Today an article appeared in the news where seven young Germans were picked up by the police for publicly burning a copy of Anne Frank's diary.

I looked on Google News, but couldn't find much on that, however, I did find something interesting but not related to the above: link. Here is what they state, amongst others:

Banned books week. I know about banning of books in libraries, but I didn't know it was this bad. On a Jewish site I found this one: "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank, which someone wanted to ban because it was "a real downer."

Here is a Google list of a few books on the banned list link


I haven't looked into book banning by libraries over here yet, but in the above I see many are banned for.. stupid reasons really.

As for me, one reason to ban a book is when it urges people to start hating each other. Uprising books.. I cannot give an example of course, but books pushing young people into becoming violent is a nono to me.


Have you noticed anything on book banning yourself? What is your opinion on it?

I would be very tempted to say that no book should be banned. I don't believe in banning ideas no matter how stupid they are. However there are some books that just contain illegal material: state secrets, improper copyrighted material, etc which should probably not be allowed.

The biggest problem is with "inciting to violence" and "inciting to illegal acts" kind of books, since they contain ideas (which, as I said, should not be banned) but at the same time they are illegal in normal life. I guess I'd need some examples to consider this issue in more detail. For example I would not ban Karl Marx (however idiotic he is) when he ask for revolution of the proletariat and such things... and usually I would prefer to err on the side of permission not on the side of "caution". It depends on context: for example is illegal to promise somebody a reward if they kill somebody, but it's probably perfect legal to say that you wish somebody were dead....

i was just looking at the list of challenged books. the majority of the books on the list involved sexual content and reproduction.
this, in a country wading thigh-high in porn.

personally, i think people who challenge and ban books have waaay to much time on their hands and are control freaks.

it's just like a television; if someone doesn't approve of the content - change the channel, close the book...

if their excuse is that they're worried about children being exposed to the content, the fault doesn't lie with the author, it lies with parents not checking to see what their child is reading, checking out at the library, etc.

if an adult is that impressionable, there isn't much anyone can do about that and television and other people's ideas are widespread on the web so, where would the line be drawn?

in short, what are people thinking?

I didn't check the list, but I'm sure there are books I would warmly recommend to other people to read... especially to the kids of the people who are trying to ban the books, they might learn something usefull from them