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this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2025
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Where is this book banned for children for being a bad influence?
I mean, 1984 isn't really age appropriate for children anyway. Not from the authoritarianism, but sexual and violent content and themes.
What age are you talking about? I read it for the first time when I was 13 or so. These library censorship laws do not differentiate between 6 and 13. They just make it so that everyone under 18 can't access it.
I suppose I'm thinking of pre teens. It has explicit sex, as well as IIRC pretty strong description of how the main character is broken down by the torture. Even without the detail, the rawness of the theme's presentation feels more than I'd want to give a 6 year old, even an 11 year old. Animal farm is much tamer, even if, properly interpreted, it's just as brutal!
I don't know where I'd draw the boundary, if I were deciding. For that matter I don't think I agree with book censorship anyway: at 6 your parents should be protecting you more than the library rules. Maybe don't have it on the shelf next to Famous Five though?
If there is a pre-teen able to read and understand Orwell's language, and there are precious few of those, I think they could handle the sex and the torture. As the cartoon suggests, they're seeing it on the internet regardless.
I disagree. The intelligence to understand the language is separate from the maturity to handle the content.
And yes they're seeing things on the internet... and shouldn't be. That's a long-standing debate in society about how heavily to shield them from it. But do you think the fact an 8 year-old might see awful things on tiktok means there's no value in telling them to wait a few years before reading a book like 1984?
What 8-year-old is reading any Orwell? You're talking about something that is probably an issue for .00001% of people at that age. Like 3 or 4 prodigies. So why do these bans which, again, do not differentiate between 7 and 17, need to be in place?
Also, where are the parents of these 8-year-olds? Shouldn't they be aware of what their child is getting from the library?
It sounds like we're talking cross purposes now. I don't know what children are reading Orwell. Not like in the comic, I imagine. For that matter, I hope most children are not, in fact, seeing videos of cats being killed.
see, this is what is being pointed out in the meme. Children are exposed to violence and sexuality every single day. Just because children shouldn't be committing violence or having sex doesn't mean they can't read about it or know about it. Also how fucking ridiculous is it that we place violence and sex in the same sentence w similar weight.
Ignoring the 1984 element for now, this has interested me for a long time.
In the US if a movie contains nudity then its age classification is going to be high, the same as if it contained murder, torture, or other violent actions.
In Germany, anecdotally, nudity is rated as appropriate for a much younger audience than violence.
It makes a lot of sense to me, but I understand why it would take forever to adjust from "puritanical" values to something more open as an entire nation, for example.
I feel like I'm more inclined to go with the FSK rating than the US equivalents, or the UK ones, but that's my viewpoint, complete with all my bias.
Have you read 1984? I have, and in my opinion it is inappropriate for children.
I also feel videos showing people killing cats are inappropriate for children, and I think most people agree on that.
The meme is pointing out the incongruity there. But it's being taken as if people are allowing the cat killing videos therefore we should allow 1984 for children. And also implying the problem with 1984 is about political influence or such like. Rather, the problem (wrt children) is the way it handles adult themes, and also we should be protecting children from the cat killing videos also.
In what way is the novel inappropriate?
I read it in middle school and it was one of my favorite books for years after. The topics are not too adult for school. We should obviously protect children, but prudishness and politics should not dictate school libraries
Middle school is mid teens, right? I interpreted those children in the comic as younger.
I don't know why you're getting downvoted. I also didn't know this book was banned, and was going to ask something similar.
One would assume that Kurt Vonnegut would have some awareness about books
Just look for red states/cities in the US. More than likely its been banned there.
Most recently in Florida. It's been banned often in the United States, it's also been banned in Vietnam