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The Pros And Cons Of Banning Books

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Books are a part of our society that entertain us through literature by showing us new experiences and characters that we may relate to or easily might despise due to how they are written, these are usually found in teen novels, comic books, manga, and many more. Books have also usually taught us through traditional means by teaching us about history and other things about society and overall morals we learn at a young age. However, some people have actually taken offense to certain books due to the content inside the book being “too offensive to them and have asked that these books be banned while other people want these books to stay. It’s a consistent debate of whether certain books should be banned or not and there are different viewpoints …show more content…

And some books are so huge that perhaps one person could ruin it for everyone by having it be banned. For example, when How to Kill A Mocking Bird was being seen for ban, Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the issue saying that “Instead of admitting prejudice exists and confronting it, we find excuses to change the subject. Harper Lee's banned book doesn't let us do that, which is why more people should read it.” Jackson, H. (2017, 22 Oct.) And the point that’s being brought up is that a lot of books show problems and issues with our society but rather than accepting it and facing it, we want to avoid it and pretend they don’t exist. This will only damage us later in the future since we are trying to set a standard of no bad things existing. But sometimes it might be good to ban a book, as seen with a report done by the Wall Street Journal when they interviewed author Simon Griffin about some of his ‘questionable’ book titles that have offended people and he stated, ‘“Obviously I do feel bad about that," said Mr. Griffin, the author. "The intention of the book was never to upset."’ Cronin, B. (2017, 02 Feb). Even though it’s not the best option, sometimes it might be good to ban a book like this because of the title, even though the easier option is just changing the title or censoring it, maybe it should be …show more content…

An example of China’s actions of this are when the Boston Globe reported that, “Yasin is one of more than three dozen writers held in prison by the Chinese authorities…In addition, poets, playwrights, and novelists are imprisoned in Turkey, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Algeria, Cuba, Myanmar, and Iran for the crime of writing about how the world appears to them. In a world in which our destinies are intertwined, in which we need more desperately than ever to know one another, such censorship hurts us all.” Hoffman, R. (2009, 14 Oct.) China is essentially trying to hide things from the public and not allowing people to speak how they feel about the country by banning their books and imprisoning them. Therefore, banned books in China are hunted for so often. And truly, there is no positive side to this view point except maybe with the case of the author of the book “The Satanic Verses”, when the Straits Times reported that, “…the then spiritual leader of Iran called "blasphemous". The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini offered a bounty for the writer's death and Rushdie had to spend 10 years of his life in hiding. The fatwa or edict calling for his murder has yet to be cancelled.” Nanda, A. (2012, 09 Oct). This might be one of the only positives of having to ban a book because the book was

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