Slaughter House Five

Slaughter House Five

Monday 18 April 2011

Book Banning (Anas)

I think that literature that could provoke strong reactions should definitely not be withheld or censored. The main issue with banning books is the debate of who gets to decide which books get banned or not. Some books may be offensive to some people whereas on the other hand, the rest of the people might not find the book offensive at all. Since each person is unique, different people have different meanings of what is offensive and what is not. By banning a book, the decision to decide what is right or wrong for us is being put into the hands of one person (or a few people).  If a piece of literature is read by someone, it should be up to them to decide whether they find that offensive or not. If they do so, then that has a positive side to it. By finding something offensive, a reader realises that not everything is perfect. There are things in the world that you may not like, but you have to tolerate them and accept them because that is a part of life. By banning a book, people are unable to realise that not everything can be the perfect and there things that they will not like in life. Even though I think that books like Slaughterhouse Five and Brave New World should not be banned, there are some books that I believe cross the line. An example is Hitler's book Mein Kamf. By demeaning others due to their religious beliefs, I think that Hitler crossed that line and went to the side that requires his book to be banned. His book completely opposes the standards of humanity and therefore it is an example of a book that should definitely be banned.

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