess. Scroggins, IMHO, didn't think this through, because by any standard now, The Bible would have to be removed.

The board did provide an explanation for each book (Speak was left in the curriculum).

Minor provided a quick synopsis of each book in question and explained why it should stay or go:

» Support was strong for "Speak," which has been taught in English I and II courses.

Minor said only one page is used to "tastefully, not graphically" describe the rape, and there were only three instances of profanity in the entire novel.

By the end of the novel, the girl finds her voice and stops a second attack. "There's a message at the end that says that's not appropriate," he said.

» Minor said feedback for "Twenty Boy Summer," available in the library, focused on "sensationalizing sexual promiscuity." He said questionable language, drunkenness, lying to parents and a lack of remorse by the characters led to the recommendation.

"I just don't think it's a good book. I don't think it's consistent with these standards and the kind of message that we want to send," he said. "...If the book had ended on a different note, I might have thought differently."

» Citing crude language and adult themes, Minor said "Slaughterhouse Five" was more appropriate for college-age students.

"The language is just really, really intense," he said. "I don't think it has any place in high school ... I'm not saying it's a bad book."

But as I said, I think it's pretty judgemental to condemn a guy who had different moral standards than ourselves. We all have some moral standard, and someone has a different one. Making fun of Scoggins, putting his name up on an encyclopedia, strikes me as acting both cruel and acting morally superior... but that reflects my morals.

-Pie

[HomeInMyShoes]

In my opinion, it is a lazy teacher or parent that chooses to ban subject matter instead of discussing it.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by EatingPie

The board did provide an explanation for each book

An explanation, but specific citations should be given. The only thing of a "specific" nature I've seen was in the original claim by Scroggins of "every other page", which was easily proven to be false. If you use generalizations, you can easily show things that are not accurate.

Which sounds less biased and more straight forward? "Citing crude language and adult themes" & "The language is just really, really intense," he said "I don't think it has any place in high school" or that "Fuck was used 16 times (pages 31, 77,...), shit 11 times (pages 32, 34, ...), damn 6 times (pages 28, 37,...), and cock 2 times (in a sexual nature, page 107)"

(BTW, the word counts are accurate, and page numbers are referenced from the PDF copy from Rosetta Books)