Maus “Book Banning”

[ShieldWife]

Let me start with these meme I saw on Facebook recently:

When I first saw this, I didn't know what particular book(s) that King was referring to. My immediately thought was "Yes, if people are censoring something, the best thing to do is to seek out what they are trying to censor." But I got a sense that Steven King was referring to a specific case and he was.

Recently a school in Tennessee decided not use the comic book Maus as a book to teach the Holocaust to students. Maus is a graphic novel about the Holocaust where Jews are portrayed as mice and Nazis as cats. I haven't read it, but I gather that it has fairly adult material in it including violence, nudity, and objectionable language. The people at the school cite the nudity and bad language as the reason they aren't going to use Maus.

This incident is not censorship in any way, shape, or form. Maus is not being outlawed, book stores are not refusing to sell it. It's just not being used as an official book in a particular school. There are over 100 million unique books in the world and almost all of them are not being used by this school. Is the school censoring 99.999% of books in the world because it doesn't include them as part of their curriculum? The school is paid for with limited tax payer money and it forces children to read certain books. So if a school is going to force the community to buy books and force the children to read books, then it seems entirely reasonable to not include a book based on objections of people in the community who will be forced to pay and whose kids will be forced to read.

Are the objections based on nudity and language valid? I don't care, it's none of my business.

Though let me get to the more important point here. Currently, and over the past several years especially, there is a massive push to censor certain opinions from the public space. This push has come from governments and from the huge corporations which control the majority of information in the world. If you express the wrong opinion, the one that goes against the opinions of people in power, you could be banned from Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Spotify, or various other forms of social media. You could have websites taken down, Amazon could refuse to carry your book, you or members of your family could lose their jobs. If you take to the streets to make your opinions heard, you could be assaulted and terrorized while the police stand by as armed escorts for your attackers.

While not happening in the USA yet, many people in some Western nations are put in jail for expressing opinions contrary to those of the people in power.

All of this is increasingly happening, it is coordinated across multiple governments and multiple mega-corporations, and the censorship all has the same leftist anti-conservative bias. This is real censorship, not what happened with Maus in this one Tennessee school. To leftists, refusing to pay for their books or force your kids to read them is censorship. To leftists, people expressing opinions that they don't like losing their jobs or being put in prison isn't censorship at all. It's just protecting people from "dangerous misinformation."

So Stephen King's statements below, while seemingly good, are in fact outrageously hypocritical. He's exactly the sort of guy who would want viewpoints he opposes censored and has remained silent for years as it has happened.

But, I would still follow his recommendation on its face: if there is some book that the people in power don't want you to read, some opinion that they don't want you to hear, some bit of information that they are willing to punish people for conveying - then those are the things you should seek out to read, to hear, to learn.

As Stephen King says: "Read whatever they're trying to keep out of your eyes and your brain, because that's exactly what you need to know."

 

[Abhorsen]

This incident is not censorship in any way, shape, or form.

Censorship:
1a) the institution, system, or practice of censoring
b) the actions or practices of censors

Censor (verb)
to examine in order to suppress (see SUPPRESS sense 2) or delete anything considered objectionable

Yeah, this is 100% censorship. You don't seem to know what the word means.

So if a school is going to force the community to buy books and force the children to read books, then it seems entirely reasonable to not include a book based on objections of people in the community who will be forced to pay and whose kids will be forced to read.

It already bought the books, it's literally changing the curriculum now because it doesn't like the nudity, in a book about the holocaust. In fact, the book is so good that without it, they are considering cutting the section on the holocaust from the schools. Yes, schools should be privatized, but as long as they aren't, schools shouldn't be banning books like Maus from 8th graders.

This is real censorship, not what happened with Maus in this one Tennessee school.

See, and this is where you're problem is: both are censorship, and by denying one you make yourself out to be just as much as a partisan hack as people ignoring the other side. Sure some censorship could be worse than other censorship, but it's all bad, and the little loophole you use this time will be used against you instead.

 

[LordsFire]

Censorship:
1a) the institution, system, or practice of censoring
b) the actions or practices of censors

Censor (verb)
to examine in order to suppress (see SUPPRESS sense 2) or delete anything considered objectionable

Yeah, this is 100% censorship. You don't seem to know what the word means.


It already bought the books, it's literally changing the curriculum now because it doesn't like the nudity, in a book about the holocaust. In fact, the book is so good that without it, they are considering cutting the section on the holocaust from the schools. Yes, schools should be privatized, but as long as they aren't, schools shouldn't be banning books like Maus from 8th graders.


See, and this is where you're problem is: both are censorship, and by denying one you make yourself out to be just as much as a partisan hack as people ignoring the other side. Sure some censorship could be worse than other censorship, but it's all bad, and the little loophole you use this time will be used against you instead.

So are you saying they actually banned the book?

Or is it just not on the curriculum?

 

[Captain X]

Is the book no longer available? Can I not go out and purchase this book for myself now if I want? Can I not go to my local library and check it out?

 

[Husky_Khan]

They withdrew it due to nudity?

Nudity?

Of anthropomorphic mice?

I'm curious as to the curriculum and what material they are going to replace it with.

EDIT:
Because I'm not sure what other book is as accessible to young people when it comes to covering the Holocaust.

 

[Abhorsen]

So are you saying they actually banned the book?

Or is it just not on the curriculum?

They just removed it from curriculum, but they did it not because they wanted to change the curriculum, but because they thought that a book showing the holocaust shouldn't have... naked mice (oh, no?).

Not circulating the book for these reasons is definitely a form of censorship, as it is an attempt to suppress kids from reading them. Is it the worst censorship ever? No. But it remains censorship.

Now again, government run schools shouldn't exist because they are already the government deciding what's best for your kids without input. That's bad. But if they must exist, then yeah, I'm going to be annoyed at unreasonable censorship, which this is.

 

[strunkenwhite]

My immediately thought was "Yes, if people are censoring something, the best thing to do is to seek out what they are trying to censor."

This incident is not censorship in any way, shape, or form. Maus is not being outlawed, book stores are not refusing to sell it. It's just not being used as an official book in a particular school.

I perceive a contradiction here and I'd like to know where I'm going wrong, if I am. What King described doesn't seem to me to fit your definition of censorship, yet you thought of what he described as censorship.

King said the response to schools "running books out of the classroom" is to seek the same books from non-school sources such as libraries and local bookstores. This would not likely be very effective if the books are illegal to have in public libraries and stores are refusing to sell it.

 

[Sobek]

IIRC the book was not banned, it was removes from the curriculum to be replaced by a different Holocaust book to be chosen because the board decides the kids were too young to properly understand and be exposed to Maus.

That being said, this is a old reliable for the left by now. They only care for freedom for their side. Similar thing is happening with blatant porn being taken out of school libraries and they write snappy tweets about "conservatives are censoring black voices".

 

[History Learner]

It's not been banned, but it should be.

 

[WolfBear]

It's not been banned, but it should be.

Why should it be banned?

 

[Whitestrake Pelinal]

Why should it be banned?

Probably for being creepy propaganda meant to fuck with children's heads. Inflicting stuff like that on schoolchildren is disgusting. Furry cartoons with cats vs mice and no historical context for how they came into conflict is the opposite of education -- it's indoctrination.

Maus has as much place in a grade school as critical race theory, Heather has two mommies, or Danny's Daddy Diddles Dogs.

 

[LordsFire]

You know, I think I should find a copy and do a deconstruction of it.

 

[Abhorsen]

Probably for being creepy propaganda meant to fuck with children's heads. Inflicting stuff like that on schoolchildren is disgusting. Furry cartoons with cats vs mice and no historical context for how they came into conflict is the opposite of education -- it's indoctrination.

Maus has as much place in a grade school as critical race theory, Heather has two mommies, or Danny's Daddy Diddles Dogs.

You criticizing Maus when you have the most to learn from it on the board is definitely something. Maybe learning about the horrors of the holocaust from a personal perspective might help with your rampant white nationalism and Jew hatred.

Also, this is telling:

no historical context for how they came into conflict

Yes, because the jews hurt the Nazi's feelings ever so much just by being around that there was no choice. Yet more evidence that you need to crack open a book.

IIRC the book was not banned, it was removes from the curriculum to be replaced by a different Holocaust book to be chosen because the board decides the kids were too young to properly understand and be exposed to Maus.

They were eighth graders, that's old enough to learn about the holocaust in such a way. I went to the holocaust museum in Eighth grade, they can read Maus.

Also, they couldn't find a book to replace it, so they mentioned that they'd likely just cut the whole part off of the curriculum, because, well this:

EDIT:
Because I'm not sure what other book is as accessible to young people when it comes to covering the Holocaust.

 

[Sobek]

Also, this is telling:

Yes, because the jews hurt the Nazi's feelings ever so much just by being around that there was no choice. Yet more evidence that you need to crack open a book.

That is categorically wrong and honestly Pelinal is underplaying his point on the issue.

Way too much is made of the Holocaust without understanding the context of it. There is a reason "and then suddenly, for no reason at all, people voted Hitler into power" has become a meme. The Nazis didn't just create a hatred of Jews in Germany from thin air nor did they just go from slight distaste to Holocaust in a single stroke.

Are you familiar with the German Civil War of 1918-19? It is one of the most hard sticking points of why the Nazi Party was able to use the commie and jew hatred to get in power. No one talks about it. There was a entire Civil War after the Kaiser abdicated, where communists whose leaders were over half ethnic Jews tried to do a USSR on Germany and failed? People forget, and some straight up declare it a conspiracy theory nowadays despite the facts showing this happen as they don't understand how people wouldn't have cared these jews in the leadership were not practcing at all because they have been straight up told to ignore it.

It's where the Freikorps first made their debut, long before the slow collapse of the Weimar Shitshow, and it re-ignited German Antisemitism that had been mostly dormant and not that different from the average "light" antisemitism of western Europe at the time, and it is why Hitler tried the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 at a time where for most people it looks like it wouldn't have made sense without the context (though it was a retarded plan, Mussolini's March on Rome was at least smart enough to take the Capital first and make it theirs not some random state capital).

Or what about the fact Berlin in the 1920's was literally like L.A. or Las Vegas is today, with brothels where you could get whores from 8 to 80 and men and even animals in some cases? Another huge point to explain the backlash that led to Nazis rising, ignored by schools.

Maus is only really good if you already understand the context, otherwise it will come off as simplistic propaganda. If you don't understand the basis behind it is won't work as a propper tool to understand history but only as a cheap emotional massage into the issue.

 

[Abhorsen]

That is categorically wrong and honestly Pelinal is underplaying his point on the issue.

Way too much is made of the Holocaust without understanding the context of it. There is a reason "and then suddenly, for no reason at all, people voted Hitler into power" has become a meme. The Nazis didn't just create a hatred of Jews in Germany from thin air nor did they just go from slight distaste to Holocaust in a single stroke.

Are you familiar with the German Civil War of 1918-19? It is one of the most hard sticking points of why the Nazi Party was able to use the commie and jew hatred to get in power. No one talks about it. There was a entire Civil War after the Kaiser abdicated, where communists whose leaders were over half ethnic Jews tried to do a USSR on Germany and failed? People forget, and some straight up declare it a conspiracy theory nowadays despite the facts showing this happen as they don't understand how people wouldn't have cared these jews in the leadership were not practcing at all because they have been straight up told to ignore it.

It's where the Freikorps first made their debut, long before the slow collapse of the Weimar Shitshow, and it re-ignited German Antisemitism that had been mostly dormant and not that different from the average "light" antisemitism of western Europe at the time, and it is why Hitler tried the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 at a time where for most people it looks like it wouldn't have made sense without the context (though it was a retarded plan, Mussolini's March on Rome was at least smart enough to take the Capital first and make it theirs not some random state capital).

Or what about the fact Berlin in the 1920's was literally like L.A. or Las Vegas is today, with brothels where you could get whores from 8 to 80 and men and even animals in some cases? Another huge point to explain the backlash that led to Nazis rising, ignored by schools.

Maus is only really good if you already understand the context, otherwise it will come off as simplistic propaganda. If you don't understand the basis behind it is won't work as a propper tool to understand history but only as a cheap emotional massage into the issue.

I know full well there is reasons why Hitler came into power. But some jews doing bad stuff does not mean all jews are suddenly guilty. Treating them as identical and thus all guilty is both wrong and classic racism, something that Whitestrake would do well to learn, as Whitestrake makes the same mistake when he implies that the Jews as a whole bear some responsibility for the mutual animosity. The Nazis and German people who bought in do. The commies, including the jewish commies, bear some responsibility for the rise of German tensions as well (along with them being commies being bad) but to take it out on a group of people for what some did does not make it mutual between the groups.

And this mistake has been repeated throughout history. Some jews do bad things. Suddenly all jews are blamed for it, as if they are somehow responsible.

 

[Zachowon]

Wow, because a few jews were bad means we need to kill all jews.
Good reasoning. I guess every single person who was in the Wermacht should be considered Nazis during WW2 because there were multiple bad Nazis....

 

[Sobek]

I did not say that, I said that this was the logic used by the Nazis. I explained how they justified it to fuel their propaganda. Understanding that is key to understanding the Holocaust and Nazism in full. The fact you are trying to move the discussion like that is exactly the problem I am pointing out: You are ignoring the study of the causes and factors to focus only on the result for a easy emotional story that sounds good and sad but doesn't actually express the magnitude of the problem.

This is how we get people spouting shit that literally sounds like Mein Kampf verbatim with "Jews" replaced by whatever trendy hate target they want to attack and getting away with it until it is too late. "Western society is controlled by White Men for the benefit of White Men", "These Anti-Vaxxers are just taking up space, they do not belong among us who obey laws and society and they should be shunned."

 

[Abhorsen]

I did not say that, I said that this was the logic used by the Nazis.

You didn't say that. Whitestrake mostly did. That's who I was talking to (assuming you are replying to me here?).

I get what you are doing. What you are doing makes a lot of sense (I agree with most of the rest of your post here in regards to studying causes being important). Maybe a little too much context for Eighth graders, maybe not. That's not my issue here. My issue is solely with what Whitestrake is saying, because he, unlike you, probably isn't just talking about what the Nazis thought, but what he thinks, given his post history.

 

[Husky_Khan]

You have to keep in mind this is for 8th Graders, not some High School class on History, or higher level class on World War Two or Holocaust/Genocide Studies or Jewish/German History or somesuch. I don't know how comprehensive your High School history education is but in our school we actually ran out of time in the term that we never actually covered World War Two beyond a substitute teacher putting on some WW2 documentary and we were supposed to watch it and take notes for ninety minutes.

Maus is only really good if you already understand the context, otherwise it will come off as simplistic propaganda. If you don't understand the basis behind it is won't work as a propper tool to understand history but only as a cheap emotional massage into the issue.

So do you think without full context that Maus is qualitatively equivalent to say... a Childrens book about bestiality and pedophilia as hypothesized below?

Maus has as much place in a grade school as... Danny's Daddy Diddles Dogs.

 

[Sobek]

So do you think without full context that Maus is qualitatively equivalent to say... a Childrens book about bestiality and pedophilia as hypothesized below?

That is a extreme view, so no. Things aren't 8 or 80 like that. While I get the parallel that Pelinal was making I think that is too extreme. Without the further context it is little more than a edgy graphic novel that might be too hard for younger kids to properly grasp. On this scale of mine, think of Maus as being a little less jarring than showing Full Metal Jacket to 8th graders to talk about the Vietnam War: It is correct material, and they will get some of the lessons, but it's not really gonna click properly due to immaturity of the kids and the shock value jarring it a bit.