An increasing number of books are being banned (or threatening to be) in our public school systems today. Books like to Kill a Mockingbird and 1984 are (being) removed from school curriculums in order to not “offend” students. (Even Fahrenheit 451, a book about the dangers of banning books, is in some districts in danger of being banned.) In my opinion, this is absolutely ridiculous, and not even that, it’s incredibly dangerous. More often than not, the reasons that school boards want to ban these books are the exact reason the books were written in the first place.
For example, to Kill a Mockingbird has numerous racial slurs in the text. To remove these lines or the book itself removes the purpose of the book, to teach what was once done to other humans and why it should never happen again. 1984 is a book where the government has complete control over everyones life, and people think that the government should ban this book? Books, no matter how offensive or morally repugnant to one side of the isle should never be banned from the classroom, or from the nation as a whole.
Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”- Orwell
Great American Novels 
3 replies on “Should Books Be Banned”
I agree that banning books is bad, but think adding nuance to the statement “Books, no matter how offensive or morally repugnant to one side of the isle should never be banned from the classroom, or from the nation as a whole.” as without any restrictions, you’d quickly have extremist reading kindergarteners quotes from Mein Kampf
LikeLike
Jack, while I agree with you that Mein Kampf should never be taught as right to kindergarteners, I disagree that high school seniors shouldn’t be able to read Mein Kampf and be taught how it it is completely, ethically and morally, wrong. Hiding history from people is dangerous. Age based discresion, fine. Banning books for being “counter to what-ever the government decree’s as wrong,” is in fact, wrong.
LikeLike
While I totally see your point about how “To Kill a Mockingbird” has been banned from schools due to racial slurs, I agree when I say that banning that book or even taking out those slurs does people a disservice. The point of reading these books is so that we know what has happened in the past, so we can avoid it in the future. If we don’t learn about history, we are bound to repeat it as a society.
LikeLike