Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/11/florida-book-banners-ban-book-on-book-bans.html
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Florida book banners ban book on book bans
Did they seek advice first from the woodchuck that could chuck wood?
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Presumably they’ll ban the book about that, as well
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“teaching rebellion of school board authority”
Yep. That’s a feature, not a bug. We WANT them to question, rebel, create, think and above all … live!
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Banned for “teaching rebellion” seems…well, I don’t know what that seems like but it gives me about 100 different feelings all at once. Don’t tread on me, except sometimes please do tread on me but please make sure to tell me how to know when I need trod upon, thank you very much. So really, in brief, tread when you think I need it, I suppose. This flag is getting rather complex.
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How do the authorities in these states not realize that banning books is a sure way to make sure people want to read them?
I am hoping there comes a time when we can look back on this as an aberrant period in our history.
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I wish they would just get back to teaching grammar.
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Teaching rebellion is bad, but it’s ok to engage in activities that have been labeled anti-government? These are the same people who complain that the SPLC has labeled activities their like-minded “activists” engage in as anti-government. So, as we often point out here, it has nothing to do with the label (“rebellious”) they put on things and more to do with whether they agree with the activity or whether they are deemed as the authority to be followed.
In other words, it’s all horse shit.
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Isn’t America’s entire founding myth about rebelling against authority?
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SOME people rebelling against authority, but only the “right” people (wealthy, enslaving landlords) not “those people.”
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So, if I understand properly, the sin here is not “pornography” or “sexualizing children,” but simply referencing other books. Makes me recall the WKRP episode where some conservative group wanted to ban John Lennon’s Imagine because it talks about ideas. This is how it works. It starts by attacking things that sound bad, “sexualization” and such, then to ideas that make them uncomfortable, like the existence of gender diversity, to the very idea of book banning. “If they don’t know we banned them, they won’t want to read them.” They have yet to realize that this is a losing battle, so long as there are places where these ideas are still accessible, and an internet.
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With the repetition of “ban” and “book,” at first glance I assumed it had something to do with states like California passing bans on book bans, and that Florida had responded by, er, banning bans on book bans. (Because DeSantis likes to reflexively do the opposite of whatever California does.) This is a lot more straightforward… and also predictable. “[T]eaching rebellion of school board authority,” makes it clear what the real issue with book bans is.
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The gutting of curricula in Texas started with the removal critical thinking skills because they would lead students to question authority. A big part of the whole plan is a love of hierarchies-as long as they’re at the top.
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As always, it’s a battle between people who think schools should educate and those who think they should indoctrinate, between those who want to teach children to think and those who want to tell them what to think. I long for the day when the monsters who believe we should turn people into obedient drones aren’t allowed anywhere near the children they long to abuse.
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U.S. history?
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One of the first things I noticed when we moved to TX was that the cheerleaders & football players formed a social inner circle & that everyone outside of it was little people, hoi polloi. I should clarify that this was in 4th grade, kids who were 9-10 years old (these were Optimist athletic teams, not school teams). This stratification was already in place by that age & there was very little transfer into or out of the circle after that, although through jr.high & high school (as other schools fed in & the student body was larger), it mattered less & less. At UT Austin, I am guessing way more than at other schools, the entire Greek system seemed like its purpose was to bring back that 4th grade inner circle feeling, for them anyway.
I’m not so naive to think that US politics has not always protected the interests of the inner circle (even if it promises otherwise), but more and more since 2010-2015, US politics seems centered on (& overt about) a struggle of the inner circle enshrining their status forever.
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When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.
(I know this quote from the book Night train to Lisbon, where it’s the epitaph of a freedom fighter under Salazar. I’ve since seen the quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but can’t find a source. He’s expressed similar sentiment less succinctly in the Declaration of Independence, of course: “… when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government…”)
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