[Aiwendil]

Bill Ferny:

In regard to movie critics, I’m speaking of the act of censuring, that is judging something as bad

Okay. But the original question was about something quite different.

(or in the case of SW II, absolutely horrendous)

I am forced to disagree vehemently on this point.

unless not having a book on a school library is considered restriction.

It can be, if it is done in order to restrict access to that book. Of course, not every library can have every book ever written.

The reason for this is because most people lack a language to deal with the objective reality of religion, as is evidenced by our constant referral to rights language that neatly sets religion aside as a peripheral subject relevant only to the individual.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this. I don't have anything against discussing religion; I find it rather interesting. Nonetheless, our common notion of human rights should not depend upon any individual's religion.

Agnosticism is not equivalent to open-mindedness.

It seems to me that it's quintessentially open-minded. To tell a student "there is God" is to repress the idea that there is no God. To tell a student "there is no God" is to repress the idea that there is one.

Agnosticism does not open debate, it closes it.

How so? If everyone agrees that there is a God, then there's no debate. If everyone agrees that there's no God, then there's no debate there either. If we acknowledge that we don't know, then we can entertain debate in pursuit of an answer. If someone said "I don't know" and then simply refused to entertain any further inquiry, that would be closed-minded. But genuine Agnosticism is open to all arguments.

It would be very difficult to argue that Catholic schools do not primarily teach Catholicism. In fact, that is the only reason why they exist, and reading, writing, and arithmetic are secondary. Catholic schools “cater to Catholic interests” because they are Catholic. The connotation that this is a bad thing perplexes me, but I may be reading something into your post that is not there.

I did not say that it is a bad thing. The original point was this: taxpayer money should not be taken out of public schools and given to private schools because they "cater to special interests" like Catholicism. That is, they serve only a portion of the population, not everyone.

Non-Catholics, it is true, can have problems in this atmosphere, but lets face it, if you want your children to grow up as Marxists, you are going to have problems with the public school system.

My point is that public schools should be places open to any argument as an argument. I don't see any problem with a public school acknowledging that many people are Catholics and describing their beliefs, or with examining the strengths and weaknesses of Marxist theory.

But my intolerance can take the form of constantly challenging him and the views he holds

Again, we seem to be using different definitions. To me, tolerance means this: a willingness to accept any argument on its own merits and willingness to allow those with whom you disagree, if they are not persuaded by argument, to continue to disagree, so long as they do not cause clear harm to others in doing so. Argument does not run contrary to tolerance; it is essential to tolerance.

The challenging of my neighbor’s views, or the emphatic denial of their validity, is not the same thing as repressing him.

Right. But the type of censorship that sparked this thread is indeed repression.

However, it is not possible to be faithful to one’s religion and to be tolerant of ideas that contradict that religion.

You haven't addressed one of my hypothetical situations, though: what if someone's faith compelled them to ban the Bible, or to do everything possible to restrict access to it? Suppose there were a school system in which the people of this faith predominated. If they ban the Bible, or any discussion of Christianity, from public schools, is that fair to the Christian minority? Certainly not. How, then, is it different for a Christian majority to ban works based on their faith?

Kalessin:

In the end the deconstruction to 'tolerating intolerance' is probably inevitable.

I think I agree, though this deconstruction is unfortunate.

I have direct experience that some schools, or teachers, treat traditional theories of physical science as holy writ, and insist on a (typically incomplete and flawed) indoctrination of absolute materialism.

That an unfortunately high number of teachers do not understand evolution properly does not mean that evolution itself, the proper theory, should not be taught.

My personal experience is that censorship works best (if it works at all), when undertaken in a pragmatic way, on a case by case basis, and that each decision is only valid for the time in which it was taken. I think that blanket censorship on the grounds of religion, morality or other tenet, is ultimately destructive and disempowering - and the evidence is that it is often self-defeating.

I actually agree with this entirely. (Shocking!)

Again Bill Ferny:

The problem with this statement is that those nutty people who want to ban fantasy books are using the same argument. These fantasy books, in their minds, by being present in the public schools, is an imposition on them. An argument from toleration becomes a vicious circle, and this circle is the evolution of political correctness.

The argument from toleration does solve this problem, regardless of whether certain school administrators listen to it or not. There is a profound difference between imposing your view on someone and exposing your view to someone. Banning books is imposition. Not banning books is exposure.

One last note (and I know I'm going to inspire the heated contention of a lot of people with this): Political correctness. It has in recent years been blasted unceasingly. Yet there is - or rather, there should be - a big difference between political correctness and censorship. Political correctness means making an effort toward equity and toward tolerance in one's speech. It means saying "he or she" instead of just "he", it means not talking about "flesh colored" and meaning just Caucasian, it means not making unfair stereotypes or generalizations about races or cultures. It should not mean prohibiting ideas, however objectionable they may be. Political correctness, when coupled with an open-mind is a very good thing.

[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: Aiwendil ]