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Stephen King gives blunt three-word response after discovering Florida banned 23 of his books in schools
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
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It's called "reductio ad absurdio". It's a method in philosophy to examine arguments/principles by taking to the most extreme example and it's what came to mind. Again, I personally am not for banning. I'm just playing devil's advocate.
So far all the arguments brought by repubs in favor of banning have not convinced me. The only thing so far has been conversations with my wife who is a teacher.
To be clear, I'm just musing on an internet forum because censorship is an interesting topic to me. I'm not on the "pro-ban camp".
Edit: also it's not a "straw man" if it logically follows from the original premise. People : stop throwing this expression around unless you really understand how logical fallacies work.
Ok, with reductio ad absurdio in mind. You'd be ok with banning all the books that have romance in them, thats inappropriate for young people to be thinking about relationships. At least some people would think so, just like in this case. The banning of books falls apart when you realize that the decisions of what books to ban are based on personal morals.
Also, I agree with them, it is a strawman. A book about a girl realizing she might like other girls is not the same as having kids watch a snuff film. It's not related to things they will experience in their life, no one is asking to watch it, it is no where even close to the same. You're building up that wild stance, or straw man, to fight an entirely different topic. You might as well have asked if they could take them on field trips to executions. It's ridiculous.
Man, the straw man was about having access to the internet as an example of uncensored access to information invalidating book moderation. It wasn't about equivocating between different degrees of offending narratives. I was just following the principle to its final conclusion.
It doesn't have to be a snuff film. That was an example or meant to be a hypothetical to further the discussion. I don't see how nitpicking it is constructive if it sidesteps my point.
Now we get to an actual strawman -Finally! My position has never been the banning of all books, but rather questioning if moderation is useful or not. You can't say that the logical conclusion of some moderation is total banning because it doesn't follow.
The person I replied to said internet exists so banning books is worthless anyway which is not a terrible argument. I think it's worth considering it 2024. I was just taking the hypothetical to its extreme conclusion to test if it was still a principled position to have. I think we all agree at this point.
Anyway. I'm not pro banning and I appreciate the convo so thanks.
Cheers!
I'm in the anti-ban camp because restricting access to knowledge due to arbitrary lines like age is the opposite of learning. It is up to the reader and their mentors to guide their reading depending on ability and maturity as needed. No two people will have the same levels at the same age so books appropriate for one may not be appropriate for another.
That said, to nitpick a tad: pointing to the Internet when on a discussion of book banning or restrictions is more "red herring" or "false equivalence" than strawman.