#writersCoffeeClub 3/22: Are there any books which should be banned, or is book banning always wrong?
I draw a line between fiction and non-fiction (or fic presented as non-fic) intended to persuade or make an ideological argument. Clearly-identified fiction shouldn't be banned. Presenting-as-non-fic like "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is flat-out toxic to a society, as is non-fic crank science and "scientific racism", eg. "The Bell Curve".
The Bible? Toxic AF, presents as non-fic: ban!
What about a Dewey Decimal code for 'fraud'?
@cstross As a uni professor I can't get behind that distinction. The huge issue is: Who decides what's true or valid in nonfiction?
That's folded into the battle right now, actually. The people wanting book bans in K-12 schools object most strenuously to the availability of books with (IMO) factual information about sex and gender. They've decided this is not factual; I disagree.
This will come back to basic values, no matter what. I mean by that, it will come back to critical thinking and epistemology.
@guyjantic @cstross My point would be that it's not the same "banning" as "disallowing free access", and hence I would keep hate propaganda in a special section you'd need a "maturity" test to get in, just as we don't allow just anyone to drive two+ ton automobile machines or handle weapons just like that*.
*For a certain geographical value of "we".
@cstross @Illuminatus Well, yes. Excellent point. It is broken. Under that is a deeply effed-up social and intellectual system, due to some really nasty forces and actors.
I guess my ideas about political systems, rules, etc. are that I want them to be as robust as possible (recognizing they can't ever guarantee best outcomes), in a society in which plenty of people are not rational.
@guyjantic @cstross The thing is that humans (at least for the time being and for our present form of what we consider the species) are <not> 100% rational and the emotional discourse takes precedence for a lot in the decision process, so any political system cannot be built to the assumption of 100% rational humans*.
*Something economists should consider far more in their models.
@Illuminatus @cstross Oh, now we are once again in complete agreement (and Tversky and Kahneman FTW!).
That's the point I was trying to make: suggesting rules like "ban the dangerous books presented as nonfiction" is suggesting additions to the political system, and that particular rule (by itself) seems like it would only work with a highly rational group of humans.
I'm in the USA. I do not have a super high opinion of the average level of commitment to (or even grasp of) rationality among my countryfolk, broadly speaking.
I think the work of making rules is the work of politics and policy, which--as I keep discovering--is always about modifying systems that apply to populations of mixed rationality and morality, and is really hard. I don't claim to be good at this at all.
I am sometimes good, however, at seeing potential problems and not knowing how to fix them.
@Illuminatus @cstross Aw, this is among the nicest things anyone has said to me online.
And now I know about red-teaming.
@cstross
I don't know that this is the root cause.
It's always going to be an issue, letting anyone the power to decide what's true.
Which is why in Europe it's *hate speech* which is banned. Intentional harm is forbidden, and no question of truth enters into it.
Even if group X were demonstrably true monsters, I should not be allowed to push for their extermination by writing factual documentaries...
@cstross I 100% agree (and I'm seeing your note that you and I have different national norms and laws around "free speech"). I fully believe there is truly dangerous information out there. I live in a world, however, where there are people who will classify vaccination guidelines and safer sex pamphlets as "clearly dangerous." They'll use faulty logic, awful data, etc. (because that's what they do), and they'll label things I consider helpful or even critical as "dangerous". They'll also insist that information about how to acquire and use firearms, for example, cannot possibly be dangerous.
I know it sounds like I'm being contrary, but this is something I've been thinking about for a long time (not that I can't change my mind): who decides? Rationality will not automatically win, so making rules like "we'll just ban the dangerous books" doesn't keep things reasonable if unreasonable people get into positions of power; they will use those rules for bad (IMO) ends.
Great discussion. I think folks can agree (can we?) that there is a difference between the practical implementation details (who decides what information is an info-hazzard) and if there is value to any form of book banning or not.
I used to be of the "no information should be censored" school of thought because of the implementation details (who gets to choose).
But I've come to believe there are also memetically dangerous (to individual and society) ideas.
@cstross People fall to conspiracy theories because they lack the ability to distinguish between the plausible and the entirely imagined and because it gives them and their biases a sense of grand purpose. Banning books doesn’t help with that basic problem, and those have wider ramifications for society, besides.
A more constructive and long term solution would be to work on falling literacy rates, teach critical analysis, and encourage empathy as a skill with daily practice.
@cstross Stepping back to the purely writing question of this: I sometimes teach a course called "Psychology in Science Fiction." One thing the students and I discovered one semester is that you can set up a solid dystopian world in a few tried-and-true ways, including: A reasonable-sounding rule or law is administered in technically consistent but problematic way (often by a bad actor or someone/something with no consideration for kindness, harm, etc.).
It actually feels (to me) difficult to find any generalized rule that couldn't be used to create a dystopia this way.
Hm. Now I want to test that proposition.
@cstross I'll be thinking about this for a while.
It certainly seems valid. the people who would see my dystopias as utopias are people I don't want to be in charge of things.
@cstross I'm now thinking of Mel Brooks crowing, "It's good to be the king!"
I think this is my core disagreement with a batch of tastemakers and politicians in the USA (and elsewhere): I want systems that radically encourage broad sharing of power and happiness, not systems that trend toward only a few people getting their utopias at everyone else's expense.
@cstross I was religious (very authoritarian church) for 40 years. Then I left. I am finding now that the closest thing I have to religion in my heart is anti-authoritarianism.
This causes problems at American universities, as it turns out.
@cstross
O'Brien clearly values his hobby of torturing people more than material comfort.
I don't know whether that's a functional system of government to select leadership on that basis...
@guyjantic
@cstross An interesting case is “Report From Iron Mountain”. It was intended as satire, but got taken seriously and has inspired right wing terrorists.
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/30/us/l-c-lewin-writer-of-satire-of-government-plot-dies-at-82.html
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