JOUR 601 Lecture Notes - Lecture 76: Natural Disaster, Prior Restraint, False Advertising
19 Aug 2020
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Document Summary
The idea that the government shouldn"t destroy or censor its harmful writings is new and not as embraced worldwide. Books are not destroyed because they are books, but because it links memory. This is one of the identifying factors of human and community identity. The root of destroying books is to induce forgetfulness of history that created control of a person or society. In ancient sumer, preserving tablets and books was turned over to scribes to protect from war and flooding damage and politics shifted. While a lot of texts survived, there were 100,000 clay books that were deliberately destroyed by war and natural disaster. Destroying books has happened throughout different religions and cultures over time. Beyond this, censorship is another way those in power have tried to control culture and memory. This was the baseline for first amendment guarantees that demanded congress to make no laws abridging on freedom of speech and press.
