{"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":36871,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/a-genealogy-of-love-alan-jacobs-breaking-bread-with-the-dead\/","url_meta":{"origin":116,"position":5},"title":"A Genealogy of Love: Alan Jacobs&#8217; Breaking Bread with the Dead","author":"Jandy","date":"January 13, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Breaking bread with the dead is not a scholarly task to be completed but a permanent banquet, to which all who hunger are invited.Alan Jacobs, Breaking Bread with the Dead One of the ongoing debates that picks up steam every now and then is whether we should have high school\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\/2021\/01\/medievaluniversity.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"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}]}}