{"id":116,"date":"2006-10-05T16:22:22","date_gmt":"2006-10-05T23:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/05\/banning-fahrenheit-451\/"},"modified":"2007-10-25T13:46:52","modified_gmt":"2007-10-25T18:46:52","slug":"banning-fahrenheit-451","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/banning-fahrenheit-451\/","title":{"rendered":"Banning Fahrenheit 451"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe src=\"http:\/\/rcm.amazon.com\/e\/cm?t=thecuttinroom-20&#038;o=1&#038;p=8&#038;l=as1&#038;asins=0345342968&#038;fc1=000000&#038;IS2=1&#038;lt1=_blank&#038;lc1=888888&#038;bc1=ffffff&#038;bg1=ffffff&#038;npa=1&#038;f=ifr\" style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" scrolling=\"no\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" frameborder=\"0\" align=\"left\"><\/iframe>Last week, the father of a 15-year-old girl near Houston complained to her high school about one of the reading assignments and felt it should be banned from the school.  The book?  Ray Bradbury&#8217;s anti-censorship novel <i>Fahrenheit 451<\/i>.  And, last week was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ala.org\/bbooks\/\">Banned Books Week<\/a>, too.  Ironic.  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hcnonline.com\/site\/news.cfm?newsid=17270600&#038;BRD=1574&#038;PAG=461&#038;dept_id=532215&#038;rfi=6\">Houston Community Newspapers<\/a> (pop-up warning) via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boingboing.net\/2006\/10\/04\/man_demands_that_boo.html\">Boing Boing<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not always sure how I feel about things like this.  In this case, I&#8217;m pretty squarely for keeping the book on the curriculum, largely because it&#8217;s a darn good book, and because I don&#8217;t agree with censorship and I think the book has a necessary message.  But the kicker here is that the man hasn&#8217;t even read it!  Direct quote from the original article: &#8220;It&#8217;s just all kinds of filth,&#8221; said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read <i>Fahrenheit 451<\/i>.&#8221;  I&#8217;m sorry, but I don&#8217;t think you should be allowed to challenge a book unless you&#8217;ve read it.  Otherwise, how do you know that it contains &#8220;all kinds of filth,&#8221; or that the &#8220;all kinds of filth&#8221; isn&#8217;t sufficiently offset by good qualities in the book?  That just makes you look willfully ignorant.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, I do think that parents should have a say in what their children read, and I appreciate parents who care enough about their children to care what they&#8217;re reading and watching.  But it seems to me that care would be better exercised by reading\/watching things before they do and with them and being ready to discuss problematic issues.  Dad can&#8217;t keep the world out forever, and better she learns discernment while in a safe environment than be thrown into the world wholesale in a few years when she goes to college.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, the father of a 15-year-old girl near Houston complained to her high school about one of the reading assignments and felt it should be banned from the school. The book? Ray Bradbury&#8217;s anti-censorship novel Fahrenheit 451. And, last week was Banned Books Week, too. Ironic. Houston Community Newspapers (pop-up warning) via Boing Boing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[370,369],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":454,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/bradbury-and-authorial-intent\/","url_meta":{"origin":116,"position":0},"title":"Bradbury and Authorial Intent","author":"Jandy","date":"June 6, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been around the web for a while (and I guess the regular news, too, but I'm not a regular news person), but Ray Bradbury has spoken out against the common interpretation of his book Fahrenheit 451 as an anti-censorship novel. Instead, he says, his intended target was television, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Books and Reading&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":470,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/bradbury-and-censorship\/","url_meta":{"origin":116,"position":1},"title":"Bradbury and Censorship","author":"Jandy","date":"June 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In the comments to my post about Bradbury and authorial intent, Evan pointed out that Ray Bradbury wrote an afterword to Fahrenheit 451 against censorship: The most important reason Bradbury can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get away with this re-interpretation is that a few years back he wrote a postscript to the novel in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Books and Reading&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":35772,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/challenge-week-14-something-new\/","url_meta":{"origin":116,"position":2},"title":"Challenge Week 14: Something New","author":"Jandy","date":"April 16, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry for the delay on this one - combination of Netflix, library, and my own procrastination made acquiring the film take longer than I expected. I am caught up on watching films, but will likely do short writeups of the latest three to catch up. Right upfront, I want to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;2016 Movie Challenge&quot;","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/tf-feat.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17634,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/rip-jane-russell-1921-2011\/","url_meta":{"origin":116,"position":3},"title":"RIP Jane Russell, 1921-2011","author":"Jandy","date":"February 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Bursting onto the Hollywood scene with a smoldering earthiness in 1943's The Outlaw, which was banned or suppressed in several places due to its on-screen sexuality, Jane Russell was not the staid glamourpuss so common at the time, but something more visceral, wearing her curves with pride, and slipping easily\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Film&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/jane-russell.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":37051,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/tbr-adds-january\/","url_meta":{"origin":116,"position":4},"title":"TBR Adds &#8211; January","author":"Jandy","date":"February 5, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"If there's anything I love more than reading itself, it's making lists of books to read. No, seriously, I sometimes think I like making the lists more than the actual reading. It's a fault. Here are some I added in January. Where do I find new books to add to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Books and Reading&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/A-Quantum-Love-Story.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36966,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/now-reading\/","url_meta":{"origin":116,"position":5},"title":"Now Reading: East of Eden","author":"Jandy","date":"April 2, 2023","format":"aside","excerpt":"Now Reading: East of Eden by John Steinbeck","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Books and Reading&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}