Banned Games: Understandable... But Banned Books??

We had a discussion on our classes research topics tday in class. I have never really cared abut the banning of media, but afer we got into talking bout the thoughts of banning the DaVinci Code... I had to partake in it. My argument was this: Banning videos and video gmes is completely understandable, bt still stupid. We didn't discus the video games much. My big argument was for books. In books, the "Harmful Material" is not visual, so cannot offend anyone just from looking at it. You have to actually read the book to get to the contoversial parts. If there is a book that is questiond whether it should be banned or not, it most likely has to do with religon. When people pick up a book, they usually know what the storyline is supposed to be, from either hearing it on tv/rado, or reading the ack cover. Most of the time these peopleknow what they are getting into, but still want to just have a reason to shout their opinion to the world. If you know the material is controversial and most likely going to offend you... DON'T READ THE BOOK!

The inquisition never ended! The practice of banning and even burning books that are deemed heretical still goes on today! Reich's books were burned even though his observations of psychology are the basis of many new techiques.

Its been going on for centuries! Nothing new here. If you would research History as far back as the Dark ages, Lets say 12-13 century. You would be amazed at what you would discover. They have been Burning and destroying any kind of truth to Religion. What is the church trying to hide.? why are they banning the Davinci Code? Did he hit a nerve?
If they did not have anything to hide then why are they banning this book?
Time sure does has a way of repeating. Amazing. I would be more worry about them video games out there. ( the very bad ones)

Banning movies and video games is NEVER acceptable. A little censorship is never good, and should absolutely never be tolerated in any way shape or form whatsoever.

Also, to the best my knowledge, no film or video game has been censored in the United States.

I know that it is never acceptable. I'm just saying that I can understand banning games better than I can books. And our times our different than those times when they banned books. The way and reason we ban books are slightly different. It seems now that anything that could offend a goat is banned now. It's just a bunch of people with nothing better to do that cause these problems.

fahrenheit 451.com

it's sad that people can live in this country -- a country based around freedom of speech -- and then try to justify banning speech.

(and coincidently, or maybe not so coincidently, they are the first ones to criticize others patriotism).

[edit on 22-8-2005 by white4life420]

I don't really see the difference between banning books and banning videogames or movies. Under the first ammendment, all must be permissable. If the arguement is that a movie graphically shows you whatever, where as a book just presents it in words...Our imaginations can be wonderful and terrible things. After all, every one of those movies and videogames came from someone's idea, their vision.

JungleJake = against any ban on our freedom of speach to express ideas (the "Fire!" ban is understandable). Period.

Chasrac64, this burning and banning you speak of has been going on for millenia, not centuries. I'm curious how you're so sure the religion that was burned was true and that which wasn't true stuck around (not a very powerful God...), but that's for another thread. Through the sands of time, people have tried to silence those they disagree with. Political dissidents would be killed, theocracies would ban and burn other religion's books, etc. Their reasons are as varied as the groups that did it. Some did it for power, some did it to rewrite history, some did it because their view was very weak and the other opinions made a lot more sense, some did it because they believed it would protect their people from bad thoughts that, in their opinion, would harm them. Book banning/burning has been around for ages, it didn't just start to try to destroy the "truth" about God in the 12th and 13th centuries.

I've always thought that banning books was akin to banning freedom of speech, expression, or religion. I personally hold the belief that I won't let someone else control what I can or can not read. When I was in school, when I need to find a new book to read I will look on the banned book lists to see if any of them catch my attention; and if they did I would read them. I may not have been able to read them for a class report, or have them taught to me; but that didn't stop me from experienceing them. It is truly amazing to read some of the reasons that the book got banned in the first place. Here are a couple of links that list books that have been or are currently banned. Happy reading

www.banned-books.com...

digital.library.upenn.edu...

en.wikipedia.org...

www.adlerbooks.com...

[edit on 23-8-2005 by sinta_ilfirin]

While the US does not ban as happily as some other countries (Australia & UK) here is a List of some films banned in the US:


The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Salt of the Earth (1954)
High School Confidential! (1958) (film by Howard Hughes primarily focused on Jane Russell's breasts)
Ben-Hur (1959) (originally banned by the NAACP for racists views)
Carnal Knowledge (1971 - Banned by the House for Un-American Activities)
Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1974)

As for banned books the Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi (221 B.C. - 206 B.C.) was infamous for burning all the books (art, history, myth) from previous regimes. He was rumoured to have wanted to erase history. He buried scholars alive, hated free thinkers and tortured philosophers. He even banned discussions dealing with the past.

Mao Tse-tung said this about Shi Huangdi:

'Qin Shi Huang was famous for burning books, but I burned millions of them and in many cases the authors who wrote them.'

www.greencine.com... - Banned Films#

Originally posted by brimstone735
Banning movies and video games is NEVER acceptable. A little censorship is never good, and should absolutely never be tolerated in any way shape or form whatsoever.

Also, to the best my knowledge, no film or video game has been censored in the United States.

That would depend on your definition of censored. The Motion Picture Association of America has had a so called "voluntary" ratings system in place for almost 40 years. They say that it is voluntary, but the majority of movie distributers and theaters will not handle an unrated movie. in some areas it is actually against the law to show an unrated movie. It is considered economic suicide to try to market an unrated movie.

Ratings aren't banning. The ratings are in place so you don't have a 6 year old sneak off to a theater and watch Debbie Does Dallas, and so you don't take your kids to see something like We Were Soldiers without realizing there is graphic violence. Ratings are not bannings. Those, obviously, I fully support. However, I would not support the government forcing a "XXXXX" rating on films and saying they can't be sold.

As to the unrated films, I thought that was a business's decision, not the government's. What areas are you talking about where it's against the law?

Originally posted by junglejake

As to the unrated films, I thought that was a business's decision, not the government's. What areas are you talking about where it's against the law?

Ratings are a form of censorship. While I agree with you about using ratings to prevent kids from seeing adult movies and agree with that use 100% it is still a form of censorship. The majority of communities have laws restrict the showing of unrated movies. They don't come out and state this you have to look in the zoning laws to see what I am talking about.

Originally posted by JIMC5499
Ratings are a form of censorship. While I agree with you about using ratings to prevent kids from seeing adult movies and agree with that use 100% it is still a form of censorship. The majority of communities have laws restrict the showing of unrated movies. They don't come out and state this you have to look in the zoning laws to see what I am talking about.

Please, give some examples. It sounds like you're aware of some, so if you could provide links to the zoning laws, that would be really helpful. Going from community to community reading through all their zoning laws hoping I hit one of them you're talking about would take a long while and, quite frankly, isn't a good use of my time

Thanks!

Originally posted by junglejake
Please, give some examples. It sounds like you're aware of some, so if you could provide links to the zoning laws, that would be really helpful. Going from community to community reading through all their zoning laws hoping I hit one of them you're talking about would take a long while and, quite frankly, isn't a good use of my time

Thanks!

The laws that I am refering to are in effect in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. What happened is that there was a section of the city called Liberty Avenue. Liberty Avenue had numerous adult clubs and theaters in the 70's. There was an urban renewal group that convinced the city to pass zoning laws that would ban the adult theaters and clubs. The existing clubs and theaters were grandfathered under these laws. This ment that they could continue to operate but couldn't be sold. Once the zoning laws were passed the city closed all of the parking spaces with in three blocks of the businesses. This drove the clubs out of business with in six months but the last theater hung around until just last year. The law that pertained to the theaters stated that theaters that showed X rated or unrated movies needed to be located in an area zoned for them, but the law never specified what that zoning was to be. This created problems later when a civic group renovated one of the theaters to show independant films. The guy who owned the surviving theater sued the city for allowing them to show unrated movies and won. The City of Pittsburgh does not post its laws on the internet. I start back to school here in a few days I think that the college library has a copy of Pittsburgh's laws if it does I'll post the ones pertaining to this.

Ahhhh. X rated, not unrated. In all honesty, I can understand this along the same lines as the rating system. The movies aren't banned, but rather not permitted to be shown in public theaters. Imagine, if you will, that you're driving down the road with your 4 and 6 year old children and see a huge marquee saying, "Twenty-Four Hours of Hot Sex 9:00" (flick really does exist, found it googling this: "perverse porno movie titles"). It's forcing parents to address a subject that they may not be prepared to address, or their children are too young to learn about in a manner where they wouldn't have a choice. I'm not for censorship, but I'm also not for forcing a culture on people who don't want to accept it (obviously).

Here is my problem with the censorship of films in the US - they aren't censored per se but they are cut and cut again when the distributors don't agree with the politics or whatever other moral agenda the country is displaying that week. Films get censored into what is acceptable to view and what is not. Mindless violence or nudity sells - but political or independent thought? Better box that right up again until you can sell your director's version on a foreign website.

My BIG problem with the ratings system is how violence wins over nudity. In the blind trust of rating systems you can take your kiddie or your neice and nephew to see a movie in which no one swears, no one gets into bed with anyone else, no one shows their breasts and no one has a sexual innuendo to speak of, but killing people and blood and violence? Plenty. The censors are pretty lenient on this too. Some of the things you would not think would pass - pass and vice versa.

Ahhhh... the duality of America. Uncomfortable with sex - chock full of violence galore.

That's a business decision, though, not a governmental one. The business believes it will run into problems if it leaves something in a film, so they cut it out. Paramount isn't willing to put their entire company on the line so one screenwriter and director can express something that would have many people up in arms. That is every American's right to do, too, under the same freedom of speach laws.

As to the violence over nudity, I feel your pain. It doesn't make much sense to me, either. A movie showing a person getting their head blown of in graphic detail has a chance of getting a PG-13 rating, where as a breast really doesn't.

Almost everyone puts up with censorship as long as it's something that you want censored.

And while most of the pressure to censor or restrict media seems to come from the Right, there are certainly books which the Left would love to see banned as well. This speaks volumes to the innate hypocrisy of any political pseudophilosophy which claimes to be "for freedom", but I digress....

One of the saddest of these examples is found in the writings of Mark Twain, best known for two of his books that deal with childhood in the 1840's. Tom Sawyer is a wonderful and charming book; the other is arguably the greatest Amercan novel ever written. Yet there are many on the left who would like to see Huckleberry Finn banned because it's "racist trash"!

And I won't even bother going into detail about such books as William Pierce's "The Turner Diaries" or "Hunter"!

I consider all censorship (and by this I mean government-imposed censorship) to be anti-freedom and thus wrong, regardless of what you or I might think of the books and their authors.

There are many books I would not recommend because their literary equivalent is like subsisting on a diet of non-stop diet coke and crisps. I would not however censor any book or argue toward the censoring, burning or banning of books. I love books. The thought of damaging the spine of one makes me cringe.

I have many librarian and teacher friends, many of them lefties, but not once have I met one who moved for the censoring of Huck Finn. Usually you don't get the book banning with lefties but sometimes you get a zealot who needs to act like the PC police.

Btw - While I can't agree that it is the greatest American novel ever written, I have a soft spot for Huck having read it when I was an impressionable youth

Banning is like Qui Shi Huangdi's attempt to erase the past. If we deny and bury our racist history how are we suppose to learn from it?