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Lindsay MauchMrs. MauchEnglish13 May 2018Upfront, March 21, 2016Connection: Mein Kampf and Fahrenheit 451—censorship, critical thoughtOne connection I made was between the article, “The Most Dangerous Book in the World?” and my book, Fahrenheit 451. The article talks about Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf; Bavaria’s copyright of the book has expired, so now any publisher in Germany can print it after being banned in the country for the past seventy years. Opinion on this is polarized. For example, genocide law professor Menachem Rosensaft argues, “’The fact that the book is readily available gives it a certain credibility and legitimacy and makes it acceptable to have the book lying around on your living room table and saying “This is what I believe”… It serves to make Hitler acceptable in polite society’” (Berger 19). In Rosensaft’s mind, censoring Hitler’s work represents an appropriate way to communicate that Hitler’s ideas are wrong, and making the book available again is dangerous. On the other hand, people like David G. Marwell, an historian of Nazi Germany, feel that publishing Mein Kampf will take away some of the intrigue that surrounds the book, giving people an opportunity to see for themselves how bad it is. The text notes that “…the contents [of Mein Kampf] are so vile and absurd that they can be used to educate people about the dangers of extremist thinking and illustrate how magnetic personalities can sometimes persuade even an enlightened nation like Germany to swallow the most racist ideas” (Berger 21). These perspectives show that this has raised a lot of questions about censorship: does it serve to protect society from hateful ideas, or does it stifle critical thought? These are questions at the center of Fahrenheit 451. In the novel’s setting, books are illegal because they can be controversial; controversial ideas are deemed dangerous, and rather than giving people an opportunity to read and decide for themselves, the government simply decided to have all books burned. For Bradbury, the issue was straightforward: outright censorship creates a populace devoid of the ability to think for themselves. However, when looking at Mein Kampf, the issue might not be so simple. Something I learned: Ancient Babylonians used physicsOne thing I learned reading this issue was that ancient Babylonians were really advanced in their astronomy and math. People used to think that they used general math to calculate the movements of planets and stars, but actually they were much more advanced than that. In fact, the article states, “A researcher at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, analyzed clay tablets dating between 350 B.C. and 50 B.C. They revealed that Babylonian astronomers used an advanced calculus to track the motion and velocity of the planet Jupiter across the sky” (“Babylonian” 5). I thought this was really interesting because normally we think of ancient people as being primitive, not as intelligent as ourselves. It turns out that they were incredibly intelligent. As a person who never studied math beyond high school, I’ll admit that I don’t really even know what calculus is beyond “really hard math.” That said, I think it’s amazing that they had calculus in ancient times, and I wonder how they discovered it!Works Cited“Babylonian AP Math.” Upfront 21 Mar. 2016: 5. Print. Berger, Joseph. “The Most Dangerous Book in the World?” Upfront 21 Mar. 2016: 18-21. Print. Name: Block: Date: Upfront Citation AssignmentFor this assignment, you will read the May issue of the Upfront magazine, practicing your in-text citations and Works Cited entries by completing the following: Two fully-developed citation sandwich paragraphs –5 pointsOne thing you learnedOne connection you madeOne perspective you agree or disagree with (support your perspective with evidence)In-Text CitationsDialogue—5 pointsBrackets—5 pointsEllipsis—5 pointsA source without an author—5 pointsWorks Cited Page—15 pointsCorrect formatting (Works Cited packet)At least one article without an authorAt least one article with an author/ 40 Total ................
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