I admire the students that are setting up book clubs for banned books. They are recognizing that they are being given a list of what they should read.
They’re also evidence of why the book banning doesn’t really work as well today as conservatives would like it to.
Book banning was an effective way of controlling what your young population was exposed to before the internet and social media. It worked best when the young weren’t even aware of the information they were being denied.
But social media is making sure they’re all very much aware of what has been hidden from them. They know what’s going on. You will find teenagers in particular are kind of resistant to being told no by an authority, so they’re going to do something about it.
Now, don’t feel too excited about this, because there’s a threat here. Every single time you see a conservative talking about more stringent age verification for things on the internet, part of what they’re actually trying to do is create an avenue to control the information kids are exposed to. They are pretty open about how LGBT issues, particularly the T ones, can be labeled as “sexual” and “inappropriate”. With very simple changes to the regulation, they can suppress children’s access to anything they like as long as they make a half-assed argument that it’s “inappropriate”.
It also opens the door to more internet censorship…
Those who erase history are attempting to repeat it
“Hey there’s a book about Minecraft - wait no it says ‘Mein Kampf’…”
i bet that one is allowed in most of these lists
Not in Germany… (it’s banned outside of school too)
Not true, you can even buy it on Amazon if you really want to.
I don’t think it’s legal though or is it?
It’s legal. An annotated version, with neither the swastika nor a picture of the greasy Nazi fuck, was published a few years back and tens of thousands were sold, primarily to German libraries and schools. It’s a good study on how shitheads think.
I often buy books written by shitheads when I end up studying fascism or other radical right wing movements. Heck, even more mainstream conservative movements with radical imagery or frequent dogwhistles. Reading books by shitty people on shitty topics is very important on understanding how the movements work and think.
Reading about fascism from antifascists is good and all, but understanding fascist movements when they are most active requires reading fascist works. Heck, even with books like Mien Kampf, a book with a ton of analysis done by antifascists could still be a potentially useful read for antifascists.
