If banning books was the right thing to do, the ALA would not have made a banned books week and the NCAC would not have the Kids Right to Read Project.
Why is banning books wrong then?
My first answer is it prevents the freedoms of the authors. Why do authors write? Is it for money or fame or is it because they want to share a story that they have created on their own? I say they write because they want to share an experience with the world, whether true or false, an experience nonetheless. People write to share ideas and this is protected by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and the press. Yet, these ideas are still banned. They write to share these ideas but a group of people decide "No, this part is wrong, we, nor x amount of people, will be allowed to read this book." These deciders have no right to prevent other people from accessing public material. They can choose to not read it and prevent it from being in their home but they have no right to decide what happens in someone else's home. This negatively effects the author.
My next answer is that banning books holds education back. There is only a limited amount of information that is not in books. For example, in Fahrenheit 451, it is made clear the effects that eliminating all books has on the public mind. People are stupid and unsatisfied with their lives. In the article How Censorship Affects Society, Henry Steel Commager makes a wonderful point, "In one such opinion, the historian and educator Henry Steel Commager states that due to long-running censorship, the future generation may become incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience." If people are constantly forced to only take in certain information and only in the way that the deciders choose, then they are left to being unable to make their own decisions. There is a huge difference that Henry Commager is trying to make between guiding someone down the right path and making their decisions for them. If people are unable to take in this information and allowed to process it by themselves then their independent thought fades and they only follow along with what is told to them. This negatively effects educators because there is only so much information that they can teach and it negatively effects students because they are the ones being taught to read only what they are allowed and not take in negative influences to process in a positive way.
This negatively effects society as a whole because it effects the authors who have to censor their own material in order to share it with a wider audience, educators because they cannot teach what they want to in order to get students to think about why something is wrong, and it effects the students because they are unable to take any control of their own education and learn what they are interested in and process these books. This has a much bigger effect when these students grow up, there are two ways they could go. They could go in the direction Henry Commager fears and have no independent thought or they could be easily influenced by something they never got to learn about and become a hindrance to society.
Why is banning books wrong then?
My first answer is it prevents the freedoms of the authors. Why do authors write? Is it for money or fame or is it because they want to share a story that they have created on their own? I say they write because they want to share an experience with the world, whether true or false, an experience nonetheless. People write to share ideas and this is protected by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and the press. Yet, these ideas are still banned. They write to share these ideas but a group of people decide "No, this part is wrong, we, nor x amount of people, will be allowed to read this book." These deciders have no right to prevent other people from accessing public material. They can choose to not read it and prevent it from being in their home but they have no right to decide what happens in someone else's home. This negatively effects the author.
My next answer is that banning books holds education back. There is only a limited amount of information that is not in books. For example, in Fahrenheit 451, it is made clear the effects that eliminating all books has on the public mind. People are stupid and unsatisfied with their lives. In the article How Censorship Affects Society, Henry Steel Commager makes a wonderful point, "In one such opinion, the historian and educator Henry Steel Commager states that due to long-running censorship, the future generation may become incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience." If people are constantly forced to only take in certain information and only in the way that the deciders choose, then they are left to being unable to make their own decisions. There is a huge difference that Henry Commager is trying to make between guiding someone down the right path and making their decisions for them. If people are unable to take in this information and allowed to process it by themselves then their independent thought fades and they only follow along with what is told to them. This negatively effects educators because there is only so much information that they can teach and it negatively effects students because they are the ones being taught to read only what they are allowed and not take in negative influences to process in a positive way.
This negatively effects society as a whole because it effects the authors who have to censor their own material in order to share it with a wider audience, educators because they cannot teach what they want to in order to get students to think about why something is wrong, and it effects the students because they are unable to take any control of their own education and learn what they are interested in and process these books. This has a much bigger effect when these students grow up, there are two ways they could go. They could go in the direction Henry Commager fears and have no independent thought or they could be easily influenced by something they never got to learn about and become a hindrance to society.