Discussion summary
Dua Lipa opened a library in Portugal for banned and censored books, sparking discussions on book bans and their implications.
What the discussion says
- Some commenters defend books like The Handmaid's Tale as well-written and valuable.
- Others argue that certain books are banned for reasons like appropriateness in specific settings.
- There is debate over whether banning books equates to censorship or is justified by context.
“Books that are simply bad and take an aggressive, political bent are often banned.”
“The Handmaid’s Tale is quite good, despite being banned in some places.”
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- Hacker News
- I hope that her star power encourages young people to read literally anything. The ability for her fans to sit with a singular text, without ad breaks, sponcon, brand deals, and everything else on social media seems like a societal win.by werber
- Looking forward to picking up copies of The Bell Curve and The Camp of the Saints since free speech is now so widely supported in Europe.by quaddoggy
- A lot of people in this thread think they're being clever by pointing out that a bookstore can't sell "banned" books. But it's common for bookstores and libraries to feature titles that have been banned in some jurisdictions. It's a small way to push back against censorship and promote freedom of information and critical thinking.
- Here's a video to highlight why Dua Lipa is not a typical "celebrity book club" type person: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN1rULxGHCA
I've actually really been a fan of her, and her music before I heard about her Service95 endeavour. So seeing that video led me to looking into her Service95 work, and yeah, I have to say, she's the real deal.
by HorizonXP - Dua Lipa opens, in Portugal, a library for books that are banned and censored (elsewhere).
- I find this video that looks at Dua Lipa and her love of books great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN1rULxGHCAby teh64
- Livraria does not mean library, but bookstore. The Livraria Lello where this is located, is definitely a bookshop.
It is not clear to me from the reporting if Manifesto Library is a translation error or if it really is a library within a bookshop.
I suspect it's neither and more like an art installation.
by weinzierl - Whenever the topic of “banned books” comes up, a bunch of people argue about whether they should be called “banned”.
What I haven’t seen mentioned in these discussions is where the mental association of “banned books” comes from.
In America, at least, the school curriculum spends a lot of time talking about dictators. It mentions, numerous times over many years of a child’s life, that something dictators often do is to ban books that could make people question them or that could make people support people the dictator doesn’t like, etc. In all such cases covered in the school curriculum, dictators’ “banned books” are not allowed to be sold in the country at all, and are often destroyed, sometimes even in mass burnings.
So, this is the psychological association people typically have with the phrase “banned books”.
The news articles over the past X years declaring something like “Government Y bans books!” seem to be leveraging this mental association to give people the emotional impression that Government Y is doing dictatorships things. I think this is why people get annoyed, since not allowing whatever books in the school library is not a dictator thing (okay dictators do it but it’s like drinking milk or being against animal cruelty, it’s not something that is primarily done by dictators).
So, when people say that not allowing a book in a school library is a type of ban, they are correct, but they ignore this association which most people have from school.
by pfannkuchen