You may have won your Straw Man argument in your own simple mind. I made my point several times. You just have a childish mindset in which you think getting the last word is winning the argument. I see no need to debate somebody who intentionally distorts other people's statements because he or she cannot refute the actual content of what that person is stating. I want you to furnish the post in which I stated that the presence of sexual content in Shakespeare meant that there should be absolutely no standard for what is taught in high school literature. Furnish my specific quote that stated that.
What makes your entire point even more idiotic is that your basic premis is based on an assumption that "Girl Interrupted" is the literary equivalent of some porographic oral-sex book that you read as a child.
OK.
Let's start over.
Hello, sangrila. I'm Skooz.
Nice to meet you.
The more I read through your posts. The more I cannot understand what your position really is. If you’ll bear with me for a bit while I attempt to explain some of what I think about this and some related issues, then I want to ask you to further explain some of your thinking.
In American life we elect our leaders. Then, for the most part, thinking people then keep an eye on how those leaders perform their duties. Sometimes we agree with what our leaders do and sometimes we don’t. We often consider what will the impact of said leaders decisions be in the short term and in the long term. Sometimes we consider an issue to be just a little important, sometimes very important, and sometimes extremely important, while sometimes not even important enough to store in our memories for five minutes. Issues of mild to moderate importance often influence how we will vote in the future without meriting any immediate action. Issues that are just a little more serious up to extremely important sometimes or often times merit actions. There are many and varied actions that can be included in this. Maybe you’ll write a letter to a media source or to a member of the legislature. Maybe tons of people will rise up and attempt to impeach an elected official. It all depends on just what level you place the issue you are concerned with. Do the people considering an issue see it affecting them personally or their children? Do they see it affecting future generations and the overall makeup of our society? And to what extent? Do they care about our society or the future? Some people do and some don’t.
Throughout most of America, school boards are elected. And since the early days of public education the school boards have routinely been confronted with parental concerns over their decisions, sometimes leading to changes but more and more in recent history not. Do you feel that school boards should be exempt from this type of review and possible action by parents or other community members? Do you acknowledge that some parents care about their community and the future more than others while some don’t care about anything? Do you see that what affects our children impacts our decision making process just as much as what impacts ourselves? Would other school board decisions be up for review, in your opinion, such as school closings and lunch program changes? Is there something sacred about everything in print that causes books to be off-limits for people to object to? Or is it just that people who have strong religious convictions ought to be disallowed from the political processes of our republic? Maybe all of these questions are beyond the scope that went into your reaction to the article and you simply disagree with the particular book the parents objected to or the particular bit of reasoning mentioned in the article? This barrage of questions is not meant as anything negative. I am simply trying to understand what you have been trying to communicate. It has in some places sounded like a knee-jerk reaction to the great evil of book banning with all of that camp’s inherent lack of regard for the reality of some things in print being inappropriate choices. But you have also said some things that seem to claim that you do see limits to what is appropriate for public school curriculums. And there were a few other inconsistencies in what I read of your posts, (notice I didn’t say “what you wrote”) So I am trying to weed through whatever miscommunications there may have between what you were thinking and what I thought you said.
My position has been based on my view that the parents had every right to object to a book, even to the point of thinking it had no place in the curriculum at all, just as I continue to think that parents can and should constantly review what is going on in the schools today. If I were a parent with a child in that school I would have been more likely to get my own child exempt or pull them out of the school, rather than to go against the school board, but that is based more on my own pessimism about just how far gone most school boards are, not on a problem with any parent’s right to try to influence the school board. In fact, I can say that based on my own personality, that if the school board had relented and removed the book from the curriculum and I happened to disagree with that, I would have only proceeded to have my child read the book anyway, rather than make a stink about book banning as if the public schools ought to be a great bastion of free-expression. Plenty of people object to plenty of different types of things. The schools can still educate even if they don’t teach a particular book. Many parents wouldn’t do it, but they all ought to be taking full responsibility for their children’s education, possibly presenting their children with reading material that the school is neglecting. Those who skip merrily along trusting to the schools to bear the full responsibility, will end up teaching their kids apathy and nannystate=a good thing mentality.
Well, I’ve been enjoying this discussion as I am wont to enjoy most lively discussions. So now I am off to the library to check out the book in question, in spite of the fact that I disagree with the assertion that you have to read this entire book in order to have an opinion on the article. In fact I don’t even agree that a person should not put down offensive reading material, but rather read the whole thing in order to be allowed to have a negative opinion of it. As to any agreement over the parents' view of the particular book, Girl Interrupted, that remains to be seen.