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How Book Banning Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
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Speaker 1: From House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is Charles W.
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Speaker 1: Chub Bryant, and this is stuff you should know? Do
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Speaker 1: do do? Do? I just did my little test anchor
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Speaker 1: man move, getting the papers all in order, reading the prompter.
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Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be great? I don't feel so funny these days. Man, Well,
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Speaker 1: we need to get the teleprompter writer to douce let
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Speaker 1: your your jokes. I agree, everyone knows that, right. We
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Speaker 1: don't actually make any of this stuff up. We have
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Speaker 1: somebody right the show and we read it very very
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Speaker 1: um well rehearsed, practiced, labored podcast. That's right. What's it going,
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Speaker 1: Buddy good Man? It's good. I think this is the
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Speaker 1: second of two good topics today. Yeah. Part one a sexuality,
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Speaker 1: Part two banning books. Yeah, what do they have to
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Speaker 1: do with each other? Nothing? I thought I saw a
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Speaker 1: common thread. No that I've looked, I've forgotten it. But
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Speaker 1: there was something discrimination maybe, I guess. So maybe we'll
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Speaker 1: find out. It'll pop up. Possibly it'll be like the
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Speaker 1: Peewee secret word of the day. Oh yeah, isn't that
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Speaker 1: what it was called? I think so? Man, it was cool.
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Speaker 1: So you got an intro proper for this or chuck? Yes,
1:31
Speaker 1: are you familiar with the last week of September? Yeah
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Speaker 1: you are, yeah, through it before. Yeah, it's after the
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Speaker 1: third week and before the first week of October. That's
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Speaker 1: exactly right. It just so happens that that very week
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Speaker 1: is Banned Book Week. Did not know that existed? Well?
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Speaker 1: It it does. Yeah. Yeah, you haven't heard a band
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Speaker 1: book week before? Uh no, I have. I've seen like
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Speaker 1: the subversive um display lays outside of b Dalton booksellers,
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Speaker 1: and you know, and basically the whole point of it is,
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Speaker 1: it's like, hey, people have tried to ban these books,
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Speaker 1: so make sure you read these because it means that
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Speaker 1: there's somebody out there he doesn't want you to. It's right, Hey,
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Speaker 1: look what I've got. I've got to kill a mocking
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Speaker 1: bird over here. Yeah that's attempted. Yeah. Yeah. So the
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Speaker 1: whole point of Banned Books Week is to celebrate intellectual freedom.
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Speaker 1: That's because there are people out there who would take
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Speaker 1: that away from you if they could. We know it.
2:30
Speaker 1: You go back and listen to some of our podcast.
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Speaker 1: There's certain words that were beat out because the man
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Speaker 1: has us under his thumb. Thanks. Um So, I would
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Speaker 1: strongly recommend it's coming up. By the time this thing
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Speaker 1: gets released will be in September. That's right. We should
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Speaker 1: probably post something about Banned Book Week when it comes Okay, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: September thirty through October six. Actually, um, so, it's really
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Speaker 1: the first week in October this year. It's weird that
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Speaker 1: they would put it in the last week of October,
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Speaker 1: first week of Octobria or last week of September. Yeah. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that was confusing for a second. Let's let's talk bam books. Man.
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Speaker 1: More than eleven thousand books have been challenged since Josh,
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Speaker 1: that's just since eighty two they've been I was reading
3:12
Speaker 1: about The Catcher in the rye. Um. It came out
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Speaker 1: in Wow, man, I wish I knew it came out
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Speaker 1: in either the late fifties or the early sixties. At
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Speaker 1: the late fifties or nineteen sixty because in nineteen sixty
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Speaker 1: a teacher who assigned it to his class for reading
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Speaker 1: got fired. Really yeah, um, it's one of my favorite books,
3:34
Speaker 1: is it? Yeah? And it's one that I've reread several
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Speaker 1: times over the years, and it always takes on a
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Speaker 1: little different meaning depending on my age, which is interesting.
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Speaker 1: Have you read The Catcher's Companion? No, that's we got
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Speaker 1: that as a gift right now. I haven't read yet.
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Speaker 1: It's just like footnotes and extrapolations and explanations, like this
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Speaker 1: guy went into Catcher in the World of Catcher in
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Speaker 1: the Rye and like made footnotes of the whole thing. Definitely,
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Speaker 1: it's actually thicker than The Catcher in the Rye nineteen
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Speaker 1: fifty one the way, okay, so fifty one. Within nine
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Speaker 1: years somebody lost their job because they assigned that book
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Speaker 1: to read. That's pretty common. Usually with UM book banning,
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Speaker 1: it comes out of UM, the public school system, UM
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Speaker 1: and library. So right, well that's it's usually school libraries.
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Speaker 1: So if you go on the internet and you look
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Speaker 1: for banned books, you're gonna find a lot of um
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Speaker 1: uh confusion. There's this body called the American Library Association,
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Speaker 1: and a lot of people think that they're in charge
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Speaker 1: of banning books. It's absolutely the opposite of the truth.
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Speaker 1: The American Library Association is a it's it's basically the
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Speaker 1: librarians lobby and they're committed to no censorship whatsoever. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: ask any librarian and they're they're gonna probably be in
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Speaker 1: favor of not banning books right. Um. As a matter
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Speaker 1: of fact, the l A maintains a library Bill of Rights,
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Speaker 1: and in this library Bill of Rights is a provision
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Speaker 1: for the free access to libraries for minors, which basically
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Speaker 1: says this, we have a bunch of books that we're
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Speaker 1: not going to make any judgments on. If we have
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Speaker 1: a book that you don't want your kid to read,
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Speaker 1: it's your job as their parents to monitor what they read,
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Speaker 1: and you can decide what they read or not. But
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Speaker 1: you that's it. Your opinion doesn't extend to anyone else's kids.
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Speaker 1: So that means that if you want to ban a book,
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Speaker 1: we're going to tell you no because you're responsible for
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Speaker 1: your child, but not everybody else's child too, Which means
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Speaker 1: in short, that the a l A doesn't censor books.
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Speaker 1: This is a big deal because this happens a lot.
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Speaker 1: There's eleven thousand challenges you said since since nineteen eighty two,
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Speaker 1: and I think there were in two thousand eleven. There
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Speaker 1: were three hundred and twenty six challenges last year UM.
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Speaker 1: A few of these are the Color of Earth series
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Speaker 1: by Kim Dong Hua and The Reasons Why, Nudity, sex education,
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Speaker 1: the Hunger Games trilogy, My Mom's Having a Baby, a
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Speaker 1: kid's month by month guide to pregnancy. But we certainly
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Speaker 1: don't want o kids to learn anything about that. No,
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Speaker 1: especially not with um mom uh, Brave New World by Huxley, insensitivity, nudity, racism, UM,
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Speaker 1: To Kill a Mockingbird, like we mentioned Harper Lee's classic
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Speaker 1: because of offensive language and racism. And those are just
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Speaker 1: the few of the nine I'm sorry, ten most challenge
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Speaker 1: books of last year, right. UM. You'll also find in
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Speaker 1: just about every list the most challenged series since two
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Speaker 1: thousand is the Harry Potter books. Um. They received sat
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Speaker 1: three thousand challenges. UM. And that was from up to
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Speaker 1: I believe like two thousand eight or nine, maybe two
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Speaker 1: of two thousand ten they were for two thousand to
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Speaker 1: two thousand and ten, they received three thousand challenges. And
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Speaker 1: and it was because it had satanic overtones or undertones
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Speaker 1: one of the two, that's how or midtones. People challenging
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Speaker 1: it felt at least so for the most part, when
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Speaker 1: you see a book being challenged, your band it's because
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Speaker 1: people are concerned about its influence on children. But as
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Speaker 1: we've seen, the American Library Association says, hey, man, kids, kids,
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Speaker 1: there's free There should be free access to information for kids. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: Julie Blooms Forever is one that's always on the list
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Speaker 1: too for that reason because it deals with a uh,
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Speaker 1: young girls burgeoning sexuality and the confusion and the awkwardness
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Speaker 1: and the thrill that comes along with that. And that
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Speaker 1: one isn't that was a great description. Yeah from a
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Speaker 1: forty one year old man with a beard. Well, dude,
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Speaker 1: that was fourteen once. The girls and boys are all like,
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Speaker 1: you know, we're all scared and awkward and thrilled. So
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Speaker 1: how do you how do you do this? Man? How
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Speaker 1: do you How do you issue a formal challenge to
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Speaker 1: a book? And what is that consist of? What does
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Speaker 1: it mean? It means that you have gone to a library,
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Speaker 1: a single library, and said I want to challenge this book,
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Speaker 1: and the librarian decides whether or not to ban it.
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Speaker 1: So it's as simple as that. That's how book banning works. Um.
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Speaker 1: And you don't even have to use such lofty language
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Speaker 1: like I want to issue a challenge. You can just
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Speaker 1: say like, this book needs to be taken out of
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Speaker 1: this library. This book is filth um, this book is
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Speaker 1: pervasively vulgar. That's a big one um. And the librarian
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Speaker 1: at that moment decides whether a book gets banned or not,
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Speaker 1: and for the most party, they air on the side
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Speaker 1: of not banning them. But when they say okay, let's
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Speaker 1: take that book out, that book has just been banned.
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Speaker 1: So it doesn't mean that a banned. That a book
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Speaker 1: has been banned, it doesn't mean it's been banned across
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Speaker 1: the country, although some some countries have like banned books
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Speaker 1: in its entirety, like the country's entirety. But in the
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Speaker 1: US and in the modern world, it usually means that
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Speaker 1: somewhere in the United States, there's a group of people,
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Speaker 1: whether it's kids in a school district or kids people
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Speaker 1: who are served by a public library who don't have
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Speaker 1: access to a certain book because one person found it
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Speaker 1: offensive and convinced the librarian to to make the decision
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Speaker 1: for everybody else based on that person's objections. That's a
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Speaker 1: banned book. Yeah, person or persons. A lot of times
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Speaker 1: it's a group pointed together with like a list, even
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Speaker 1: and they'll rally the troops and say, you know, come
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Speaker 1: on out from your your homes and let's get together
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Speaker 1: and submit a list. And the librarians, like you said,
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Speaker 1: most times will say no because they generally have the
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Speaker 1: courts on their side if it gets to that point.
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Speaker 1: For the most part, the courts like to defend the right,
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Speaker 1: you know, the First Amendment. But I mean, think about
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Speaker 1: that pressure, especially if like you are a school librarian
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Speaker 1: and the school board is telling you, like, hey, don't
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Speaker 1: forget what you employ you and we're telling you remove
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Speaker 1: this book, and the librarians like, no, Ts, that's that's
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Speaker 1: against the First Amendment. Um, so I should talk about
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Speaker 1: some of the laws. I think we should. Let's talk
10:11
Speaker 1: about Do you want to talk about the history of it? Yeah? Um,
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Speaker 1: who wrote this one? I think this was Conger too,
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Speaker 1: and I don't think so. Yeah, it was a freelancer, okay. Um.
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Speaker 1: You know, basically since the days of Socrates, they've been
10:23
Speaker 1: trying to ban teachings of some sort at the other. Um,
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Speaker 1: he was heavily scrutinized, and back then, if you wanted
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Speaker 1: to ban something, he just burned the few copies of
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Speaker 1: it that existed, and there was no problem. He was
10:36
Speaker 1: made to drink hemlock for what? He for what? Yeah?
10:39
Speaker 1: But yeah, like if there's two copies of a book
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Speaker 1: in existence, and you get both copies and you set
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Speaker 1: them on fire, and then what happened? What came along
10:48
Speaker 1: well the printing press and all of a sudden you
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Speaker 1: had to officially try and ban a book because there
10:53
Speaker 1: were too many to gather up and burn. And you
10:55
Speaker 1: remember the Star Chamber Starry Michael Douglas. Did you ever
10:58
Speaker 1: watch that? They were the real Star Chamber? Did you did?
11:02
Speaker 1: There was a real okay, so the real Star Chamber
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Speaker 1: Um that was I think created in Stuart England Um
11:09
Speaker 1: Stewart era England. Oh man, I probably shouldn't even say that,
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Speaker 1: because I'm not sure. In England in the seventeenth century,
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Speaker 1: there was a group of judges that were in charge
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Speaker 1: of like they were like the elite judges. They were
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Speaker 1: the censor board basically was one of their roles. And
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Speaker 1: then Henry the Eighth came along and got rid of them,
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Speaker 1: but he started his own kind of censorship with licensing laws.
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Speaker 1: They basically said that the state had the opportunity to
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Speaker 1: censor things before they were even published. So that was
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Speaker 1: one of the earliest forms of straight up book banning
11:46
Speaker 1: or book censorship. Good point, it happened a long time ago. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: so should we get to some landmark cases over the years.
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Speaker 1: Two Board of Education Island Trees School District the Echo. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's a mouthful. Um. They said basically that you couldn't
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Speaker 1: remove library material just because like a school official doesn't
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Speaker 1: agree with the ideas. They said that the books on
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Speaker 1: the on their list were quote just plain filthy. Some
12:17
Speaker 1: people said, now you were going to sue you for that? Well,
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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said, so basically it has to be
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Speaker 1: pervasively vulgar. I guess that's why they use those words,
12:27
Speaker 1: because that's what they can actually ban a book if
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Speaker 1: who finds it that? Um there, I think society basically well,
12:37
Speaker 1: for for the most part, um as far as books go,
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Speaker 1: for banning a book really tough to do, as once
12:47
Speaker 1: it reaches the Supreme Court, they're gonna be like, no,
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Speaker 1: it's a book, put it back, it's obscenity. That's not
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Speaker 1: protected at all. Right, Well, because the kicker there is
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Speaker 1: the number three rule that they decided, you know, should
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Speaker 1: be used to determine if something is I guess filthy
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Speaker 1: was it could contain no literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
13:11
Speaker 1: And that's the one where you know, you can pretty
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Speaker 1: much say claim any book has value like that. That's
13:17
Speaker 1: how we have hardcore pornography. Still, I'm sorry, so you
13:20
Speaker 1: can say this is art that's true. Um So that
13:24
Speaker 1: that case, um Island Trees case or Pico case, I
13:28
Speaker 1: don't know what they call it. That was a really
13:30
Speaker 1: big deal because it's a place in a school library,
13:34
Speaker 1: and um it basically the Supreme Court said school libraries
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Speaker 1: are special places. Schools are places of inquiry, and so
13:43
Speaker 1: their repository of knowledge, meaning their library, has special protection.
13:48
Speaker 1: Like we understand that you're worried about the children's minds
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Speaker 1: being corrupted, but you don't get to decide that, Like,
13:55
Speaker 1: this is information that's out there, and as long as
13:58
Speaker 1: it's basically not like hardcore pornography, child pornography, obscenity like
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Speaker 1: it should, it has every right to be in there
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Speaker 1: under the first first Amendment. Amen, it was a big deal.
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Speaker 1: It was a big deal. Uh so was I remember
14:12
Speaker 1: this one because I was on a newspaper staff at
14:15
Speaker 1: the time and I got interviewed for the news. Oh yeah, yeah,
14:18
Speaker 1: like the local news came out Hazelwood School District v
14:22
Speaker 1: uh kur maya. UM. That was very famously when newspaper
14:28
Speaker 1: high school newspapers basically were said to not have the
14:31
Speaker 1: same rights as like if you were an adult running
14:34
Speaker 1: a newspaper, and it was not a form of public expression,
14:38
Speaker 1: so schools could, uh, in the end, kind of censor
14:41
Speaker 1: what was going in these things, at least in like
14:44
Speaker 1: school curriculum. I thought it was in the paper. In
14:48
Speaker 1: the paper too, I'm sorry, I thought you meant in
14:50
Speaker 1: these things meaning libraries. Yeah, no, no, in but it
14:54
Speaker 1: was extended into classroom curriculum too like that, which was
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Speaker 1: a big deal. Yeah, as you read that article all
15:00
Speaker 1: about Texas, Yeah, let's get to that. Yeah, okay, So, um,
15:04
Speaker 1: Texas has this um very controversial textbook review committee that
15:10
Speaker 1: wields a lot of power because textbook or Texas is
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Speaker 1: the biggest textbook buyer in the country, and so if
15:19
Speaker 1: you're a textbook manufacturer and one state is ordering most
15:23
Speaker 1: of your textbooks, you're just gonna print one and send
15:26
Speaker 1: it to everybody. Yeah, it's basically Texas and California are
15:30
Speaker 1: the two states that wield the most power because they
15:32
Speaker 1: spend the most dough because they have the most school
15:35
Speaker 1: aged kids basically exactly, so they basically say what Texas
15:38
Speaker 1: decides goes in their textbooks goes in the textbooks for
15:42
Speaker 1: a lot of other states as well, not just Texas. Right. Yeah.
15:45
Speaker 1: I looked at the expense of the textbook, and I
15:47
Speaker 1: think one of the manufacturers said something like several million
15:51
Speaker 1: dollars can go into a like a major biology textbook
15:55
Speaker 1: because of like the illustrations and everything that goes into it.
15:58
Speaker 1: And they're like, we can't make one of these for
16:01
Speaker 1: Texas and one for other states. It's just everyone's gonna
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Speaker 1: get Texas version of the truth exactly. So Texas has
16:07
Speaker 1: this committee that is largely conservative that um starting and
16:11
Speaker 1: I think two thousand nine, uh, basically held hearings on
16:17
Speaker 1: revisions that they wanted to see done to social studies curriculum.
16:21
Speaker 1: These are elected people too, by the way, which is
16:22
Speaker 1: important because apparently a lot of them can buy their
16:26
Speaker 1: way right on that list. Okay, so social studies, you've
16:29
Speaker 1: got history, sociology, economics, and UM. A lot of the
16:33
Speaker 1: stuff that they were adding in there were like, um,
16:38
Speaker 1: I guess kind of slanted everything toward a little more
16:41
Speaker 1: towards the idea that the founders of the United States
16:43
Speaker 1: were Christian. UM, that the the they one of the
16:49
Speaker 1: things they wanted to get in there was not just
16:51
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King's non violent civil rights protests, but the
16:54
Speaker 1: Black Panthers violent civil rights protests were another one. Um.
16:59
Speaker 1: And if you're a conservative, you're you're like, well, okay,
17:03
Speaker 1: I agree with a lot of what these people are saying.
17:06
Speaker 1: The problem is is what they were saying was that
17:09
Speaker 1: there's a liberal slant too academia, and that they were
17:14
Speaker 1: taking it upon themselves to correct that by putting a
17:17
Speaker 1: conservative slant. Yeah. One of the other amendments was to
17:21
Speaker 1: cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures who inspired
17:25
Speaker 1: revolutions of the late eighteenth century in nineteenth century, and
17:29
Speaker 1: they said, let's replace him with Thomas Akenis and John
17:31
Speaker 1: Calvin instead. Another one in economics, UM, they wanted to
17:37
Speaker 1: add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, champions of the
17:41
Speaker 1: free market economic theory, to the list of economist study
17:45
Speaker 1: we talked about, well, Milton Friedman in one where basically
17:49
Speaker 1: he's Chile as a laboratory for UM reagan Omics. Before
17:53
Speaker 1: Reagan was president to trickle down economics. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
17:58
Speaker 1: I remember that. Um and then and one of the
18:00
Speaker 1: ones that was shot down by a Democrat Mayvice Knight
18:03
Speaker 1: wanted to introduce an amendment requiring students study the reasons
18:06
Speaker 1: for the Founding Fathers protecting religious freedom by not saying
18:12
Speaker 1: one religion is good above all else, and that was
18:15
Speaker 1: actually struck down. They said you can't put that in
18:17
Speaker 1: this book. Right. She was a Democrat who introduced it. Yeah,
18:20
Speaker 1: there was public The Conservatives said no, well they you know,
18:24
Speaker 1: basically vote along party lines. So the vote was tended
18:28
Speaker 1: four or whatever it is. So it was a big deal,
18:31
Speaker 1: like it had. It was one of those things that
18:33
Speaker 1: kind of went under reported and underestimated. But there's a
18:38
Speaker 1: really good documentary out there that came out and I
18:40
Speaker 1: think two thousand nine, The Revisionaries, UM and I think
18:45
Speaker 1: it's up on Netflix streaming right now. It is Scott
18:48
Speaker 1: Thurman and uh Al I saw. I was a trailer
18:51
Speaker 1: but it looked pretty good. And I mean it was
18:52
Speaker 1: a big deal. It's not just like some people in
18:55
Speaker 1: Texas want to change some textbooks. It's like has natural implications.
18:59
Speaker 1: It an info war basically, and that's what book banning
19:03
Speaker 1: is based on in a lot of ways as well.
19:05
Speaker 1: It's like, if you can remove a different viewpoint, especially
19:09
Speaker 1: when when it's being presented to kids, then you can
19:13
Speaker 1: keep that viewpoint from taking from German aating in there
19:17
Speaker 1: and they're emerging mind or worldview, and so books like UM,
19:24
Speaker 1: Daddy's New Roommate gets banned. Yeah, about a boy whose
19:28
Speaker 1: dad has a new boyfriend. Now he's a divorced dad
19:31
Speaker 1: and his new roommate moves in his gay and UM
19:35
Speaker 1: Sarah Palin herself asked for that to be removed from
19:38
Speaker 1: the library when she was UM the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.
19:43
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I remember that. And that guy came out
19:44
Speaker 1: and said that woman is my mortal enemy and thanks
19:49
Speaker 1: for the press. That's what he should have said to UH.
19:52
Speaker 1: In the meantime, in Texas, UM Mary Helen Burlonga UM
19:58
Speaker 1: has tried repeatedly get Latino figures UM included in textbooks
20:02
Speaker 1: as role models for the large Hispanic population in Texas,
20:07
Speaker 1: and she's been repeatedly denied, to the point where in
20:10
Speaker 1: two thousand ten she stopped out of a meeting saying,
20:12
Speaker 1: they can't just pretend this is white America and that
20:15
Speaker 1: we don't exist. These aren't experts, these aren't historians. They're
20:19
Speaker 1: just rewriting history. So pretty hard words. Do you want
20:25
Speaker 1: to hear some other challenged authors, Let's man, because there's
20:29
Speaker 1: there's challenges all over the place, apparently Judy Bloom of course,
20:33
Speaker 1: Robert Cormier or Cormier. Uh did you ever read I
20:36
Speaker 1: Am the Cheese when You're growing up? Or The Chocolate War?
20:40
Speaker 1: I think I read that one great books band many times. J. K. Rowling,
20:45
Speaker 1: she is, uh, like I said, she is, I guess
20:48
Speaker 1: of the devil because a lot of people have a
20:50
Speaker 1: problem with the Harry Potter books. Um, Katherine Patterson Bridge
20:54
Speaker 1: to Tera Bethia, I'm Stephen King, maya Angelou can't have
20:59
Speaker 1: any of that. Yeah. The Alabama State Textbook Committee said that, um,
21:04
Speaker 1: I know why the Cage Bird Sings encourages bitterness towards
21:07
Speaker 1: white people. R. L. Stein who was sort of like
21:12
Speaker 1: a Stephen King for kids, Yeah, goose bumps. Yeah, and uh,
21:15
Speaker 1: I think I actually worked on one of his little
21:17
Speaker 1: TV shows. The Nightmare Room was a nightmare room, I
21:21
Speaker 1: think so. Uh yeah, back in the day. And John
21:24
Speaker 1: Steinbeck of course, Yeah, in Nine of Mice and Men,
21:29
Speaker 1: was banned in Chattanooga because Steinbeck was well known for
21:33
Speaker 1: his anti business attitude. UM. And then Alvin Schwartz was
21:37
Speaker 1: number one, and he wrote one of my favorite sets
21:39
Speaker 1: of books, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I
21:42
Speaker 1: never heard of this, oh man. They were scary with
21:45
Speaker 1: the most ghastly illustrations you've ever seen. They're awesome and
21:49
Speaker 1: in those bands just because they're scary and ghoulish. I
21:52
Speaker 1: guess so I was probably satanic too. Um. So we
21:57
Speaker 1: were talking about how if if a book is challenged, UM,
22:03
Speaker 1: it's probably if it gets to the Supreme Court, Supreme
22:05
Speaker 1: Court is probably gonna rule in favor of the librarian
22:08
Speaker 1: who said no. Um. But that's that's not the case
22:13
Speaker 1: with obscenity, like obscene literature, like it is specifically excluded
22:18
Speaker 1: in US case law from First Amendment protection. And that's
22:22
Speaker 1: kind of emerged over the years, um, starting in eighteen
22:26
Speaker 1: seventy three with the con Stock laws. It basically said
22:31
Speaker 1: like you can't sell obscene literature in interstate commerce, right,
22:37
Speaker 1: and then people are like, okay, well then we we
22:40
Speaker 1: won't or don't enforce it or whatever, and it just
22:43
Speaker 1: kind of went went enforced or unchallenged for like three
22:47
Speaker 1: quarters of a century, and then in the fifties you
22:50
Speaker 1: had um Roth versus the United States, where all of
22:55
Speaker 1: a sudden, we're like, wait, we need to start explaining
22:58
Speaker 1: what obscenity is because you can't just say that's just whatever.
23:03
Speaker 1: That's what they started as though, Like in the fifties
23:06
Speaker 1: they basically said obscenity pornography basically is what that means
23:10
Speaker 1: um has utterly or is utterly without um social value.
23:17
Speaker 1: That was a big quote, So that basically was a
23:20
Speaker 1: mark against anybody who's pro obscenity, right, And then in
23:24
Speaker 1: the seventies there was one called Miller versus California, and
23:28
Speaker 1: this guy basically sent out a mass mailer chuck of
23:31
Speaker 1: an advertisement for his adult magazines. So everybody got him
23:37
Speaker 1: old people, kids, housewives, business meant everybody who went to
23:42
Speaker 1: their mail that they opened it up and like there's
23:44
Speaker 1: like basically obscene advertising. And so California arrested the guy
23:50
Speaker 1: and it went to trial, and the Supreme Court said, okay, um, yes,
23:55
Speaker 1: obscenities not protected, but we need to say what obscenity is,
23:59
Speaker 1: and they came up with this three point test called
24:01
Speaker 1: the Miller tests, which is has that one problem you
24:05
Speaker 1: were talking about it. Yeah. The third one is no
24:07
Speaker 1: no artistic merit basically literary, political, or scientific value. Which
24:13
Speaker 1: it's probably the terms that they nailed this guy for. Yeah,
24:17
Speaker 1: you know, if it was just a flyer of like
24:19
Speaker 1: pornographic ads, he couldn't really say no, this is literature,
24:22
Speaker 1: Like check these out. The other two were involved patently
24:27
Speaker 1: offensive sexual conducts or appeal to prurient interest when taken
24:32
Speaker 1: as a whole. There it is, that's what connected a sexuality. Yeah. Um,
24:38
Speaker 1: but the big point with those, Chuck, is that, um,
24:41
Speaker 1: the the prurient interest is local, So basically like if
24:45
Speaker 1: everybody in your town would be offended by this, then
24:49
Speaker 1: that's the local judgment that's for that standard. But then
24:52
Speaker 1: the scientific, artistic, literary standard is national. So like if
24:57
Speaker 1: your town thinks it's science, but your town is notice
25:00
Speaker 1: talking about, that's not a standard. So that's obscenity that substantially.
25:06
Speaker 1: But the good thing is it's like if you are
25:08
Speaker 1: trying to um ban something as obscene, the burden of
25:12
Speaker 1: proof is on you to prove these three This thing
25:14
Speaker 1: passes all three points of the Miller type. That is
25:16
Speaker 1: true and that's a tough, tough burden to get passed
25:18
Speaker 1: into court to I'm surprised that more book banning fans
25:24
Speaker 1: aren't trying to infiltrate the library community, you know what
25:30
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I think they do constantly. Librarians. Yeah, I
25:34
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean if that's where the power is.
25:37
Speaker 1: I think the librarians like really um like the library industry.
25:41
Speaker 1: It's it's very powerful and like if they find out
25:44
Speaker 1: that you're you're a wolf and Cheep's clothing, they'll kill you. Boy,
25:47
Speaker 1: have you ever talked to librarians. Chris Pullette here is
25:50
Speaker 1: a librarian. They're really passionate, passionate people. It's it's it's
25:54
Speaker 1: almost like a public service in a way. Yeah, because
25:57
Speaker 1: I'm sure they don't make a lot of dough and
25:59
Speaker 1: they just all really believe in knowledge and protecting, protecting freedoms. Yeah,
26:05
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. Yeah, librarians. Yeah. I could give your
26:08
Speaker 1: local librarian a pat on the back today. Yeah, give
26:11
Speaker 1: him a hug. Ask him first and then give him
26:12
Speaker 1: a hug. And if they say no, don't give him
26:14
Speaker 1: a hug, right, just shake their hand and politely not Yeah,
26:17
Speaker 1: maybe a Curtesy and um, that's great chun, I like
26:22
Speaker 1: the curtesy. Al Right, well, if you want to learn
26:24
Speaker 1: more about banned books, we suggest you go to the
26:26
Speaker 1: A l A site. Uh that's I believe a la
26:30
Speaker 1: dot com. And then you can also write in banned
26:33
Speaker 1: books in the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
26:36
Speaker 1: And it's gonna bring up this, uh, really great article.
26:39
Speaker 1: And I said search bar, which means finally it's time
26:43
Speaker 1: for a listener. Maw josh, you're gonna call this disco
26:48
Speaker 1: fever from Diane in Kentucky. Hey, guys, your disco episode
26:53
Speaker 1: brought back fond memories for me. In the summer of
26:56
Speaker 1: was in my early twenties, and I've just made it
26:59
Speaker 1: from the Sticks to the Pig City, New York City.
27:02
Speaker 1: It's a big sin. I had very little money. The
27:04
Speaker 1: city's infrastructure was crumbling, and this kind of what we
27:07
Speaker 1: pointed out, you know, the bad economy, and I was
27:09
Speaker 1: separated from my boyfriend by a continent, a bigger obstacle
27:14
Speaker 1: in those days before cell phones and the internet and
27:16
Speaker 1: reasonable air affairs like that was back when a long
27:18
Speaker 1: distance relationship was like serious. Yeah, um remember those days,
27:22
Speaker 1: Like is it long distance? I don't talk too long.
27:26
Speaker 1: It's long distance. Yeah, now it's like what, Yeah, I
27:29
Speaker 1: forgot about that UM ten, ten to twenty or whatever,
27:33
Speaker 1: like certain times a day were cheaper or something. No,
27:35
Speaker 1: there's like a number you could dial out, like real
27:38
Speaker 1: cheap long distance to remember that. I was questioning the
27:43
Speaker 1: decisions I had made in my life, and it was
27:45
Speaker 1: pretty much a struggle for me. But I had disco.
27:49
Speaker 1: I would go with a guy friend to a place
27:51
Speaker 1: on Third Avenue that was more or less the equivalent
27:53
Speaker 1: of an Applebee's with disco music and a dance floor
27:56
Speaker 1: complete with disco ball. It certainly wasn't what you would
27:59
Speaker 1: call a disco to or a cool place by any
28:01
Speaker 1: stretch of the imagination. But she was broke and we
28:05
Speaker 1: could order the cheapest thing on the menu and spend
28:06
Speaker 1: the whole night dancing. It was completely oblivious to any
28:09
Speaker 1: social or cultural implications of the music, but just knew
28:14
Speaker 1: that it was cheap entertainment and so much fun. Yes,
28:18
Speaker 1: the lyrics were silly and the beat was rather unimaginative,
28:21
Speaker 1: but coming off the era of Vietnam, Watergate and a
28:24
Speaker 1: plethora of social upheavals, that was the great part of
28:27
Speaker 1: the appeal. Dancing to disco and laughing at the lyrics
28:30
Speaker 1: was play. It was easy to learn the moves and
28:33
Speaker 1: much for her, not for me. Uh, and much more
28:37
Speaker 1: fun than the mindless dancing um which attended rock music,
28:41
Speaker 1: which I like to listen to. But let's face it,
28:43
Speaker 1: dancing to rock music it's pretty boring, pretty fast. I
28:47
Speaker 1: don't know if I thought it was the best disco song,
28:49
Speaker 1: but one of the most fun and exhilarating and inanely
28:52
Speaker 1: silly for me was Donna Summers MacArthur Park still brings
28:57
Speaker 1: a smile to my face just thinking about it. I
28:59
Speaker 1: didn't know Donnati was Dick MacArthur Park there. Then that
29:02
Speaker 1: was Diane Rally in Louisville, Kentucky. So glad we could
29:06
Speaker 1: bring back some good memories there for you. Yeah, thanks
29:08
Speaker 1: a lot, Diane. Awesome. And we've heard from a lot
29:11
Speaker 1: of people who are like, guys, you're saying that, Um,
29:13
Speaker 1: if I hate discodes because I'm homophobic, don't be stupid. No,
29:17
Speaker 1: we didn't say that specifically. We said if you hate
29:20
Speaker 1: disco outright with a burning passion, but for no real reason,
29:25
Speaker 1: you can't really tell why it's getting to you like this,
29:28
Speaker 1: Maybe it's time step back in examine it. Sure, we
29:30
Speaker 1: also said that there's plenty room for people who just
29:32
Speaker 1: don't like disco, just don't like the music, and it
29:34
Speaker 1: doesn't mean your hope of phobics, So lighten up and
29:37
Speaker 1: listen more clearly, UM, If you want to get in
29:40
Speaker 1: touch with me and Chuck, you can tweet, tweet to us,
29:44
Speaker 1: um to s Y s K podcast. You can also
29:48
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com slash you should Know.
29:50
Speaker 1: You can also read us The Riot Act via via
29:54
Speaker 1: email at stuff podcast at Discovery dot com. For more
30:05
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff
30:07
Speaker 1: works dot com. MHM brought to you by the reinvented
30:17
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you