I apologize if I’ve misinterpreted you. I have a cyber-friend who’s a libertarian. His arguments are much like yours–why do we need government telling us what and what not to do?
As for censorship in the library, I think we’ve pretty much answered that. A well-run library with a well-trained staff will do what it can to keep inappropriate material away from children, without violating the law. A library is a public facility; a book store is a privately owned, privately managed facility. If a book store doesn’t want children ‘exposed’ to inappropriate material, it has two options–either don’t order it or don’t display it openly. As a public facility, funded by tax dollars, a library doesn’t have the same options. If a library set aside a room, closed and staffed by a guard who only allowed certain people into that room, it would be practicing censorship. Even putting privacy screens on every adult computer is forcing censorship–needed or not. It’s censorship based on assumption.
Not all adult computer users are looking at pornography. The young Mormons who use our public computers while off on their missionary work–and who use those computers to check their e-mail–would be incensed if that were the assumed case. And how do you accurately identify the ‘homeless?’
Is the internet censored? If so, that goes against the FoIAct, doesn’t it?
Yes, teachers can teach other classics, certainly. It depends on what the class can relate to. Teachers thought teens would relate better to Catcher than to Gatsby because the era and life-style in Gatsby is so different. Off the top of my head, I’d offer a choice between The Catcher in the Rye and The Old Man and the Sea. but it depends on the curriculum requirements–is the goal to show how literature can teach survival in an angry world or something else. That depends on the school district and the rules it has to follow to meet minimum educational requirements.
We’re back, again, to government control, aren’t we?
Finally, please, in reading any of my posts, read them in a calm and rather quiet voice–not strident, pushy, or dogmatic–more pedagogic, if you will. I’m not a teacher, my MA is in English/American Literature. I try to speak clearly because of my stage experience and my vocal range is pretty much mezzo-soprano. I have, I believe, a mid-Atlantic accent rather than a regional accent. Thanks.
No problem. I think that they should tell us what to do, in some instances, this just isn’t one of them.
I’ve been talking about the law. The bookstore can’t legally sell it to a minor. It’s not that they won’t, I’m sure they would like to, more money. The gas station cannot legally sell PLayboy to a minor.
You put the screens on all computers, nobody assumes anything, I wouldn’t think.
You’re not censoring the Internet!!! The Internet can still do what it wants.
See, I think that you agree with the idea of offering an alternative. Although it was not the point of the original discussion, to the extent that the discussion became about that, that’s all I’m really advocating for. I don’t want TCITR banned in schools, I just don’t want anyone forced to read it.
You’re welcome. My posts should be read in an authoritative, matter-of-fact, yet calm, tone. Except for when I am being sardonic, facetious or sarcastic, but I have been none of those things with you…yet. Just kidding!
Pav, I don’t understand your position. You are likening the existence of Playboy in public libraries with the existence of TCITR in school curricula, but they seem to be exactly the opposite phenomenon. In the latter case, the policy I think you’re advocating puts parents in charge of their children’s exposure to subversive works. On the other hand, in the former you’re advocating a policy under which the government decides what type of material is acceptable for children. In school, the government is requiring kids to be exposed to certain material, and your position as I read it is that parents should be able to exempt their children; at the library (taking Lizbeth’s library as an example), the government is allowing kids to be exposed to certain material, but your policy is that they should prohibit that exposure. If parents don’t want them exposed to that material, why not expect them to intervene by keeping their children out of the library, like they do in class? Why should adults be able to decide for themselves if they want to take the risk of stumbling across something to which they object, but those same adults should not be able to decide that they’re willing to expose their children to the same risk?
If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a step back, to what exactly you’re saying we should keep children from seeing. You said of Playboy that, “…that magazine shouldn’t even be in the library. It’s inappropriate.” It’s all well and good that you don’t want to see Playboy, but is it the library’s responsibility to decide what is appropriate and what is not? It doesn’t seem so. Should there be books on religion? On politics? On the oil industry? These are all subjects in which we could easily find books about which someone would say, “That’s inappropriate.” Many people are comfortable identifying what material that’s inappropriate, but it becomes censorship when one person is determining for another person what they or their children can and can’t access. Your reaction to the idea of banning TCITR is a good example of this.
Further, should all potentially inappropriate books be kept from children, so that without a parental escort they only have access to meaningless drivel like Barney and the Hungry Caterpillar? I don’t mean to dismiss those books completely, but children should – and should be allowed to – outgrow them at a very early age. You mention that “[most people] don’t want the Government (or institutions thereof) trying to raise their kids or tell them what their kids should/should not read” (emphasis added). But designating certain materials at a library as off limits to children does just that. That’s not something all parents want.
As an aside, I have to question the logic off the specific form or censorship you find “obvious”. I don’t find it obvious that the threat of a child seeing a sexual image on a computer in the library is sufficient to warrant its censorship. First, I again ask, what of those who find other images equally or more inappropriate? Should a book or site with an image of two same-sex adults kissing be banned? (Tabbed because it’s gratuitous; it is of course work-safe)
[tab]
Many would find this inappropriate, but would find the same image with an opposite-sex couple acceptable. This highlights the subjective nature of propriety. [/tab]
Second, by the time a child is twelve, the majority have seen porn, have heard talk of sex at school, ideally even in sex education classes. Many are sending sexual text messages. They aren’t unaware, and they are curious for answers. I submit for your consideration an article on sex-positive sex education (the headline is “Teaching Good Sex”, but it’s a NY Times article, so it’s not too graphic and relatively SFW. If you’d prefer I can paste the text here, or C/P some highlights). It presents an example of a sex education paradigm that does not pull punches from actually teaching kids about sex, and the results seem promising. More than anything, I think it questions the idea that our children are best served by lying-by-omission about the human condition. In other words, is Holden playing catcher in the rye in the children’s interest, or in his own?
I didn’t liken the Playboy to anything. The Catcher in the Rye thing is an aside, and actually, was first mentioned by Lizbethrose. I had that discussion, but I do not believe that I intended to expressly get into a discussion of what books should or should not be censored, as Lizbethrose was also the one who started us in that vein.
I don’t mind, of course, because I find slight thread derailments to almost be more conversational than anything. One subject just naturally tends to lead to another, sometimes.
However, to answer your question, I really don’t think that Internet Porn befits the purpose of a library, nor does pornography, in general, in my opinion. In any case, libraries certainly predate Internet Porn, so it does not seem that Internet Porn is a necessary component of a library. Libraries also predate regular pornography, and to me, it seems that a parent should be able to send their kid to the library with the realistic expectation that the child will not be subjected to pornography.
I have mentioned how taking a kid into your house while you are looking up Internet Porn, if they see it, would basically make you a sex offender the rest of your life in the State of Ohio and get you put in prison.
Parents also expect their kids to go to the bookstore or gas station and not be exposed to pornography. It’s for that reason such locations may not sell Playboy to minors. They cannot legally do so!!! I do not understand why the library can legally give kids pornography to look at when it would be illegal to provide minors with same anywhere else. That just fundamentally fails to make any sense…
I also fail to see what would be so difficult about completely segregating adult computers. I would think it would be the most responsible thing to do, if you are going to allow Internet porn.
It is inappropriate. The law says it is inappropriate. If I give a Playboy to a child who is not my child to look at, guess what, I go to prison. I’m a registered sex offender for the rest of my life, if I plead guilty, maybe I’ll only get three years in prison. It’s also illegal for those things to be sold to minors, though the punishment is less severe. We’re talking about patently illegal shit, here, except, it’s apparently legal if it is a library doing it…though I don’t see how.
What case do you want to make for Playboy? Anatomy? Get an anatomy textbook. Redeeming comedic value? Read Jay Leno’s autobiography, it’s hilarious. There’a absolutely no meritorious case that can be made for the library to provide certain materials to a minor where the provision of such would be patently illegal in any, and I mean ANY other situation. I believe giving Playboy to your own kids would be the one exception.
My position was TCITR should NOT be banned in public schools, provided an alternative was offered.
I’ll tell you this. It would be very easy for a parent to give a library a note that says a kid can be in the adult section and borrow books from the adult section. It would be equally simple for a note to be written saying that the child may obtain Playboy at the reference desk if he/she so desires. There could be a note that says, “Yes, my child may get on the adult computers where people may be looking up Internet pornography, and also with the opportunity to look up Internet pornography him/herself.”
To that extent, it becomes off-limits unless otherwise specified.
Playboy, however, is just ridiculous. That’s what we can do, let’s give the homeless, or anyone else, potentially, Playboy so they can go and crank one off in a bathroom. Sanitary stuff. Is that really an atmosphere for children at all?
I’ve already stated that making it such that only the user of a computer could see the screen of that computer would make it acceptable, as would segregating the adult computers from the childrens’, with a wall. Technically, I’m not demanding anyone censor anything. I’m not asking them to block the Internet sites, or otherwise alter them.
You have your articles. I have the National Divorce Rate. I have the figures concerning percentage of single and unmarried mothers.
Do you know when there were lower divorce rates and less single and unmarried Mothers? When the schools weren’t teaching sex education AT ALL.
I think there’s a good argument that the role of libraries does allow, if not suggest, that they should carry porn. In some sense, libraries predate almost everything they contain. They predate books! Very early libraries contained clay tablets. But books, and now the internet, are what we’ve come to use to store and distribute our culture and the information we’ve amassed. I would argue that that is the role of the library, and that for better or worse, pornography is a significant part of the culture of the modern west. A library includes all kinds of unpleasant information, about death and atrocity, violence, hatred, persecution. Why not sex? If it has gratuitously hateful literature like Mein Kampf, why not gratuitously sexual literature like Playboy? I found a book on Russian prison tattoos in the library the other day, which was both sexually and violently graphic, but quite informative.
I should point out, though, that storing and distributing the information and allowing the actions that the information inspires are two different things. There are probably books on juggling and kung fu in the library, both of which are likely to be prohibited. I don’t see any reason that allowing porn in the library should entail allowing sex or masturbation there.
I question that. I don’t doubt that in many situations it’s true, but if you are an educator charged with educating that child, there is probably an exception. I have a strong suspicion that a parents can show their children pornography at whatever age they deem appropriate, and I similarly suspect that anyone in the role of educator has a similar protection from laws criminalizing the corruption of minors (I am not specifically familiar with Ohio law, but at least as concerns parents, education of ones children is probably covered by the constitutional right to privacy).
This brings us back to the role of the library. A bookstore or gas station’s remit is not to educate or inform, but to make money. Nor is education a friend’s parent’s responsibility. But a library is a center of knowledge, information, education. It is reasonable, therefore, to suggest that it be similarly exempt from laws prohibiting the exposure of children sexually explicit material in a detached and intellectualized setting.
That’s true, but it would be just as easy to opt a child out of access to those materials. It would be easiest, for the library, if it could simply stand as a provider of information, and let parents police their own children, monitoring which books they’re checking out or perusing, which computers they’re using and which sites they’re visiting, or keeping them from the library completely if they’re worried about what might appear in the materials being accessed by other patrons. I understand that if the library would just cut out all the information a person doesn’t want her children to see, it would be much easier and less stressful for her to bring them to the library, but that’s not a library’s job, and doing so would seem to conflict with their primary purpose of making information accessible. As someone without children, I apologize if I lack sympathy for parents hoping to minimize the set of threats to their children’s moral upbringing. Perhaps I will change my mind when I’m worrying about my own offspring.
Sure, but there were lower divorce rates and fewer single and unmarried mothers when there were no airplanes. There’s not even a very good correlation between divorce rates and sex education. Look at this data from pew. The states with the highest divorce rates (Nevada, Maine, Montana, Wyoming, Oklahoma) do not seem likely to have a progressive sex education approach, while those with the lowest rates (Virginia, California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey) do. The situation for teen pregnancies is muddier, with some more liberal states having high rates of teen pregnancies, but Texas’ anti-sex education has left it with one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country (lots of good data here, but not easy to link to).
And that’s questioning correlation, leaving causation aside. This, though, is another derailment, about which I can start a new thread if you’d like to pursue it.
I think that you can have books about sex without having Playboy. You could have sexual education materials in the library, anatomoy books, anything, really, but Playboy is pure pornography and is of no redeeming literary value. When you talk about a book that was written by, arguably, the man considered to be the most evil man in all of history, Mein Kampf you’re talking about historical relevance. Biographical relevance. If there’s anything historically or biographically relevant, on a mass scale, about the October 2009 issue of Playboy, I’m afraid I have not been made aware of it.
I would suggest that the prison tattoo book should be kept in an adult section that a child must be explicitly given rights to enter into by that child’s parent.
Again, I don’t want to censor books, I want to segregate the audience. You can stock Deep-Throating Amateur Sluts Get Cream-Hosed for the shit that I give about it, as long as it is kept away from the kids…barring parental consent.
I’m saying that it fosters an atmosphere of masturbation, like the homeless dude cranking it at the computer. Do you think the homeless dude would be cranking it at the computer to Paula Dean’s recipes for homemade pizza? I don’t think Kung Fu books foster an atmosphere of Kung Fu, for reasons that I doubt you will force me to explain.
I believe that I mentioned my opinion that a parent can show it to his/her own kids. An individual in the role of public educator would be protected from Civil Liability as such person would be acting within the scope of his/her duties as an educator. Any Civil Liability would fall upon the school, and that, of course, would have to take place in the State Court of Claims as you are discussing State action. Courts of Common Pleas would have no jurisdiction over the Complaint. I also believe that such a person would be immune from criminal liability for the same reasons, provided, of course, the person could prove that the pornography was EXCLUSIVELY within the scope of that person’s duties.
As a future attorney, you will know that, “Well, I was in school at the time,” is going to be insufficient as a defense to prove that the action was taken in the scope of one’s duties as educator. The accused is going to have to have an affirmative defense which, in some way, tends to show that the teaching of pornography COULD be construed as falling within the scope of the educator’s duties, and such proof is also going to have to be codified somewhere in the course description, or otherwise.
I am not saying that teaching pornography must be expressly stated, but rather that, under a reasonable common sense appraisal, whether or not the codifications being referenced could reasonably be construed as authorizing, or even encouraging, the teaching of pornography.
Either way, their ass is fired. Unless they have tenure already.
I do not believe that we have established that Educators are criminally exempt, or that the schools, themselves, are civilly exempt. Furthermore, I agree with you that a library is a center of knowledge and information, but I fail to see where a library is charged on educating anyone about anything, except where to find Philosophy books based on the Dewey Decimal System.
By the way, the exposure is not detached, that’s my problem with it.
1.) You say it would be just as easy for parents to opt out, but is it reasonable for a parent to believe (especially here in the Midwest) that their child is going to be able to access PORN, at a library? You would have no reason to opt out of something you don’t know about. I guess an exception would be if the library explained that when a kid was getting signed up for a library card, but that would still not change the fact that kids can enter libraries without library cards, and it would not change the fact that the librarians cannot reasonably be expected to run around policing each kid based on what is on the child’s library card.
However, were the adult computers and adult books to be kept in a separate room…
I don’t want a library to cut out anything. I don’t care what they do or do not cut out. I am merely suggesting that some of the stuff should be kept separate from some of the other stuff. You could have a live sex show in the library for the shit that I give about it, and it would tend to be educational by your standards, if I am not mistaken. Anyway, they could have the sex show, just do it in the adult section where a kid must have parental permission to access and I am fine with it. As a library you have done everything you reasonably could.
I’m talking about NO sex education. I would suggest the parents should be left to it, or, dare I say, the Church! If you want to have a moral society, and I do, fewer people are better at brainwashing and social conditioning than the Churches, fuck, they are good.
Think about it, pre-marital sex. OK, if you want to disappoint your parents, God, Jesus Christ, the Pope, the Virgin Mary, be a worthless whoremonger, get sexually transmitted diseases, BURN IN HELL AND LIVE IN ETERNAL TORMENT FOR ALL ETERNITY!!!
But, that’s fine, have premarital sex. If you do have premarital sex and get pregnant, though, you can hurry up and make it right with God by getting married.
We can start a new thread about that, if you would like to. I just find it difficult to believe that this entire thread stemmed from a suggestion rooted in common sense and very reasonable that the, “Mature,” stuff be kept separate from the children’s stuff.
I don’t think that roots in common sense give the idea any more validity once it is examined, i.e. if the conclusions of an in depth consideration conflict with common sense, we should not reject them simply because of that conflict. The common sense, especially surrounding sexual mores, is not particularly reasonable. In the US, it stems largely from outmoded religious dogma, and everywhere it varies significantly from culture to culture and from time to time.
Here, the common-sense assumption is that “mature” is an objectively defined term, or at least that it is easy and reasonable for information to be categorized by maturity, and that this poses no significant burden on those seeking or storing information. But clearly this isn’t the case. People vary widely on what they believe should be sequestered away from anyone who has not mastered some fictitious subset of the world. Moreover, people vary widely on when one should be deemed to have been sufficiently steeped in this fictitious subset; current law usually uses 18, but it is almost trivially true that withholding the full truth of the world from everyone under the age of 18 is basically impossible and rather unwise.
You raise a good point about what a parent should reasonably expect to be on display in a library, and I agree that pornography is not something most would expect. But I suggest that we encourage people to change their expectations about what is on display at the library, that letting peoples expectations change is appropriate at this point in time. Libraries are our Encyclopedia Galactica, they store all human knowledge and information. Pornography is a medium in which humans express a part of themselves. Just as libraries contain literature and periodicals, art, music, and movies, it shouldn’t be unexpected that they would contain pornography. To say otherwise is to get into the debate again about what qualifies as appropriate media, and it’s not the library’s place to decide any more than they must.
Returning to the main line, if it’s reasonable that libraries contain pornography (or rather, it it’s unreasonable to ask them specifically not to store information about porn, up to and including examples of porn), then it’s reasonable for parents to expect porn to be available in the library (or rather, it is unreasonable for them to expect there not to be porn). Most parents probably don’t expect their children to be able to access porn on the family computer, on their school computers, on their or their friends’ cell phones, but they should expect that, even in the Midwest. We don’t live in the early 1800s, we don’t have an option of restricting kids’ access to information down to fire-and-brimstone sermons once a week, at least not without keeping the kid in a cage the other 99.4% of their lives. Content filters aren’t particularly effective; if kids are browsing unattended, it should be considered expected that they will see most everything the internet has to offer.
Up to here, I’ve argued that (1) arranging material by maturity level is not trivial, and (2) that is fair to expect people to change their expectations about what information will be found in a store of all information. If these are accepted, we can avoid the problems and costs imposed by the first by turning to the second, and expecting parents to be vigilant about the material their children are accessing.
There is a second line of argument that you’ve presented, that libraries are legally bound to filter their content so as not to risk kids coming into contact with sexually explicit materials. I don’t know Ohio law, but I still remain skeptical that any law would impose criminal sanctions on schools or libraries that expose kids to sexually explicit materials in the course of their respective duties, and I would guess that there are broad immunities granted to them to protect them from civil sanctions. I’ve never been in a library where one had to show ID to enter the adult lit section, but if parents have a right to prevent schools from giving kids access to TCITR, I imagine they have the same right against other institutions. Still, I don’t see a civil case against a library that lets a kid read TCITR being successful. I would guess that most such suits are barred by sovereign immunity. In any case, a warning at the door, a requirement that children be accompanied by an adult, or just a single favorable ruling could make the libraries immune from such suits and set the stage for a transition in public expectation.
It was that very outmoded Religious dogma that resulted in us living in a more morally acceptable society, at least, in my opinion. I will allow that there were certain collateral damages, particularly within the realms of sex, arts and self-expression, but I think that those damages can be viewed as collateral given the moral and familial order that permeated society in years passed. I also understand that there is a certain variance to it, and that variance comes as a result of greater general social liberality, this results in something of a paradox for me as I consider myself a social liberal with exception to criminal law. The greater social liberality seems to stem from declining Church attendance numbers, declining numbers of Religious people, in general, and people who seem to qualitatively state that Religion does not play the role in their lives it once played.
Of course, there are other methods of social conditioning that can be readily employed to achieve the desired order, but that is for another thread, and it would seem that such methods are far less organic than those used by the Church…
In any case, you’re right that this is a changing society and the prevelance of porn is something that has changed with it. Children will access the porn and lose their innocence at an early age, so, fuck it anyway, I guess. There’s nothing that can be done anymore, anyway, as the very fabric of a structured and orderly society has been unwoven to the extent that it doesn’t even resemble anything anymore, so we might as well be equally frayed, and why not our children, as well?
It is an objectively defined term to the extent that eighteen is an objective age. I do not believe that anyone would suggest that any person is necessarily mature at the age of eighteen or necessarily immature prior to said age. Surprisingly, Ohio’s age of sexual consent is sixteen.
Anyway, if you want to be able to enforce social standards at a uniform level without the need to somehow develop and have everyone take some sort of, “Maturity test,” then you’re just going to have to pick an arbitrary age and run with it. I’m not saying that the age that we have chosen in necessarily right, I’m not saying that it is generally too old or generally too young, I’m just saying that in order to operate efficiently with respect to these matters, as a society, an arbitrary age must be chosen.
I’m not suggesting that anyone withhold anything. I’m suggesting that a parent has a fundamental right to control what their child may see or may not see in, essentially, any public venue in which that child is permitted unattended. The law does it for the parent, in some cases. You know, maybe some kid gets ahold of a Porn magazine and another kid goes to his house and looks at it. Oh well. It’s not public, so nothing can be done. It just seems like, in a Forum that is both public and general admission, parents should get to have some kind of say over what that Forum can provide to their children, quite possibly, even without the parent’s knowledge.
If the parent says, “Porn, that’s fine,” I have no problem.
Once again, my main problem is not with the fact that the materials are available at the library. As stated, I don’t care what they put there, as long as they seperate it somehow, particularly out of deference for the parents who, we agree, reasonably expect that it would not be there. Such parents may then decide whether or not their child or children may access those materials, provided, of course, the child informs them that he/she was denied access and would like access.
I don’t know what libraries everyone seems to be going to here, but I respectfully find your first sentence to be quite a leap. I have stipulated that it is unreasonable to attempt to make a library censor its materials, though I have not stipulated same on the behalf of all parents. Secondly, there have been many libraries that have already censored themselves, in a manner of speaking, to the extent that they already have blocks on their computers. An example of which is the Marshall County Library in Moundsville, West Virginia, a library at which, for whatever reason, the blocks caused me not to even be able to access fark.com
I think that when you get into discussions about cell phones and computers, then you are entering into a different territory. I think you are then entering into a venue where a greater proportion of parents expect porn to be readily accessible. We hear often about, “Sexting,” and most people that have surfed the Internet are aware that it is quite a simple affair to stumble onto pornographic sites, and particularly, pornographic images anytime you do an image search…for just about anything…and get past the first few pages.
It is also reasonable to expect that parents would not allow their kids to browse the Internet unattended, at least, I would hope that parents would not do that. However, yes, the parents are most certainly responsible for that as they are the ones giving the kids the means by which the kids may access porn, and knowingly so.
The costs of roll-away walls? Negligible.
I did not exactly present that, as such. Certainly if the libraries were legally bound to do such things, then Playboy would not be available at a library. I’m not quite sure why, but somehow libraries seem to be immune from this whole thing, or nobody has cared enough to sue them. My statement was basically that directly providing minors with pornography is a criminal offense in seemingly any other context.
Of course, you could not criminally sanction a school or a library as neither can be incarcerated, but I think that they could be sued civilly, as entities. If you disagree that they could not be sued over providing minors with pornography, please say so, and I will research it on FastCase until I find a definitive answer from a Federal Court of Appeals as to that matter. To whatever extent I can determine it is within the bounds of State Law, then I will find applicable case law concerning the State of Ohio. I also think a teacher could, at least theoretically, be criminally charged. It would probably depend on pervasiveness and egregiousness and all of those things, but I think they could.
I’m not saying that you should have to show ID! You don’t have to be eighteen. You have to be eighteen OR have parental permission, and such parental permission could be made to be easily identifiable on your library card. I also did not necessarily suggest, or if I did, it was unintentional, that Adult Literature be segregated, just pornography. You could have a, “Mature,” section for that kind of stuff.
Do you remember video stores? It seems like it was a long time ago, now…Super Nintendo Games, dollar gets you the whole weekend…I digress…Anyway, they had the curtain, and behind that curtain, there were adult movies for rent. The Rated R movies were still out with everything else, but the adult movies were behind the curtain. Something like that…
Y’all can go on as you will. I’ll leave you with the following: Various libraries use various sorting systems. The Dewey Decimal System is the most common system used within public libraries. Within a given general 700 classification, for example, you can find books about art. The 730s are about forms of art. Sculpture is in the 736s–individual sculptor’s works start the decimal part of the system. A book with the number 736.xxx would lead you to Michelangelo’s sculptures, for example.
Within the general Art designations, you’ll find things from painting to photography to design, etc. Within the 900s, there’s ancient history by country, guide books, country histories, and histories of specific eras within world history. My point is that the sorting system used segregates the books without censoring them.
I’ll leave you with a spoof on library censorship:
A little girl goes to the check-out desk and hands her book to the library assistant to be checked out. The title of the book is Everything a New Mother Should Know. The check-out person looks at the title and then at the little girl and asks, “Are you sure you really want this book?” “Oh, yes,” the little girl replies.
Pav, how are we to decide whether material is “mature”. For you, the standard is somewhere between TCITR and Playboy, even though you think students should need parental permission to read TCITR in school. Is this right? If so, what is the distinction? If a parent can expect that their child won’t read it in school, why shouldn’t it be kept in the mature section? At the very least, for consistency is seems you must hold that a child could not check it out without parental consent. But even that would be insufficient as libraries allow you to read any book without checking it out.
In any case, what if the poll of parents decides that TCITR is “mature”, and that it and many other works of historic and cultural import must be kept behind the black curtain. Now, not only are the works almost totally inaccessible to children, but even adults are discouraged from seeking them out, lest their peers see and misjudge their discreet entry into the Room Where They Keep The Good Stuff. Speech that offends people will be placed somewhere that bears a significant social stigma for those who access it; it will be rejected as smut if it is quoted in public to justify a position or otherwise inform, because a state body has defined it as such. This is the suppression of speech by shame.
The foregoing, not the price of movable partitions, is part of the cost that could be avoided by encouraging an updated expectation. Unpopular speech has often been called obscene, and in many parts of the country the stuff that parents don’t want their kids to see will be anti-homophobia literature, or gender-equality literature, or books by Dawkins or Harris. It’s not enough to say that “mature” content should be kept behind a black curtain, we need to decide what constitutes mature content, or at least who gets to decide and how. I would argue that however it’s done, very few people will be satisfied if they expect that only and all mature material will be sequestered. The rest will be upset for the over- or under-permissive decisions that must be made. Yes, the same decisions are made by stores all the time, but when stores do it, they act as private entities; when a library does it, they do it as an arm of the government, and get a government sanction for soft censorship. I can boycott a store that restricts my choices, but I am powerless against the tyranny of the majority. If we encourage people to change their expectation, and place the burden on those who would seek to limit access to information, we avoid this problem.
The internet is an apt comparison, for a couple reasons. First, libraries generally have internet access nowadays, and the parental controls that they place are weak to the point of being ineffective. But more importantly, the library was the internet before there was the internet. It played the same role, and to remain relevant it must continue to provide the same level of access to information (that’s why so many libraries do provide access to the internet). Parents are coming up to speed about the sort of information that can be found online, but that’s slow going. Not too long ago, parents were completely outpaced by their children in understanding what the internet offered and how to get it. I consider myself fairly in the know about new technologies, but I’m still consistently amazed by the ability of todays kids to see through the technology, and to circumvent the blocks. Parents shouldn’t, and as you point out, don’t rely on software to police their children online, and similarly they shouldn’t rely on other sources of information to police their children’s information consumption.
The view that religious bans on sex were good for society are for another thread, but what can’t be ignored in this thread is that the level of censorship must be set in a society about which people disagree about the value of those bans. The options on a theoretical level seem to be to censor at the highest desired level, and allow parents who think more access to information appropriate to provide that information on their own (call this the “over-censorship” theory, or OC); or, to censor at the lowest desired level, and allow parents who think more censorship appropriate to provide that censorship on their own (call this the “under-censorship” theory, or UC). Clearly both OC and UC are extreme positions, and I recognize that you are advocating something between. I am advocating for UC. Again, as a non-parent I have my biases, but I resent measures that meaningfully restrict the access of information by adults in behalf of parents who want to offload their parental responsibilities on the state. All moves from UC towards OC require some government agent to define information that is ‘bad’, and to speak with the authority of all the people in relegating it to back rooms or refusing to allow access to it entirely. I think that conflicts with the values of free expression and free speech, and so with the role of the library. If one wants ones children to access information, it should be expected that they will access any information they should seek out. If one wants that information stream filtered, it is one’s own responsibility and no one else’s. It is salient on this point that libraries are not built for parents, but for all citizens; parents make up less than half of the population of the US.
I tried a brief search for cases about government immunity for child corruption but found none (I did find a case treating written words as falling within obscenity laws for descriptions of homosexual sex, bolstering some of my earlier points about the potential for the misuse of decency restrictions to suppress speech).
Lizbeth, if you’re still with us, where does Playboy fall in Dewey’s system in your library? I would guess in art, unless there’s a separate section for periodicals. But pornography as a subject I would expect to find in the art section.
I believe that you may have misunderstood my position on TCITR, but it’s been a long thread with long posts, so allow me to make my position expressly:
Basically, I would suggest that any textual book could be taught in public schools. However, I believe that any book taught must offer alternative books if, for any reason, the parents do not wish for their kids to learn about a certain book. This would require action to be taken by the parents, not the educators, as a list of the books that are to be used in a certain semester would be submitted to the parents, and the parents would essentially have, “Veto power,” by sending in a note saying, “I do not want my son/daughter to read TCITR.” If the parent has no problem with it, or does not care, then the parent does nothing and the student is taught TCITR.
Essentially, I am not suggesting that a parent must give express permission for TCITR, but absent a note to the contrary, permission would be implied as the parent would be given the course materials list, or, at the very least, said list would be given to the student who would then give it to the parent.
An alternative book could then be offered for the purposes of satisfactory course completion.
I still understand your objection with respect to implied v. express consent, but again, Playboy cannot be taught in schools. That’s why I would suggest express consent for the, “Mature,” stuff at the libraries and implied for anything else.
Concerning, “Mature,” stuff, I would suggest that you pretty much segregate only pornography. I suppose a case could be made for some other illustrations, but I’m not going to be the one making it. I would suggest that nothing purely textual should be segregated, regardless of what it is.
Please see above, pornography only.
To the first half, anything pornographic.
I’ve already pointed out that it is not the store acting as a public entity, it is the store not selling to a minor what it, by law, cannot legally sell to a minor. The Executive Branch of the Government (i.e. police who would enforce these laws) and Judicial Branch (i.e. the Judges who would fine the stores) are certainly acting as, “Arms of the Government,” I don’t understand why the standard should be different for a library.
For instance, let’s say a parent did want his/her child (or otherwise did not care) if his/her child was an owner of a pornographic magazine, what would then have to happen is the parent would have to go to the venue that sells such magazines and buy it for the kid. I’m still advocating an even lesser standard than that, as a parent, by way of signature, could authorize their child to view and take out pornographic materials at the library without the parent even being present.
You can’t do that at a gas station. You can’t give your kid a handwritten note to give to the pump-jockey that says, “Yes, you may sell my son Playboy.”
To the first sentence, we’re discussing this on the grounds of what you are terming, “Censorship,” though nothing is actually being censored. In any case, the parental controls (or lack thereof) are irrelevant. Further, the Children’s computers are generally more closely monitored, in my experience going to libraries as a kid.
I am glad you recognize I am advocating something in between. Furthermore, I suggested outright censorship in terms of pornography, not really of anything else. I want to give parents the option in terms of what their kids are taught, but obviously, TCITR is going to result in the student learning more as the instructor would be directly teaching that and any tests on the alternative book would be, essentially, based on plot only.
I don’t think parents are off-loading their parental responsibilities by saying, “If my kid goes to the library, I don’t want the library HANDING him pornography.” To argue in the alternative would be essentially to state that a parent must be around his/her child 24/7 because a library is a public access building and parents don’t always know where their kids are. It’s not like a parent whose child is out until 3:00a.m., that’s just a useless fucking parent. I think that parents have expected, largely, and will continue to expect, that children not be given porn in the library. Are parents offloading their parental responsiblities on the State if they don’t want their child to be given porn in schools and the schools decide to freely deciminate it?
My proposition does nothing to prevent libraries from providing whatever the libraries want to, “All citizens.”
Not using FastCase, but just doing an Internet search I found:
I’m still here, although I’m growing weary. Playboy and Playgirl are periodicals. They’re not displayed in the periodicals section in my library; they are, instead, held behind the Reference Desk. As I’ve already said, a written cover is displayed directing patrons to the Reference. Neither publication is considered to be pornography. What the library does is comply with parental objections while leaving the periodicals available to the general public. There is no pornography designation within the Dewey system of sorting, probably because pornography isn’t objective, it’s subjective. (I’m reminded of the pope who went around the Vatican gluing grape leaves over genitals shown in art and sculpture housed within the Vatican.)
I was the first to mention Catcher in the Rye as an example of banned books in both school and public libraries–banned because of parental outcry. (I also mentioned several other books that were banned because of parental protest.) TCitR was first published as an adult book. It was taken on by upper level high school lit teachers because it seemed relevant, in the 60s, to teenage angst at the time. In no way was it considered pornographic by the teachers.
I’ve tried to show that the curricula at the time was trying to teach a concept–in general, how to overcome life’s conflicts. That’s what teachers try to do! Teachers, if they’re teachers, want to induce, promote, provoke conceptual thinking rather than rote thinking.
I guess I agree–most of them don’t understand their jobs, but parents are no better.
A library is a repository for the hard copy of thought. Thought must be left free.
Nice post. There’s gotta be some interesting connections we can make between this discussion about libraries and free thought and the presently contested IP/internet legislation SOPA/PIPA. Unfortunately, I’m too dull to think of them at the moment.
I don’t think this avoids the problem, as many works have been and still are described as pornographic by those who don’t like the ideas expressed within. Even limiting it to pictures requires someone to decide what’s acceptable and what isn’t. Just think of what would be considered pornographic in a fundamentalist Islamic community: visual depictions of Any part of a woman but the eyes, images of men and women interacting unchaperoned. For a less extreme example, what about renaissance art with nudes? The Vatican has a bathroom with erotic imagery painted by Raphael, which if made today would almost certainly pass as pornography, but which with equal certain I would call culturally significant. What about the stereotypical National Geographic story on the Nude tribe from Wherever.
I belabor the point, which is that even limiting “mature” to “pornography”, and even further limiting “pornography” to “visual pornography,” still enables the suppression of expressive works.
As you point out, nothing is “actually being censored,” by which I take to mean that the content is still available. But the additional burden you put on expression is a legitimate burden, and will certainly decrease readership (indeed, that’s the whole point). Soft censorship is censorship.
In the context of the linked document, “sexual misconduct” is probably something more than simply making pornographic images available. The specific cases mentioned all involve something more, in particular physical molestation or some sort of sexual gratification on the part of the teacher. That’s distinct from providing pornography in one’s role as a teacher, which sex education teachers are hired to do.
You raise a good point about the “arm of the government” argument I made, and I agree the argument is weak, at least as it applies to current law. A better distinction is as certain individuals functioning as an arm of the parents. I can certainly hire someone to teach my child about sex, including having them show my child porn as an informational activity. I could also hire someone to give my child any accessible information they ask for, including information about human bodily functions of any stripe. These people would be acting as an agent of me as parent, and so would almost certainly not be liable for any crime associated with showing a minor pornography.
My guess is that the same applies to teachers, that they are assumed to have parental rights and responsibilities as regards education, so that they would not be liable for a crime if they provided a minor with pornography as part of that duty. This distinguishes the book store owner/employee, who has no parental rights or responsibilities. The legal argument then is whether in general a library is more like a teacher or more like a book store owner, when it supplies pornography and allows children access to it. Does that analysis work for you?
I think that the question about pornography vs. not pornography can largely come down to purpose. Hugh Heffner started Playboy because he, personally, was tired of there not being any revealing magazines of that nature on the market. It’s undisputed. The articles were an after-thought to add legitimacy needed to circumvent an outright Government ban.
The purpose of the Renaissance Art is just that, historical art. The Nat’l. Geo. is basically just documenting other cultures, as you know. I understand the possible objections to the disclusion as pornography. However, there’s clearly very, very, little, if anything at all, inherently sexual about that nudity. Playboy is meant to be sexually provocative, that’s the purpose of the magazine.
My other problem is, where does it stop? Let’s say I allowed Playboy, which undeniably has an inherent sexually provocative purpose, why not Hustler, then, Barely Legal, Celebrity Skin…harder stuff of which I wouldn’t even know the name?
Purpose seems to be my dividing line.
It can, but I think that you have reached such a niche at this point, given what I have said about sexually provocative intent, that it hardly matters.
Do you mean that libraries would no longer buy Playboy? Even if that were the case, (which I contest, in whole, but will concede that some may no longer buy it) I don’t think libraries represent anything even approaching Playboy’s main source of readership.
I strongly disagree with your assertion. My disagreement is based on experience of sex education classes at the High School level. I coul;d look for some numbers, but don’t know how successful I would be. I usually hate to, “Pass the buck,” so to speak, but I would ask you, then, to provide a case-law counter-example demonstrating a teacher being successful, on appeal, in a case based on the teacher providing pornography to students in a public school setting.
You would be correct about that, but I would certainly argue that the edcucator in question would want written consent, at a minimum, concerning the pornography. I’m pretty sure you can do just about anything outside of overt sexual acts provided you have written consent from the parent. For instance, if you were a family of nudists and a child from a different family wanted to come over, then you could have the parent sign a contract stating understanding of the fact that you are nudists, and will go naked in front of the child, and the other parent could consent to that.
However, this again brings us to the argument of implied consent vs. express consent. With respect to libraries, schools, anyone showing pornography to children, my position has consistently been, “With express consent.” I referenced live sex shows in the library, at one point, as an extreme example. I’m really unconcerned about even that, provided there is express consent.
What you have referenced by LizbethRose with handing these kids Playboy is the concept of, “Implied consent.” I suppose the consent is, apparently, the fact that the child was allowed to have a library card, which, at a certain age, I don’t even believe a parent need be present for the child to get that. Twelve years old at most of my local libraries, if I am not mistaken.
Further, my position of, “Express consent,” already relaxes standards that are arguably already in place as, “Express consent,” is not going to enable a kid to buy Playboy at the local gas station.
As previously stated, you would have to legally be able to construe it, per the course/school/district guidelines, as part of the educator’s duty. There’s really no getting around that, because, on the surface, you’d be guilty of three (or so) different crimes.
That analysis works somewhat, except I don’t think we have satisfactorily established that even a public educator could show kids porn, and particularly not without express consent. Assuming, however, that your analysis works, or in legal terms, “Objection. Without waiving objection,” I would suggest that the librarian would be more along the lines of a book store owner, because you go there to borrow/read books. I don’t know that the librarian necessarily educates anyone on anything, and to the extent that the librarian may, I would be hesitant to suggest that is among the more fundamental duties of a librarian. They certainly do not hold any classes that children are required to take, as children are required to either go to public school, private school, or have alternative (and monitored) home-schooling.
No child is ever required to set foot in a library. There will be no truancy if the child does not.
The problem, pav, is how do you judge what’s pornographic and what isn’t. Is Romeo and Juliet about the psychological dangers of teen-age sex? Is the Illiad a story about a man trying to steal another man’s wife? Is the Kama Sutra a sex manual?
Even if a library cataloging system had a pornography designation, how would you catalog any of the three examples?
If I read him correctly, Pav already answered that:
I tend to agree with him.
It’s really not so tough to make the assessment that Romeo and Juliet or The Iliad isn’t pornography, almost seems like a disingenuous question. I guess I’d put the question to you: Do those works have significant merit above and beyond any sexual content?
Anita is right, I stand by my earlier statement. The purpose of the Kama Sutra is, arguably, to educate about sex. Even if that were not the case, it is hardly pornographic as it is primarily prose, and what is not prose, is merely drawings. It’s also historical text, which does not apply to Playboy.
Want to wait a couple thousand years and make a case for Playboy as historical text? My ears will be open.
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