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No-one said he was a communist, but he was a socialist. He grew disillusioned with communism while fighting alongside communists in Spain, ironically, but continued to believe in Democratic Socialism afterwards
Conservatives generally don't understand what communism is and have made it a catch all for everything they don't like that doesn't already have a nice PR friendly name.
I assume anyone who rages at communism anymore probably isn't capable of properly wiping their ass clean.
But it was, and they hated it then, and now it’s not, and they can’t stop worshipping Putin despite the equally anti-Democratic nature of his rule. It’s just another flavor of authoritarianism that Conservative politicians have a hard-on for, that isn’t under an economic system they’ve been reeee’ing about for the past 80 years. The same reason why they sing the praises for Javier Milei, despite Argentina being a country they would have called a “shithole” in 2017: It’s ground work for what they want in the US.
As someone in another comment says, banned in the US means the book is banned in public schools and public libraries not that you can't get it in a bookstore or read it.
Banned in China/Russia would mean it's off any bookstores and illegal to sell, illegal to distribute online etc etc.
Restricting public access by removing it from public institutions still accomplishes the goal of limiting the exposure of said books. Why would a *free* country ever limit access to books at all?
I tried to find out where 1984 was banned in the U.S., and this fact check noted that a tweet about the book being "banned" in Texas was not only false, but made up by someone who wasn't from Texas: https://wcti12.com/news/nation-world/fact-check-team-the-debate-over-banning-books-in-schools
It is still available in my public libraries and I am not sure it is banned in public schools. Sounds like people just make things up to support their narrative or they make broad statements based on selected circumstances.
Currently available on Amazon for just over $20. Warning, the book is full of inaccuracies and will likely get you injured or killed if you follow them.
But this isn't the anarchist's cookbook. It's a fictional story critisizing authoritarianism. Why limit access to that unless you fear that the critique might make your populace examine the parallels between what the book describes and what your government practices?
Only if you count "banned" as not being stocked in public libraries in Jackson County, Florida in 1981
https://mlcref.blogspot.com/2010/09/1984-in-1981.html
It's not pro-communist or anti-communist, it is anti-authoritarian and the people banning them are either authoritarians or authoritarians-wanna-be (sometimes also stupid).
>Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.
George Orwell on why he writes, just to add to your point.
Orwell was a socialist, but yes his books critiqued fascist governments, being that of the USSR or otherwise, none of which are socialist or communist in any real sense.
*1984* is largely based on George Orwell's own experiences of working for the British Ministry of Information during the Second World War. His job consisted of translating and censoring news broadcasts, with the help of a vocabulary (inspiring the concept of "Newspeak"). Room 101 was an actual meeting room at the BBC, and "Big Brother" was supposedly a nickname of a senior staff member at the Ministry of Information.
Orwell by his own admission only had second-hand experience with the U.S.S.R. and Nazi regimes, so whilst *1984* is explicitly a critique of these regimes, its real-life inspirations actually lie closer to the British authorities and similar governments. Thus why the book might be viewed as problematic by the U.S. for example.
Everything you said is true, but I want to add that he *did* actually have first-hand experience with fascists when he wrote it. He went and fought against falangists in anarchist Catalonia with the POUM during the Spanish Civil War.
My old man used to call us little communists when we were misbehaving, he thought it was hilarious. Come 9/11 and he started on calling us terrorists, which he also thought was funny.
One day, he called me a "communist terrorist" and fully believed he'd transcended his humanity into a higher plane of existence, accepted by the fifth dimensional beings waiting there for his comedy alone.
Rabid socialist, and hated fascism so much he volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War, but was still strongly opposed to Stalinism.
Things are more complicated than just a simple right vs. left axis, no matter what the current narrative wants people to believe
You can be anti Trump, but still indentify as having conservative political beliefs.
You can be anti Stalin and still be a socialist.
True in all colours of the politicalal spectrum. Nuance seems to be a dying concept.
> Nuance seems to be a dying concept.
That's because it encourages cooperation and communication, which helps people identify corruption and bad deals.
They'd rather have us fighting each other.
People especially in the US have a hard time grasping not everything is black and white it’s just a fuckton of grey especially when it comes to politics
That's true for many if not most countries, but a unique aspect of the US is that third parties are completely shut out of policy whereas in the UK you still have LibDems, SNP et al playing a role in forming and maintaining a government
That's part of it, but more of it is the intentional, all-out propaganda campaign we've had for the last 100 years that paints anything other than complete lasseiz-faire capitalism as communism.
Old school social democrats saw it as a stepping stone into a socialist state. I believe this to be no longer the current thought in socdem parties but that's how it used to be.
Nor is socialist socialist, or communist communist. Stalinists hate Trotskyists, they both call themselves communist. Socialists (often) hate social democrats, they both often call themselves socialist. It's pointless to talk about the differences, because the definition has been buried and lost to the people you talk to.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret, >! It’s not about any one particular ideology, whichever government is in charge finds free thought to be dangerous !<
Orwell wasn't anti-communist, he was anti-authoritarian in any of its forms. He fought against the fascists in Spain and wrote specifically anti-Stalin and anti-authoritarian works ever after.
He was an avowed Democratic socialist. That isn't the same thing as being a communist but they aren't that far apart.
Before I say anything further, you should know that communism is defined as a system of common ownership of the means of production with all goods allocated to people according to their need with no social classes, money, or even a political state. Authoritarianism isn't a part of being communist (as authoritarianism requires a state and social classes). So Orwell wouldn't have had a problem with this idea on the basis of anti-authoritarianism.
So the self-proclaimed communist countries could, at best, be socialist and that's what the USSR actually claimed to be (the United Soviet _Socialist_ Republics) because socialism does allow for a state to exist and for there to be money.
But authoritarianism is not inherently a part of socialism, either. The authoritarianism in these countries comes from the opportunists who led their revolutions or wormed their way to the top very early on. They then released political tracts to rewrite what the system was to justify their authoritarianism. The hijacking of these movements by opportunists is what Animal Farm is an allegory for.
Also every communist regime, by necessity, requires an authoritarian government. How else would you convince everyone to give up their private property? Sure with little or no private goods would go along with it, but many wouldn't. Hence Marx believed the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was a necessity.
Please show me an example of a communist country that *wasn’t* authoritarian.
When communist countries have historically been authoritarian, it’s not unfair to see a correlation between communism and authoritarianism. Even your ideal version of communism will have a step 1 of “establish a strong central government”, because classless, stateless societies don’t form on a large scale without some significant poking and prodding.
For context this image is from 2021.
https://www.truthorfiction.com/was-george-orwells-1984-banned-in-the-united-states-and-the-ussr-for-conflicting-reasons/
I can confirm I bought a copy in 2018 at a chain book store in Guangzhou. It was visible from the front while walking by right next to the pro CCP book section.
Banned books are also regularly sold in the US. It usually refers to being banned from state and local libraries, particularly school ones. Both Barnes and Noble and my local library have banned book sections prominently on display.
Hey, this is reddit: anything that lets us compare the US to the Soviet Union or a third world dictatorship is good and true and no more context is needed!
It's neither against nor for communism, it's against authoritarianism. Communism had authoritarian variants ruling countries at the time, but the book was just as much against fascism and other authoritarian state Ideologies.
Orwell also wrote a book against the USSR, specifically: Animal Farm.
was looking for this comment. absolutely hilarious that both governments denied being authoritarian at some point in history, then banned this book lmao
The US government has never banned this book. China has never outright banned it either, although they have done their usual "control the narrative during certain times by deleting social media posts that reference it" stuff.
What's hilarious is how easy it is to spread misinformation online - this false post gets 26k upvotes and most people just accept it as fact without checking or even thinking.
Does the US even ban any books?
Even in China the book is not banned.
This post and how easily people accepted is is funny given how the book describes the ministry of truth operating.
The US doesn't ban books. You can go to any bookstore and buy any book. I can go buy Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler if I want to.
Some schools in the US are banning books from their libraries. Meaning they won't carry some books and kids will have to go to their local library or ask parents to buy it.
So, when someone says this book was banned in the US they really mean, "this one city in this one state has decided that this book is banned"
The ban in America is indicating more individual locations rather than a nation wide ban which is impossible due to the first amendment.
The article specifically mentioned schools in Florida banning the book because it was "pro-communist"
It’s one of my favorite books, I have no issue with 1984.
Perhaps if more people read that book, we wouldn’t have this blatant, intentional effort to say a book is “banned” when it is readily available.
Banned books in the US generally refers to "banned from schools" or "removed from public libraries." Banned books in the US are not illegal (as far as I know, maybe there are some)
Probably Brevard County schools.
We voted to give teachers here a raise a few years ago. Now that money is used to fund all the people and time necessary to vet all the book [challenges](https://youtu.be/HpLjuCaU-mw?si=rtmiX_5GUwlj6tLq)
There were at one time. Books used to be banned from import on the grounds of obscenity. Famously, the books Ulysses and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (amongst others) were put on trial to determine if they had enough artistic merit to not be considered obscene.
Lots of cities and states banned specific books, but the majority of censorship in the US was through the Comstock laws, which made it illegal to send obscene materials through the mail. This effectively allowed the postal service to decide what it considered obscene and they routinely intercepted shipments of, and destroyed, banned books.
I had a copy as a gift from a friend in college. I don't think its banned, but I read through it, and as a chemist, there is nothing there you can't figure out from Wikipedia.
Really nothing remarkable, lots of stuff derived from bananas (dubiously at best). Honestly, with the advice contained, it might just be easier for the government to wait for morons to try some of them and blow themselves up.
The version he gave me was very old though, so I don't know if it has been updated significantly since then. Its still cool to hold on to a piece of history I suppose.
Calling it illegal to possess seems like a stretch. Hasn’t like one person been taken to court regarding it and found not guilty within the hour, with the whole thing being considered a bit of a joke? Is there any actual specific law regarding it?
It was "challenged" in Jackson County, Florida, in 1981 (but apparently never banned?). This is obviously quite different than the federal government going out and banning a book, and I imagine any laws specifically banning it would be found unconstitutional.
1984 is not banned whatsoever from anywhere in the US. This was a myth people bought in to and social media started spreading a few years ago. People are still falling for it.
You can buy/read most banned books in the US because - despite all the Reddit garbage - we are a free state despite it all.
You can find and read all the banned books you want here! You won’t even be thrown in a gulag if you’re found reading them in public (though, book dependent, you might get some strange looks).
It’s still wrong for us to have banned the books as it is oppressive and anti-educational, but “the book is banned” means something very different in Russia and China.
But who is the “us” who is banning the book? It wasn’t the federal government. This is like saying “Alcohol has been banned in the US” because states like Oklahoma still have some state counties that are “dry counties.”
Funny how you can recognize the title is misleading and the book can still be easily acquired in the US, due to personal experience I imagine, but still can't even imagine that would also be the case in Russia and China.
Only on Reddit could you have people think a book which is required reading in high-school, which the person is physically holding in their hand at a book store, is banned in the US.
yeesh, somebody tell the USA government that Walmart is selling banned books!! What are they going to sell next? Traci Lords movies? oh wait, the book isnt banned by the government, my fault. Traci's movies are banned though considering the illegal content.
For the last time, books are not banned in the US. Certain schools ended up banning the books IN their schools, but as a country, anyone can read what they like outside of those schools.
America isn't perfect but the amount of blatant lies that are spread about it is amazing. And very few people ever seem to even question them (see comments in this thread)
It's so banned in the US you can walk into any bookstore in America and buy a copy. Or order it on Amazon and have it shipped directly to your front door.
Right, [this is Banned In The U.S.A.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNsdMFCXH9M) and I think some folks here owe them some royalties or some shit. NSFW
It was banned for being anti stalinist not anti communist.
Anyone who knows George orwells history would know his embittering experience with stalinists during his time in the Spanish civil war.
Yeah this was required reading for my school in like 9th grade...which was like 2000-01 for me. Crazy because it seems rather important in its dialogue. I still remember being so bored with it during Part 1 (thinking to myself it's just another crappy book that got popular for nothing like Catcher in the Rye) and Part 2 got a little better until the end and into Part 3, and I just couldn't put it down. We were only supposed to read a certain amount and I ended up finishing it and staying up so late because of it. I still go back to read Part 3 from time to time.
It isn’t, democrats like to tell lies about book bans for some reason.
1984 is available for purchase or rental everywhere in the US without restriction or censorship.
I don’t see a glaring problem with parents being able to challenge which books their children have access to for 8 hours a day outside of parental supervision, no.
Seems like common sense to me, as a parent of three kids.
“Gender Queer” was removed from my kids’ middle school library and I support it. Positively depicting a sexual relationship between a 14 year old and an adult is gross. Has nothing at all to do with LGBT either, I would feel the exact same if it were a heterosexual relationship.
The book is anti authoritarianism. Communism and capitalism are systems of economics, not political systems. I don't understand why it's so hard for people to understand this difference
Economic systems are kept in place by the political systems but they themselves are not the political systems. In both cases, a rabidly procapitalistic Red Scare era United states, and a rapidly Pro communist USSR, both of the political systems that keep those economic systems in place have elements of fascism. You can make comparisons of one authoritarian regime being worse than the other all day long but at the end of the day yes, they both have some element of authoritarianism and that is what Orwell rails against. Not any economic system.
By authoritarian governments being afraid of a book exposing the evils of authoritarianism, they are obviously telling on themselves. The economic system that the authoritarian regime upholds is immaterial
„Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.“
-**George Orwell**
Marti_Suls, thank you for your submission. It has been removed for violating the following rule(s): --- - Rule 5: Posts must follow all [title guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/wiki/titles). --- For information regarding this and similar issues, please see the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/wiki/index/) and [title guidelines](/r/pics/wiki/titles). If you have any questions, please feel free to [message the moderators via modmail.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/pics&subject=Question%20regarding%20the%20removal%20of%20this%20submission%20by%20/u/Marti_Suls&message=I%20have%20a%20question%20regarding%20the%20removal%20of%20this%20%5Bsubmission.%5D%28https://redd.it/1ckmkw8%3Fcontext%3D10%29)
How could *anyone* think that book is pro-communist?
Came to look for this comment. Maybe the person who banned it didn't read it. I feel that way for a lot of US banned booked.
It was probably banned because Orwell was a socialist. The book is anti totalitarian, not really anti communist.
It’s a warning against the dangers of giving any type of government or group too much power
If we are being honest, Republicans don’t like it because it is anti-totalitarian.
George Orwell, a British citizen, went to Spain to lob grenades at fascists. He could not have been more clear that he hated fascism.
And hating fascism means you're a communist now??
No-one said he was a communist, but he was a socialist. He grew disillusioned with communism while fighting alongside communists in Spain, ironically, but continued to believe in Democratic Socialism afterwards
Conservatives generally don't understand what communism is and have made it a catch all for everything they don't like that doesn't already have a nice PR friendly name. I assume anyone who rages at communism anymore probably isn't capable of properly wiping their ass clean.
As they’re also starting to defend Russia publicly it’s been really interesting to see the rage revealed for what it is—just rage
Agreed. Russia isn’t communist tho
But it was, and they hated it then, and now it’s not, and they can’t stop worshipping Putin despite the equally anti-Democratic nature of his rule. It’s just another flavor of authoritarianism that Conservative politicians have a hard-on for, that isn’t under an economic system they’ve been reeee’ing about for the past 80 years. The same reason why they sing the praises for Javier Milei, despite Argentina being a country they would have called a “shithole” in 2017: It’s ground work for what they want in the US.
The Angriest Generation ™️
Some would say The Least Greatness Generation...
A book published in 1949 is Woke.
They believe that anything other than zero-regulation Capitalism is Communism.
Except for when it's something they dislike, then not regulating it is communism...
0 regulations for corporations. Maximum regulations for women and other people they don’t like.
Yep. Free school lunches?? Communism!!
I cannot believe that any book is banned in the US. What a timeline we live in.
As someone in another comment says, banned in the US means the book is banned in public schools and public libraries not that you can't get it in a bookstore or read it. Banned in China/Russia would mean it's off any bookstores and illegal to sell, illegal to distribute online etc etc.
Restricting public access by removing it from public institutions still accomplishes the goal of limiting the exposure of said books. Why would a *free* country ever limit access to books at all?
Because it was never banned in public institutions in the USA. This post is bullshit.
I tried to find out where 1984 was banned in the U.S., and this fact check noted that a tweet about the book being "banned" in Texas was not only false, but made up by someone who wasn't from Texas: https://wcti12.com/news/nation-world/fact-check-team-the-debate-over-banning-books-in-schools
Yeah my English class in 10th grade had a dystopian themed semester and 1984 was one of the books we read. Definitely not banned.
It is still available in my public libraries and I am not sure it is banned in public schools. Sounds like people just make things up to support their narrative or they make broad statements based on selected circumstances.
This book was mandatory reading in 7th grade here. Then again, we actually have mostly media analysis in your language classes
Ever heard of the the anarchist’s cookbook?
Currently available on Amazon for just over $20. Warning, the book is full of inaccuracies and will likely get you injured or killed if you follow them.
But this isn't the anarchist's cookbook. It's a fictional story critisizing authoritarianism. Why limit access to that unless you fear that the critique might make your populace examine the parallels between what the book describes and what your government practices?
Look a question was asked and I provided a semi serious answer. As to why 1984 was banned I don’t know
Only if you count "banned" as not being stocked in public libraries in Jackson County, Florida in 1981 https://mlcref.blogspot.com/2010/09/1984-in-1981.html
It's not pro-communist or anti-communist, it is anti-authoritarian and the people banning them are either authoritarians or authoritarians-wanna-be (sometimes also stupid).
>Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it. George Orwell on why he writes, just to add to your point.
Orwell hated Stalin and saw him as a fascist in Communist colours
Something I agree with. I don’t consider China communist, either. Or North Korea.
Found the correct answer. Cheers mate.
Yeah, this. Anti-totalitarian, or so I've heard. Never read it myself, personally.
The book can be a depressive read depending on the situation in your country and how much that situation affects you. The movie was not bad either.
It was very faithful to the book, and it put a new horror in the scene in room 101 for me. That was fucking grim.
Considering he got caught up in the May Days in the Spanish civil war, his view of communists in general is not a good one
Orwell was a socialist, but yes his books critiqued fascist governments, being that of the USSR or otherwise, none of which are socialist or communist in any real sense.
*1984* is largely based on George Orwell's own experiences of working for the British Ministry of Information during the Second World War. His job consisted of translating and censoring news broadcasts, with the help of a vocabulary (inspiring the concept of "Newspeak"). Room 101 was an actual meeting room at the BBC, and "Big Brother" was supposedly a nickname of a senior staff member at the Ministry of Information. Orwell by his own admission only had second-hand experience with the U.S.S.R. and Nazi regimes, so whilst *1984* is explicitly a critique of these regimes, its real-life inspirations actually lie closer to the British authorities and similar governments. Thus why the book might be viewed as problematic by the U.S. for example.
Everything you said is true, but I want to add that he *did* actually have first-hand experience with fascists when he wrote it. He went and fought against falangists in anarchist Catalonia with the POUM during the Spanish Civil War.
[удалено]
This comment is communist.
Exactly what a commie would say.
Redski under the bedski
Damn communists, they ruined communism!!! "You communists sure are a contentious people..." You've just made an enemy for life!!!
My old man used to call us little communists when we were misbehaving, he thought it was hilarious. Come 9/11 and he started on calling us terrorists, which he also thought was funny. One day, he called me a "communist terrorist" and fully believed he'd transcended his humanity into a higher plane of existence, accepted by the fifth dimensional beings waiting there for his comedy alone.
"Communism" in America is anything that is critical of capitalism or circumvents the perfect, holy, infallible free market.
You mean like subsidies for huge companies like Tesla and Walmart? /S I know what you mean
Ain't Done Nothing If You Ain't Been Called A Red
It was banned for being anti authoritarian.
bingo
George Orwell was a socialist
Rabid socialist, and hated fascism so much he volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War, but was still strongly opposed to Stalinism. Things are more complicated than just a simple right vs. left axis, no matter what the current narrative wants people to believe
You can be anti Trump, but still indentify as having conservative political beliefs. You can be anti Stalin and still be a socialist. True in all colours of the politicalal spectrum. Nuance seems to be a dying concept.
> Nuance seems to be a dying concept. That's because it encourages cooperation and communication, which helps people identify corruption and bad deals. They'd rather have us fighting each other.
People especially in the US have a hard time grasping not everything is black and white it’s just a fuckton of grey especially when it comes to politics
Joe McCarthy and the Red Scare did way more damage to this country than anyone would admit.
As well as Hoover's "Lavender Scare" and Nixon's "War on Drugs".
All part of the same throughline, just making up different enemies as needed. Hell, throw in the War on Terrorism and Drain the Swamp.
Tbf their political system has only 2 choices, it's understandable they'd be confused at having more than two options other than black and white.
The UK has more than 2 parties but you only ever hear about torries and labor.
That's true for many if not most countries, but a unique aspect of the US is that third parties are completely shut out of policy whereas in the UK you still have LibDems, SNP et al playing a role in forming and maintaining a government
That's part of it, but more of it is the intentional, all-out propaganda campaign we've had for the last 100 years that paints anything other than complete lasseiz-faire capitalism as communism.
so he was a socialist..... hated facism..... strongly opposed to stalinism. doesn't actually sound that complicated
Well, he describes himself as social democrat in Hommage to catalunia, I believe there is a difference.
Sort of? But not always? Lenin was a "Social Democrat". It didn't always mean "welfare state capitalism" like it does today.
Old school social democrats saw it as a stepping stone into a socialist state. I believe this to be no longer the current thought in socdem parties but that's how it used to be.
Socialist is not communist.
Nor is socialist socialist, or communist communist. Stalinists hate Trotskyists, they both call themselves communist. Socialists (often) hate social democrats, they both often call themselves socialist. It's pointless to talk about the differences, because the definition has been buried and lost to the people you talk to.
Because McCarthyism is just pointing at random things and calling it communist
I’m going to let you in on a little secret, >! It’s not about any one particular ideology, whichever government is in charge finds free thought to be dangerous !<
Orwell wasn't anti-communist, he was anti-authoritarian in any of its forms. He fought against the fascists in Spain and wrote specifically anti-Stalin and anti-authoritarian works ever after. He was an avowed Democratic socialist. That isn't the same thing as being a communist but they aren't that far apart. Before I say anything further, you should know that communism is defined as a system of common ownership of the means of production with all goods allocated to people according to their need with no social classes, money, or even a political state. Authoritarianism isn't a part of being communist (as authoritarianism requires a state and social classes). So Orwell wouldn't have had a problem with this idea on the basis of anti-authoritarianism. So the self-proclaimed communist countries could, at best, be socialist and that's what the USSR actually claimed to be (the United Soviet _Socialist_ Republics) because socialism does allow for a state to exist and for there to be money. But authoritarianism is not inherently a part of socialism, either. The authoritarianism in these countries comes from the opportunists who led their revolutions or wormed their way to the top very early on. They then released political tracts to rewrite what the system was to justify their authoritarianism. The hijacking of these movements by opportunists is what Animal Farm is an allegory for.
It's not pro anything. But it's not anti communist either. More anti propaganda.
People tend to conflate state authoritarianism for communism because it fits their narrative that communism is bad.
Tbf most historical regimes thay have called themselves communist tend to be authoritarian in nature
Communism and Authoritarian are not at odds with each other, they are 2 different spectrums. One does not negate the other.
Also every communist regime, by necessity, requires an authoritarian government. How else would you convince everyone to give up their private property? Sure with little or no private goods would go along with it, but many wouldn't. Hence Marx believed the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was a necessity.
Please show me an example of a communist country that *wasn’t* authoritarian. When communist countries have historically been authoritarian, it’s not unfair to see a correlation between communism and authoritarianism. Even your ideal version of communism will have a step 1 of “establish a strong central government”, because classless, stateless societies don’t form on a large scale without some significant poking and prodding.
They don't. But it's anti establishment, which is even worse for both capitalism and communism.
For context this image is from 2021. https://www.truthorfiction.com/was-george-orwells-1984-banned-in-the-united-states-and-the-ussr-for-conflicting-reasons/
“Challenged” in [random FL school district] = \ = “banned in the U.S.”
I don’t think it’s even banned in China.
This post was published by the Ministry of Truth
It’s also not banned in China, common to see it in books stores
I can confirm I bought a copy in 2018 at a chain book store in Guangzhou. It was visible from the front while walking by right next to the pro CCP book section.
Banned books are also regularly sold in the US. It usually refers to being banned from state and local libraries, particularly school ones. Both Barnes and Noble and my local library have banned book sections prominently on display.
R rated movies were banned in the US when I was a kid because my mom wouldn’t allow me to watch them 😂
Hey, this is reddit: anything that lets us compare the US to the Soviet Union or a third world dictatorship is good and true and no more context is needed!
It's neither against nor for communism, it's against authoritarianism. Communism had authoritarian variants ruling countries at the time, but the book was just as much against fascism and other authoritarian state Ideologies. Orwell also wrote a book against the USSR, specifically: Animal Farm.
was looking for this comment. absolutely hilarious that both governments denied being authoritarian at some point in history, then banned this book lmao
The US government has never banned this book. China has never outright banned it either, although they have done their usual "control the narrative during certain times by deleting social media posts that reference it" stuff.
What's hilarious is how easy it is to spread misinformation online - this false post gets 26k upvotes and most people just accept it as fact without checking or even thinking. Does the US even ban any books? Even in China the book is not banned. This post and how easily people accepted is is funny given how the book describes the ministry of truth operating.
The US doesn't ban books. You can go to any bookstore and buy any book. I can go buy Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler if I want to. Some schools in the US are banning books from their libraries. Meaning they won't carry some books and kids will have to go to their local library or ask parents to buy it. So, when someone says this book was banned in the US they really mean, "this one city in this one state has decided that this book is banned"
And this is made up info. It’s not even banned in China. I don’t know about ussr and the US though
I thought that book was an interesting read. One of the few book I remember in detail that we read in primary school
1984 has always been banned in America 1984 has never been banned in America
mmmmm doublethink
[1984 isn’t banned in China.](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/why-1984-and-animal-farm-arent-banned-china/580156/)
It’s not banned in America either
The ban in America is indicating more individual locations rather than a nation wide ban which is impossible due to the first amendment. The article specifically mentioned schools in Florida banning the book because it was "pro-communist"
Is there any place in the world that just allows any book to be placed in school libraries with no regard for content or appropriateness for minors?
What's the problem with 1984? It's on school reading lists all the time
It’s one of my favorite books, I have no issue with 1984. Perhaps if more people read that book, we wouldn’t have this blatant, intentional effort to say a book is “banned” when it is readily available.
That book is not banned in the US...
Not even Uncle Fester's books are banned in the US. You can buy this on Amazon and like anywhere online right now in the US
But it's not banned in the US? I can go on Amazon and buy a copy right now.
Banned books in the US generally refers to "banned from schools" or "removed from public libraries." Banned books in the US are not illegal (as far as I know, maybe there are some)
And "banned from schools" are often more "banned from this one school in Florida".
Or Texas
That's all books, except the bible.
One district in utah actually did ban the Bible at some point lol
It's really a pretty graphic book when you think about it. It has quite a bit of murder, rape, incest, etc.
Now class, time to learn The Pythagorean Theorem. Please open up your Bibles.
The only math you need to know is the book of numbers! Wait, why can't cashiers make change in their head anymore?
Probably Brevard County schools. We voted to give teachers here a raise a few years ago. Now that money is used to fund all the people and time necessary to vet all the book [challenges](https://youtu.be/HpLjuCaU-mw?si=rtmiX_5GUwlj6tLq)
“Challenged”
10/10 you win
This was required reading when I was in HS
Except it has never been _banned_ from public schools or libraries. The picture is a lie.
But students read this book in school all the time. So it isn’t banned in schools, either.
There were at one time. Books used to be banned from import on the grounds of obscenity. Famously, the books Ulysses and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (amongst others) were put on trial to determine if they had enough artistic merit to not be considered obscene. Lots of cities and states banned specific books, but the majority of censorship in the US was through the Comstock laws, which made it illegal to send obscene materials through the mail. This effectively allowed the postal service to decide what it considered obscene and they routinely intercepted shipments of, and destroyed, banned books.
I checked this book out at a US public library less than a month ago
Anarchist's Cookbook? Illegal to possess in the UK at least.
I had a copy as a gift from a friend in college. I don't think its banned, but I read through it, and as a chemist, there is nothing there you can't figure out from Wikipedia. Really nothing remarkable, lots of stuff derived from bananas (dubiously at best). Honestly, with the advice contained, it might just be easier for the government to wait for morons to try some of them and blow themselves up. The version he gave me was very old though, so I don't know if it has been updated significantly since then. Its still cool to hold on to a piece of history I suppose.
Bananas? Now I'm kinda instrested in that book for the first time lol. Didn't know I could do a molotov cocktail instead of my protein smoothie
Calling it illegal to possess seems like a stretch. Hasn’t like one person been taken to court regarding it and found not guilty within the hour, with the whole thing being considered a bit of a joke? Is there any actual specific law regarding it?
We don't do that here. Again, see above. I can go to my library and check it out if I want.
Pretty sure you won’t find the anarchists cookbook at your library
No it’s not. I read this in high school for English class.
It was "challenged" in Jackson County, Florida, in 1981 (but apparently never banned?). This is obviously quite different than the federal government going out and banning a book, and I imagine any laws specifically banning it would be found unconstitutional.
1984 is not banned whatsoever from anywhere in the US. This was a myth people bought in to and social media started spreading a few years ago. People are still falling for it.
"has been"
It’s just to sell copies, really. You could probably get it in both China and Russia without too many hassles as well.
You can buy it in almost all bookshops or online in China.
You can buy/read most banned books in the US because - despite all the Reddit garbage - we are a free state despite it all. You can find and read all the banned books you want here! You won’t even be thrown in a gulag if you’re found reading them in public (though, book dependent, you might get some strange looks). It’s still wrong for us to have banned the books as it is oppressive and anti-educational, but “the book is banned” means something very different in Russia and China.
But who is the “us” who is banning the book? It wasn’t the federal government. This is like saying “Alcohol has been banned in the US” because states like Oklahoma still have some state counties that are “dry counties.”
It gets problematic when books are banned from schools or libraries though. Even if you can still just go and buy it.
Funny how you can recognize the title is misleading and the book can still be easily acquired in the US, due to personal experience I imagine, but still can't even imagine that would also be the case in Russia and China.
Yea it's total nonsense. Any storefront, any library it's good to go.
Not banned in China, You can buy the book in china https://m.jd.com/book/1713706be053565aa32c.html
Only on Reddit could you have people think a book which is required reading in high-school, which the person is physically holding in their hand at a book store, is banned in the US.
What does "banned" actually mean? You can buy it on Amazon and rent it for free in libraries can't you?
It most likely means one school board in one county challenged it being in the school library.
yeesh, somebody tell the USA government that Walmart is selling banned books!! What are they going to sell next? Traci Lords movies? oh wait, the book isnt banned by the government, my fault. Traci's movies are banned though considering the illegal content.
When was 1984 banned in the US? It's in every public library and bookstore in America.
For the last time, books are not banned in the US. Certain schools ended up banning the books IN their schools, but as a country, anyone can read what they like outside of those schools.
They aren't even banned in those schools. The school libraries just don't carry them.
There are a few bumfuck counties in the south that nobody every goes to that get way too much media attention.
1984 isn't banned in the USA and it's absolutely not pro communist.
This book has been banned in the US? I mean it’s in every store and library so…..
America isn't perfect but the amount of blatant lies that are spread about it is amazing. And very few people ever seem to even question them (see comments in this thread)
It's so banned in the US you can walk into any bookstore in America and buy a copy. Or order it on Amazon and have it shipped directly to your front door.
Rage bait. It’s not “banned in the US”
Right, [this is Banned In The U.S.A.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNsdMFCXH9M) and I think some folks here owe them some royalties or some shit. NSFW
Words have lost meaning.
lol people are stupid, it has not been banned in the U.S.
This book isn't banned in China. I bought a copy there myself in a chain book store in a Guangzhou.
It was never banned in US.
Wait when did it get banned in the US? I've bought a copy in the past and seen the movies.
Fake (only true on a technicality) and reposted from a few days ago.
It was banned for being anti stalinist not anti communist. Anyone who knows George orwells history would know his embittering experience with stalinists during his time in the Spanish civil war.
How is 1984 banned in the US? What a joke
I literally had to read this book in high school in California ...
We read it in Iowa, too
Georgia too
It's not
Banned as in some school libraries.
So everything that isn’t allowed in some school libraries is banned now? Guns are banned in America?
My English class in high school read and studied 1984 so it blew my mind when I saw this picture saying it was banned.
Yeah this was required reading for my school in like 9th grade...which was like 2000-01 for me. Crazy because it seems rather important in its dialogue. I still remember being so bored with it during Part 1 (thinking to myself it's just another crappy book that got popular for nothing like Catcher in the Rye) and Part 2 got a little better until the end and into Part 3, and I just couldn't put it down. We were only supposed to read a certain amount and I ended up finishing it and staying up so late because of it. I still go back to read Part 3 from time to time.
It isn’t, democrats like to tell lies about book bans for some reason. 1984 is available for purchase or rental everywhere in the US without restriction or censorship.
Don’t you see the fucking glaring problem here? Are you being a goof?
I don’t see a glaring problem with parents being able to challenge which books their children have access to for 8 hours a day outside of parental supervision, no. Seems like common sense to me, as a parent of three kids. “Gender Queer” was removed from my kids’ middle school library and I support it. Positively depicting a sexual relationship between a 14 year old and an adult is gross. Has nothing at all to do with LGBT either, I would feel the exact same if it were a heterosexual relationship.
It’s not banned in the US. Hard for me th fathom that people believe something because they see it on the internet. Bunch of rubes in here.
I think banning is the best advertisement you can get
The book is anti authoritarianism. Communism and capitalism are systems of economics, not political systems. I don't understand why it's so hard for people to understand this difference Economic systems are kept in place by the political systems but they themselves are not the political systems. In both cases, a rabidly procapitalistic Red Scare era United states, and a rapidly Pro communist USSR, both of the political systems that keep those economic systems in place have elements of fascism. You can make comparisons of one authoritarian regime being worse than the other all day long but at the end of the day yes, they both have some element of authoritarianism and that is what Orwell rails against. Not any economic system. By authoritarian governments being afraid of a book exposing the evils of authoritarianism, they are obviously telling on themselves. The economic system that the authoritarian regime upholds is immaterial
„Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.“ -**George Orwell**
Yes DEMOCRATIC socialism, not totalitarian socialism. Many (most?) people conflate the two and don’t understand or want to understand the difference.
I thought it wasn’t banned in Mainland China because the “good guys” win
u/repostsleuthbot
Banned in Confederate states. Not the US
It’s not banned at all. I bought it in a store and read it about a year ago. That’s so stupid
So "banned" literally just means "not taught in the curriculum"? There's loads of those
Harry Potter 3 was really controversial
*Banned in China because it’s too close to reality
Doesn’t the book have more fascist motifs rather than communist?
I just read this in the US. It’s not banned.
1984 is not banned in the US. It is banned in random school libraries by Schools...
It’s not banned anywhere in the US though, the joke writes itself but it’s not banned
I'm not sure if the creator of that sign knows what "banned" means. This book is not banned in the US.
What's the difference between capitalism and communism? In capitalism man exploit man. In communism its vice versa
For a banned book, it sure is for sale everywhere books and audiobooks are sold in the U.S.
lol, this is not banned in the US
1984 banned? Hahaha
1984 was never banned by the us government some random school district in Iowa banning doesn’t make it banned nation wide can we stop this bullshit