You know this.

[Atticus]

Except for shielding young kids from graphic violence or sex, there should be NO restrictions on what ANYONE reads---PERIOD.

People who ban or burn books are craven cowards who know thinkers will not accept their ignorance.

[Thomas Hurt]

1. The christofascists book hysteria exists in a world where they seem to think...

that children are herded into libraries and led to the "questionable books" and parents are forced to check them out and the children are forced to read them. Well, at least that makes for the politically expedient narrative.

[lark]

2. Farenheit 451 comes to mind.

Some of these sci=fi writers were pretty prescient.

[Irish_Dem]

9. Yep. The dystopian novels are all become reality. :(

[Ferrets are Cool]

3. Amen

[Wounded Bear]

4. The biggest opponent of the printing press was the Catholic Church...

and what they wanted to stop was the proliferation of bibles.

During the Dark Ages, virtually all of book publishing was handled by the Church, where books were transcribed by hand by abbots and scribes in monasteries. The results were often extraordinarily beautiful and of course, woefully expensive. The publication of bibles was strictly controlled to where the only bibles were "owned" by Churches, and the laity depended on the clergy to read and interpret the bible to them.

Gutenberg changed all that. Well, it took quite a while, but by the 17th and 18th Centuries, less expensive copies of the bible became available, the populace got more literate and the Reformation kicked into high gear and morphed into the Enlightenment. Worse, the English broke away from the Catholic Church and King James had the temerity to publish his own version of the bible, written in the vernacular. As printing presses proliferated, so did books. And along with that came the censors hell-bent on controlling what people read and by extension, thought. Birth control is hardly the first horse that the church has tried to catch and return to the barn.

The real root cause of the "Revolutionary Age" was the proliferation of printing presses and the various types of the printed word.

[quaint]

5. In elementary school, the librarian had a Parent's Permission area.

In fifth grade, I had to bring a note to allow me to borrow The Good Earth and others. This method protected very sensitive parents while allowing the rest of us access to important literature.

That's the big difference between then and now.

[dweller]

11. In the 4th grade

I had to have permission to read “The Yearling”
My dad actually came to the school and told the librarian my reading level was advanced and to let me check it out.
They did.


✌🏻

[sarisataka]

6. What if

The book itself is the ignorance? e.g. The Turner Diaries and their ilk

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. What do you mean by "restrictions"? Laws? Moral recommendations?

[markbark]

8. A book filled with violence and sex?

Sounds a lot like that book the Christofascists are always waving above their heads when yelling at gay people.

[Iggo]

10. People who burn books are afraid of somebody else knowing what they're afraid to know.

[sarisataka]

12. Would you support returning the books

"And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street" and "If I Ran the Zoo" to publication and school libraries?

[Atticus]

13. Tough question. IF used as examples of how we have progressed in our attitudes, they could be

educational. Those stereotypes were generally accepted when the good Doctor penned those books.

There are other similar examples of classics with language and stereotypes now considered offensive. Joseph Conrad's "The N----- Of The Narcissus" is one.

( I did not spell out the actual title to avoid offending those who do not understand context. )

[sarisataka]

14. It does make an interesting corundum

IMO censorship does not make the past go away, it just hides the worst of it from our "modern sensibilities".

When Conrad's book was published in the US the title was changed to The Children of the Sea; it was controversial in the late 19th century.