Circle Fully Turned: Fanny Hill Banned

The Atheist

The Grammar Tyrant
The Atheist
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
36,277
I just love the irony in this one - it took over 200 years to enable Poms to be able to print & buy Fanny Hill, but only 53 to get to a time when it's removed from a university because it might offend someone.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11904416

If a book is good enough to survive hundreds of years, it's probably good enough to accept that if Snowflake gets upset by it, bring a hanky. Huck Finn, Fanny Hill... what next?
 
Yes, after all learning stuff has nothing to do with universities, and who wants to challenge their beliefs and values while learning, anyway?
 
The Atheist said:
I just love the irony in this one - it took over 200 years to enable Poms to be able to print & buy Fanny Hill, but only 53 to get to a time when it's removed from a university because it might offend someone.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11904416

If a book is good enough to survive hundreds of years, it's probably good enough to accept that if Snowflake gets upset by it, bring a hanky. Huck Finn, Fanny Hill... what next?
Click to expand...

No - or at least that is not what the article links to, according to your linked article it has been removed from the curriculum of one course, in one university....
 
Darat said:
No - or at least that is not what the article links to, according to your linked article it has been removed from the curriculum of one course, in one university....
Click to expand...

It's exactly what the article links to. Given the age of the book and the class being taught, I'd be confident that it's the only course at that uni that will ever have had the book on its list.

And yes, it is only one university, which is why I used the singular indefinite article in my first line.

Anything else you want to be wrong about this morning?
 
The Atheist said:
It's exactly what the article links to. Given the age of the book and the class being taught, I'd be confident that it's the only course at that uni that will ever have had the book on its list.

And yes, it is only one university, which is why I used the singular indefinite article in my first line.

Anything else you want to be wrong about this morning?
Click to expand...
Why did you say fanny hill had been banned?

This signature is intended to irradiate people.
 
If you think New Zealand is bad when it comes to banning books, you should come to Tennessee.

I love visiting university libraries. (Well, who doesn't?) A few years ago I had dropped by Tennessee Tech in Cookeville to spend a couple of hours browsing, and I noticed a section where a lot of interesting older books had been placed. I asked a friend who worked at the library what was going on with those books and she explained that they were culling a lot of the books no one had checked out in a long time, and these books were being set aside to give professors a chance to see if any were ones they wanted to see kept. (A handful of the books did get rescued. Alas, the others did not.)

Can you imagine? These books didn't have graphic sex, or racial slurs, or words which rule 10 won't permit me to use here, they didn't even have words like fanny in their titles, and they were going to be, as the OP so eloquently describes it, banned!

I certainly hope that kind of thing doesn't happen anywhere else in the USA. (And this was long before Trump became president, so this is something which Trump can't be held responsible for.)
 
Nova Land said:
If you think New Zealand is bad when it comes to banning books, you should come to Tennessee.

I love visiting university libraries. (Well, who doesn't?) A few years ago I had dropped by Tennessee Tech in Cookeville to spend a couple of hours browsing, and I noticed a section where a lot of interesting older books had been placed. I asked a friend who worked at the library what was going on with those books and she explained that they were culling a lot of the books no one had checked out in a long time, and these books were being set aside to give professors a chance to see if any were ones they wanted to see kept. (A handful of the books did get rescued. Alas, the others did not.)

Can you imagine? These books didn't have graphic sex, or racial slurs, or words which rule 10 won't permit me to use here, they didn't even have words like fanny in their titles, and they were going to be, as the OP so eloquently describes it, banned!

I certainly hope that kind of thing doesn't happen anywhere else in the USA. (And this was long before Trump became president, so this is something which Trump can't be held responsible for.)
Click to expand...

Oh ffs. That's why Gawd invented microfishe machines, you ass.

Try getting ahold of the Beilstein Index in printed form. It fills a freaking library.
 
John Jones said:
Oh ffs. That's why Gawd invented microfishe machines, you ass.

Try getting ahold of the Beilstein Index in printed form. It fills a freaking library.
Click to expand...

I think you missed the sarcasm. I did have to read it twice myself, plus it helps to understand that the banning claimed by the OP never happened. Fanny Hill was removed from a reading list. It wasn't banned.
 
The Atheist said:
A difference that makes no difference is no difference.
Click to expand...


So true!

For instance, if a book has been removed from a library's collection it won't be there on the shelf for me to borrow and read when I visit. And if a book is currently checked out of the library it won't be on the shelf for me to borrow and read when I visit. Removed and borrowed are different but, as you say, a difference that makes no difference is no difference.

Oh, but hold on a sec…

If the book has been removed from a library's collection it won't be there on the shelf for me to borrow any time I visit the library. But if a book is currently checked out then it will be there for me to borrow if I visit the library after the person who borrowed it returns it. So in the latter instance I'd be able to read it after all. So I guess a difference which makes a difference is a difference.
 
It appears it's no longer required reading. Are all novels "banned" if students are not required to read them, in your view?

It seems that the controversy here is the reason for dropping it, which appears to be the current fashion for taking offence, usually on behalf of others, for things they might find troubling. Which some here seem to find troubling, and are consequently offended, on behalf of others.
 
Last edited:



"Is it true, that a long time ago, liberals used to put out fires, and not burn books, as part of the belief that discussing controversial things in their historical context was a key ingredient of a quality education?"

"Put fires out? Who told you that?"

"Oh, I don't know, someone. But is it true? Did they?"

"Oh, what a strange idea."
 
Last edited:
In the middle east, such as Egypt, the government censored incoming news feeds. Their rationale was that "the People could not handle the information unvarnished, and the government needed to protect them."


This is exactly what seems to be going on now. That exact same reason. To justify censorship.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
Nova Land said:
... if a book has been removed from a library's collection
Click to expand...


That does not appear to be what happened.
Click to expand...


Oh, it most certainly is what happened in Cookeville. I was there!

Granted, it's different from what happened in New Zealand. But as The Atheist pointed out, a difference which makes no difference is no difference.

In Cookeville books were removed from the collection. In New Zealand a book was removed from the reading list. What possible significant difference could there be between those two things? If you start down that slippery slope, before you know it someone will be claiming there's some significant difference between taking a book off a required reading list and banning it.
 
Beerina said:
In the middle east, such as Egypt, the government censored incoming news feeds. Their rationale was that "the People could not handle the information unvarnished, and the government needed to protect them."


This is exactly what seems to be going on now. That exact same reason. To justify censorship.
Click to expand...
What censorship?

This signature is intended to irradiate people.
 
Nova Land said:
Oh, it most certainly is what happened in Cookeville. I was there!

Granted, it's different from what happened in New Zealand. But as The Atheist pointed out, a difference which makes no difference is no difference.

In Cookeville books were removed from the collection. In New Zealand a book was removed from the reading list. What possible significant difference could there be between those two things? If you start down that slippery slope, before you know it someone will be claiming there's some significant difference between taking a book off a required reading list and banning it.
Click to expand...

You appear to be describing two different things.

In one case a library removed a number of (so far as one knows entirely uncontroversial) books from its shelves for the sole reason that nobody read them. We might prefer no library ever did that but at least they had staff check that nothing of particular significance was being thrown away.

In the other case a controversial book was claimed to have been taken off a students' required reading list for one particular course, but now it seems it was never on that list in the first place.

Aside from the words 'book' and 'removed' these cases seem to have almost nothing whatever in common.
 
Does this apply to other areas?

Like, if I one day decide to have the regular fries with my Big Montana, will the Arby's cashier wonder why I've banned curly fries?
 
Cleon said:
Does this apply to other areas?

Like, if I one day decide to have the regular fries with my Big Montana, will the Arby's cashier wonder why I've banned curly fries?
Click to expand...

You need a more plausible hypothetical. Those curly fries are like angels compared to everything else on that menu.
 
Heh, perhaps The Atheist didn't read all the way to the end of the article:

She continued: "It is important not to exaggerate claims that students are stifling free speech on campus. We hope we have struck a balance between encouraging discussion of difficult issues without making life difficult for students who might feel coerced by academics."​
 
theprestige said:
Heh, perhaps The Atheist didn't read all the way to the end of the article:
Click to expand...

Perhaps you should apply for the MDC? You seem to think you can read minds and you appear to have a similar success rate to people who have challenged for it.

theprestige said:
"It is important not to exaggerate claims that students are stifling free speech on campus. "
Click to expand...

You could make a nice strawman out of that - you know you want to.

(Nobody said that, or anything like it, which point seems to have escaped you.)
 
The Atheist said:
Just a note that the London University in the article is London, England.
Click to expand...


Thank you for helping make my point.

London (a city) is different from New Zealand (an imaginary island). But the important point is that a book was recently banned from a reading list.

Yes, being banned in London is different than being banned in New Zealand, but regardless of where the book is banned it's still banned and always has been banned. So the location makes no difference to the fact it was banned.

And a difference which makes no difference is no difference. Therefore being banned in London is the same as being banned in New Zealand, and it's fine to use the two interchangeably.

If it's okay in the thread title and OP to equate being removed from a reading list with being banned, why on earth would anyone disagree with equating London with New Zealand?
 
The Atheist said:
Perhaps you should apply for the MDC? You seem to think you can read minds and you appear to have a similar success rate to people who have challenged for it.



You could make a nice strawman out of that - you know you want to.

(Nobody said that, or anything like it, which point seems to have escaped you.)
Click to expand...
Dude, you exaggerated a single professor's voluntary and amicable curriculum adjustment into an outright banning. You compared to the heights of state censorship from hundreds of years ago. Are you saying you took that line *after* reading the professor's admonishment?

I was being charitable in suggesting you maybe had overlooked it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom