And I'll add a non-polemical title that is a fascinating look at why sex evolved in the first place. I always thought I knew, but most of what I learned was either wrong or very incomplete. It is still an open question. The book is "The Red Queen - Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature", by Matt Ridley.
The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism by J. Michael Bailey (7 editions in 1,897 libraries)
When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment by Ryan T. Anderson (5 editions in 594 libraries)
Incredibly, you can't buy Anderson's book on either Amazon or Bookshop.org. The latter also delisted Abigail Shrier's book following an internal staff revolt. To its great credit, Barnes & Noble has sold and continues to sell most of the books mentioned in this article.
Amazon delisting Shrier's book was the reason I delisted my Amazon account. Paid huge dividends I hadn't planned on when I discovered just how much impulse-buying it was encouraging.
Thriftbooks has it. It's become my go-to online bookstore since I quit Amazon.
You would probably have a hard time finding a library or major book source that doesn't have a copy of Mein Kampf. Do you seriously think any of these books above could be more harmful than that was?
I used the conditional for a reason. I'm also not saying that libraries shouldn't have these books. I just don't think it makes sense to say they won't cause harm. We don't know that. They could. They could not. Each person will have their own response.
Books can’t harm people. People harm people. Books are inanimate objects. There is no scientific evidence showing any book to be harmful and there never will be.
You know what actually can harm people? Not a book. But telling them that a book could harm them. Now that there is actual evidence for. Librarians need to acknowledge they aren’t psychologists and aren’t masters of all knowledge. I’m tired of librarians thinking they have the ability and mandate to make the library a safe place. They are failing epically and even making things worse. I don’t want libraries to fail as institutions but they sure seem to be heading that way due to librarian’s tendencies to think too much of themselves and too much of their abilities. Nothing is for sure and no one can ever be 100% right. Rules and policies need to be made through rigorous public debate and to go through a vetting process that weeds out the bad concepts and holds them accountable when they are bad. Librarians are using their power to control access and information instead of being humble and respecting people’s right to figure out things for themselves.
How might a book harm someone? And, of course, I don’t mean its being used as a weapon or some deadly or dangerous information found therein being misapplied, like a karate or hit man manual. Explain carefully—as if readers like me were easily confused or dense—how the information in any of the books above might cause direct, actual, measurable, indisputably-linked harm to a human being through mere exposure to it. I know I will read with an open mind and I’m sure at least a few other regulars here will, too.
Obviously books (the object) aren't harmful but the ideas in them can be. Some people read racist, homophobic, transphobic to ideas and say "that's absolutely right," and then act accordingly. If people didn't do this we would not be concerned about mis and disinformation. Even Mill recognized this issue in his harm principle. The point for me is not that the ideas in books are never harmful but that we must give individuals the tools to analyze all ideas and not be paternalistic.
I struggle with this notion, which is why I went down the "aiding and abetting" rabbit hole on the "Hit Man" thing a while back on the ALA OIF blog. On the one hand, the MISAPPLICATION of any infinite number of bits of information BY AN ACTOR could be harmful. Example: "If you mix bleach and ammonia, you can make chlorine gas." Those are words on a page, bits glowing on a screen until acted upon; for that information to become harmful takes the volition of an actor, a person willing to do it, but even with that I can buy the idea that information-- even factual, ideologically neutral information--could AUGMENT the harmfulness of an actor already inclined to harm someone. But information that really has no actionable applicability like:
"The UK’s Gender Identity Development Service reports an almost 4,000 percent increase in ten years, also shifting from majority males to females, the great bulk of them teenagers. In the past, the majority of referrals were young children or adult males.
"Many of these teens have co-occurring mental health issues, like depression, anxiety, trauma, or eating disorders, or are neuro-diverse (for example, ADHD, dyslexia, or on the autism spectrum), and they appear to differ from prior cohorts, who had childhood- onset GD. There is almost no research on this population, which has prompted some people to ask if it is ethical or safe to apply a medical protocol designed for a different kind of patient to them."--https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/trans-matters-overview-debate-research-policies/
There are some who might deem those two paragraphs harmful, somehow. I know this because I read through some training or another that warned the reader something like "questioning the legitimacy or viability of the lived experience of a person going through transition is very dangerous to their mental health." Which might mean, if one takes such a warning seriously, that the simple reading of or exposure to facts and statistics could harm someone, even if there is no transgressive call to action in it. That argument: "Facts might inspire self harm" strikes me as a dangerous and convenient way for a profession like ours to shift its stance on censorship while still maintaining an air of virtue or dedication to intellectual freedom, even if the only people buying our hair-splitting it are within our profession.
It's not the facts--it's the interpretation of the facts. Popper recognized this. Facts don't exist in a vacuum.
What do you hope to convey with those facts? Who collected them? For what purpose? Why does it matter that more girls are transitioning than before? What should I do with that information? Why are they transitioning? How are they defining "girl"? What age? Are any of the girls intersex?
Is this something I should be concerned about in the first place? How does their transitioning impact my life in any way? Does this matter more than the co-occuring diagnoses? If so why?
What puts you in a position to question people's gender identity? Do you question my lived experience as a Black woman? Why or why not? Is this different? Why or why not? Is only the "Black" aspect constructed but not the "woman" part?
It's not that facts might inspire self-harm it is your interpretation of the facts that somehow gender should be an immutable state of being that might do harm when you wield them to imply that there is something wrong with how a person understands themselves. To some. Not to all. Probably only someone close to you who would then know not to tell you if they do question their gender identity. This is because interpretations of facts reveal more about the interpreter than they do about the facts.
I have whole lecture on this topic! I'll see if I can sign up for another session.
Aside from the "you-ifying" of the argument, (which I presume is done for rhetorical reasons and the "you" in question isn't actually ME), I think most of your questions are par for the course in "critical thinking" anyway.
It can be telling to ask WHO is presenting facts and WHY, certainly. Agendas can be clarified with some biographical digging, but not always. Some of US--US being curious human beings-- just like to hear smart people discuss things, clarify things, answer questions and maybe even disagree. That's why Skeptic magazine is the only magazine I've ever subscribed to in my life.
But some of the questions--or the style of question--are very common in our era of discourse and are perfectly designed to STOP the discussion and put somebody on a shut-down defensive, and call into question the good faith of the inquiry. "What puts you in a position...?" "Do you also question my ____ness?" "Why does it even matter to YOU?" The implied follow up question looming is:
"What are you? A (choose one): racist/sexist/transphobe/bigot/homophobe/slavering ape?"
I think part of the confusion is probably semantic. If someone said to me that words, ideas, concepts, utterances can HURT human beings, I would never overthink it. But HARM has deeper, longer-lasting implications, even unto legal concepts; "actual harm" is a tort law thing related to "negative outcomes." It feels like we're trying to shift something unnaturally to a level of seriousness that isn't warranted.
But if you have a lecture on this, I--and I'm sure many others--want to hear every word.
I mean if a book has racist/sexist/transphobic/bigoted/homophobic ideas why would only be hurtful and not harmful? I don't understand how that might work. The book is introducing those ideas to people and often describing them as being truthful. That doesn't mean the book should not be in libraries. Even if this is a semantic argument I don't think you can argue that books only hurt and never harm. How would you demonstrate ?
I am confused Dr Knox. I have heard you speak many times. Anytime I can hear a talk by you I listen to it as the talks are educational and informative. Haven't you said these things...? : a. Ideas aren't harmful b. Reading something doesn't make someone racist/homophobic/transphobic c. Adults don't need to be protected from ideas d. Censoring books is paternalistic and undesirable e. Labeling books is censorious. If we say books and ideas are harmful we are then labeling books and ideas as harmful. Even if these books are still accessible in the library they are effectively censored once labeled as harmful. Don't you say the best remedy is another book with other ideas?
I have not said ideas aren't harmful. Reading something does not make someone agree with all those things but it can reinforce those ideas.
It is censorious to label books. There is no reason to label them and I haven't argued for that. That doesn't doesn't mean that people won't be harmed by some of the people who agree with those books.
I just think it's disingenuous to say they words don't have power. That reading never changes people. It does. We just don't know who or how it will change someone.
My argument is that we should not censor harmful ideas rather than say that some ideas aren't harmful.
Others I would add:
Alex Byrne's forthcoming TROUBLE WITH GENDER
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1509560017/?coliid=I1EGN0YEFOKD6O&colid=26KV2QETSJD1V&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_gv_ov_lig_pi_dp
For background:
https://archive.ph/BBmLY
https://archive.ph/LdXNe
The excellent book by Byrne's partner, evolutionary biologist Carol Hooven, also belongs in any public (and academic) library:
T: THE STORY OF TESTOSTERONE, THE HORMONE THAT DOMINATES AND DIVIDES US
https://www.amazon.com/Story-Testosterone-Hormone-Dominates-Divides/dp/1250236061
Also, especially for academic libraries:
Holly Lawford-Smith's GENDER-CRITICAL FEMINISM
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=gender+critical+feminism&crid=3UM6AIO9KZRWB&sprefix=gender+critical+%2Caps%2C136&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_16
And her forthcoming SEX MATTERS
https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Matters-Essays-Gender-Critical-Philosophy/dp/019289613X/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=oB7Mn&content-id=amzn1.sym.579192ca-1482-4409-abe7-9e14f17ac827&pf_rd_p=579192ca-1482-4409-abe7-9e14f17ac827&pf_rd_r=144-1388938-2144441&pd_rd_wg=MmJDG&pd_rd_r=cd533e7d-f457-4092-b9be-1651dbf0609a&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk
And the new collection (already available in academic libraries) SEX AND GENDER: A CONTEMPORARY READER
https://www.routledge.com/Sex-and-Gender-A-Contemporary-Reader/Sullivan-Todd/p/book/9781032261195
Glad to see my public library has four of these eight titles already!
I would also add Sheila Jeffreys’s _Gender Hurts_ (2014)
https://www.routledge.com/Gender-Hurts-A-Feminist-Analysis-of-the-Politics-of-Transgenderism/Jeffreys/p/book/9780415539401#
And Linda Blade’s _Unsporting_ (2021)
https://www.unsporting.com/
And I'll add a non-polemical title that is a fascinating look at why sex evolved in the first place. I always thought I knew, but most of what I learned was either wrong or very incomplete. It is still an open question. The book is "The Red Queen - Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature", by Matt Ridley.
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-red-queen-sex-and-the-evolution-of-human-nature_matt-ridley/250866/?resultid=b5a162f2-177d-4c8b-b1f3-4b58e55620d2#edition=3489641&idiq=4339252
This is one of the few non-fiction books I've read cover to cover more than once.
Two more suggestions:
The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism by J. Michael Bailey (7 editions in 1,897 libraries)
When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment by Ryan T. Anderson (5 editions in 594 libraries)
Incredibly, you can't buy Anderson's book on either Amazon or Bookshop.org. The latter also delisted Abigail Shrier's book following an internal staff revolt. To its great credit, Barnes & Noble has sold and continues to sell most of the books mentioned in this article.
Bailey has a revised edition of THE MAN WHO WOULD BE QUEEN appearing, I think, soon.
Amazon delisting Shrier's book was the reason I delisted my Amazon account. Paid huge dividends I hadn't planned on when I discovered just how much impulse-buying it was encouraging.
Thriftbooks has it. It's become my go-to online bookstore since I quit Amazon.
https://www.thriftbooks.com/browse/?b.search=Abigail%20Shrier#b.s=mostPopular-desc&b.p=1&b.pp=30&b.oos&b.tile
I disagree with the headline. These books can be harmful. However, that does not mean they should not be accessible.
You would probably have a hard time finding a library or major book source that doesn't have a copy of Mein Kampf. Do you seriously think any of these books above could be more harmful than that was?
I used the conditional for a reason. I'm also not saying that libraries shouldn't have these books. I just don't think it makes sense to say they won't cause harm. We don't know that. They could. They could not. Each person will have their own response.
You're right.
Books can’t harm people. People harm people. Books are inanimate objects. There is no scientific evidence showing any book to be harmful and there never will be.
You know what actually can harm people? Not a book. But telling them that a book could harm them. Now that there is actual evidence for. Librarians need to acknowledge they aren’t psychologists and aren’t masters of all knowledge. I’m tired of librarians thinking they have the ability and mandate to make the library a safe place. They are failing epically and even making things worse. I don’t want libraries to fail as institutions but they sure seem to be heading that way due to librarian’s tendencies to think too much of themselves and too much of their abilities. Nothing is for sure and no one can ever be 100% right. Rules and policies need to be made through rigorous public debate and to go through a vetting process that weeds out the bad concepts and holds them accountable when they are bad. Librarians are using their power to control access and information instead of being humble and respecting people’s right to figure out things for themselves.
How might a book harm someone? And, of course, I don’t mean its being used as a weapon or some deadly or dangerous information found therein being misapplied, like a karate or hit man manual. Explain carefully—as if readers like me were easily confused or dense—how the information in any of the books above might cause direct, actual, measurable, indisputably-linked harm to a human being through mere exposure to it. I know I will read with an open mind and I’m sure at least a few other regulars here will, too.
Obviously books (the object) aren't harmful but the ideas in them can be. Some people read racist, homophobic, transphobic to ideas and say "that's absolutely right," and then act accordingly. If people didn't do this we would not be concerned about mis and disinformation. Even Mill recognized this issue in his harm principle. The point for me is not that the ideas in books are never harmful but that we must give individuals the tools to analyze all ideas and not be paternalistic.
I struggle with this notion, which is why I went down the "aiding and abetting" rabbit hole on the "Hit Man" thing a while back on the ALA OIF blog. On the one hand, the MISAPPLICATION of any infinite number of bits of information BY AN ACTOR could be harmful. Example: "If you mix bleach and ammonia, you can make chlorine gas." Those are words on a page, bits glowing on a screen until acted upon; for that information to become harmful takes the volition of an actor, a person willing to do it, but even with that I can buy the idea that information-- even factual, ideologically neutral information--could AUGMENT the harmfulness of an actor already inclined to harm someone. But information that really has no actionable applicability like:
"The UK’s Gender Identity Development Service reports an almost 4,000 percent increase in ten years, also shifting from majority males to females, the great bulk of them teenagers. In the past, the majority of referrals were young children or adult males.
"Many of these teens have co-occurring mental health issues, like depression, anxiety, trauma, or eating disorders, or are neuro-diverse (for example, ADHD, dyslexia, or on the autism spectrum), and they appear to differ from prior cohorts, who had childhood- onset GD. There is almost no research on this population, which has prompted some people to ask if it is ethical or safe to apply a medical protocol designed for a different kind of patient to them."--https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/trans-matters-overview-debate-research-policies/
There are some who might deem those two paragraphs harmful, somehow. I know this because I read through some training or another that warned the reader something like "questioning the legitimacy or viability of the lived experience of a person going through transition is very dangerous to their mental health." Which might mean, if one takes such a warning seriously, that the simple reading of or exposure to facts and statistics could harm someone, even if there is no transgressive call to action in it. That argument: "Facts might inspire self harm" strikes me as a dangerous and convenient way for a profession like ours to shift its stance on censorship while still maintaining an air of virtue or dedication to intellectual freedom, even if the only people buying our hair-splitting it are within our profession.
It's not the facts--it's the interpretation of the facts. Popper recognized this. Facts don't exist in a vacuum.
What do you hope to convey with those facts? Who collected them? For what purpose? Why does it matter that more girls are transitioning than before? What should I do with that information? Why are they transitioning? How are they defining "girl"? What age? Are any of the girls intersex?
Is this something I should be concerned about in the first place? How does their transitioning impact my life in any way? Does this matter more than the co-occuring diagnoses? If so why?
What puts you in a position to question people's gender identity? Do you question my lived experience as a Black woman? Why or why not? Is this different? Why or why not? Is only the "Black" aspect constructed but not the "woman" part?
It's not that facts might inspire self-harm it is your interpretation of the facts that somehow gender should be an immutable state of being that might do harm when you wield them to imply that there is something wrong with how a person understands themselves. To some. Not to all. Probably only someone close to you who would then know not to tell you if they do question their gender identity. This is because interpretations of facts reveal more about the interpreter than they do about the facts.
I have whole lecture on this topic! I'll see if I can sign up for another session.
Aside from the "you-ifying" of the argument, (which I presume is done for rhetorical reasons and the "you" in question isn't actually ME), I think most of your questions are par for the course in "critical thinking" anyway.
It can be telling to ask WHO is presenting facts and WHY, certainly. Agendas can be clarified with some biographical digging, but not always. Some of US--US being curious human beings-- just like to hear smart people discuss things, clarify things, answer questions and maybe even disagree. That's why Skeptic magazine is the only magazine I've ever subscribed to in my life.
But some of the questions--or the style of question--are very common in our era of discourse and are perfectly designed to STOP the discussion and put somebody on a shut-down defensive, and call into question the good faith of the inquiry. "What puts you in a position...?" "Do you also question my ____ness?" "Why does it even matter to YOU?" The implied follow up question looming is:
"What are you? A (choose one): racist/sexist/transphobe/bigot/homophobe/slavering ape?"
I think part of the confusion is probably semantic. If someone said to me that words, ideas, concepts, utterances can HURT human beings, I would never overthink it. But HARM has deeper, longer-lasting implications, even unto legal concepts; "actual harm" is a tort law thing related to "negative outcomes." It feels like we're trying to shift something unnaturally to a level of seriousness that isn't warranted.
But if you have a lecture on this, I--and I'm sure many others--want to hear every word.
I mean if a book has racist/sexist/transphobic/bigoted/homophobic ideas why would only be hurtful and not harmful? I don't understand how that might work. The book is introducing those ideas to people and often describing them as being truthful. That doesn't mean the book should not be in libraries. Even if this is a semantic argument I don't think you can argue that books only hurt and never harm. How would you demonstrate ?
I am confused Dr Knox. I have heard you speak many times. Anytime I can hear a talk by you I listen to it as the talks are educational and informative. Haven't you said these things...? : a. Ideas aren't harmful b. Reading something doesn't make someone racist/homophobic/transphobic c. Adults don't need to be protected from ideas d. Censoring books is paternalistic and undesirable e. Labeling books is censorious. If we say books and ideas are harmful we are then labeling books and ideas as harmful. Even if these books are still accessible in the library they are effectively censored once labeled as harmful. Don't you say the best remedy is another book with other ideas?
I have not said ideas aren't harmful. Reading something does not make someone agree with all those things but it can reinforce those ideas.
It is censorious to label books. There is no reason to label them and I haven't argued for that. That doesn't doesn't mean that people won't be harmed by some of the people who agree with those books.
I just think it's disingenuous to say they words don't have power. That reading never changes people. It does. We just don't know who or how it will change someone.
My argument is that we should not censor harmful ideas rather than say that some ideas aren't harmful.