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Don Shuler's avatar

Thanks again, Ken, for pushing my buttons and sharing Preller’s insight: “When we ban books…we surrender our ability to build empathy, compassion, and understanding.” I concur.

I would add that it all comes down to a lack of humility. By humility I do not mean a “Casper milquetoast” kind of mentality or attitude.

Humility, for me, means creating an empty space in our lives where others can enter in. We are so full of our own ideas, opinions, feelings, experiences, and stories, that we have no room in our lives for the stories, experiences, feelings, opinions, and ideas of others—whether we agree with them or not.

Banning books arises out of a lack of humility, of not creating space in our lives where others can enter in. Where there is no humility there is no “empathy, compassion, or understanding.”

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Christine Corlew's avatar

I have read many, many of those “banned “ books over the years. As far as I can tell, I turned out to be fairly well rounded adult.

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