Have You Read a Dangerous Book Lately?
If not, then what are you waiting for?
Next week, September 20-27, is Banned Books Week. This event is celebrated every September, and the ALA publishes a list of the 100 most-challenged books, as well as promotional material celebrating our freedom to read.
The thing about freedom from censorship is that is guarantees the right of people to write and to read all things, even things we hate. Today at work I've been going through the 2001 Banned Books Resource Guide by Robert P. Doyle, just to see what books have been challenged, banned, or restricted over the years. The great majority of the "dangerous" titles were found objectionable because of their portrayal of sexual themes, or their use of swear words, or their "promotion," "indoctrination," or "celebration" of themes inimical to conservative Christianity. I'd laugh at this if it weren't so sad and possibly -- well -- dangerous. "This book portrays Christians as stupid," one protester was quoted. Well, some Christians are stupid -- it's just a natural occurrence in a large demographic. We're a big house, and we take everybody in. Stupid Christians are parodied and honestly portrayed not because authors have a yen to destroy our religion, but because this kind of honesty mitigates the threat that stupid people pose to other humans. It all goes back to what I've said before about people enforcing and policing our beliefs -- those people feel it necessary to enforce and police only because they feel those beliefs to be weak and unable to stand on their own. They furthermore believe that children cannot think unless they are told how; that children do not understand human nature; and that children are so impressionable that the least breath of sexual immorality, profane language, or the occult is enough to puff their light little bodies onto the road to perdition.
The thing is, children can be taught to parrot opinions that are not necessarily theirs. I remember doing it myself. In fact, even now many of the opinions I so fondly suppose to be my own are more often than not the direct result of my company and my reading. It doesn't, however, stop the truth from being the truth, just as Ku Klux Klan demonstrations do not magically erase the existence of black people, Jews, and Catholics.
Which brings me to what I really wanted to say about censorship. I suspect -- in fact I strongly suspect -- that the urge to censor comes not from a desire to guide our young people seamlessly into truth (a fruitless expectation if I ever saw one), but from a simple feeling that one just doesn't want to hear it. The urge to censor is an urge to control, to reach out a hand and put it over the mouth of the objectionable person, to put an end to the frustration and the fear by putting an end to the other person's speech. I've felt the urge myself, many a time, and I recognize it as a cowardly urge. And cowardice and freedom do not go well together.
Which is why I speak out against censorship whether it is from motives I sympathize with (such as the reading of To Kill a Mockingbird because it depicts black people in demoralizing situations, or The Merchant of Venice because its villain is a villain by dint of being Jewish) -- or from motives I do not sympathize with (those misguided pyre-pilers against Harry Potter for example).
So go read a banned book today, and "celebrate", "indoctrinate", and "promote" yourself, you wicked, rebellious person you.
If not, then what are you waiting for?
Next week, September 20-27, is Banned Books Week. This event is celebrated every September, and the ALA publishes a list of the 100 most-challenged books, as well as promotional material celebrating our freedom to read.
The thing about freedom from censorship is that is guarantees the right of people to write and to read all things, even things we hate. Today at work I've been going through the 2001 Banned Books Resource Guide by Robert P. Doyle, just to see what books have been challenged, banned, or restricted over the years. The great majority of the "dangerous" titles were found objectionable because of their portrayal of sexual themes, or their use of swear words, or their "promotion," "indoctrination," or "celebration" of themes inimical to conservative Christianity. I'd laugh at this if it weren't so sad and possibly -- well -- dangerous. "This book portrays Christians as stupid," one protester was quoted. Well, some Christians are stupid -- it's just a natural occurrence in a large demographic. We're a big house, and we take everybody in. Stupid Christians are parodied and honestly portrayed not because authors have a yen to destroy our religion, but because this kind of honesty mitigates the threat that stupid people pose to other humans. It all goes back to what I've said before about people enforcing and policing our beliefs -- those people feel it necessary to enforce and police only because they feel those beliefs to be weak and unable to stand on their own. They furthermore believe that children cannot think unless they are told how; that children do not understand human nature; and that children are so impressionable that the least breath of sexual immorality, profane language, or the occult is enough to puff their light little bodies onto the road to perdition.
The thing is, children can be taught to parrot opinions that are not necessarily theirs. I remember doing it myself. In fact, even now many of the opinions I so fondly suppose to be my own are more often than not the direct result of my company and my reading. It doesn't, however, stop the truth from being the truth, just as Ku Klux Klan demonstrations do not magically erase the existence of black people, Jews, and Catholics.
Which brings me to what I really wanted to say about censorship. I suspect -- in fact I strongly suspect -- that the urge to censor comes not from a desire to guide our young people seamlessly into truth (a fruitless expectation if I ever saw one), but from a simple feeling that one just doesn't want to hear it. The urge to censor is an urge to control, to reach out a hand and put it over the mouth of the objectionable person, to put an end to the frustration and the fear by putting an end to the other person's speech. I've felt the urge myself, many a time, and I recognize it as a cowardly urge. And cowardice and freedom do not go well together.
Which is why I speak out against censorship whether it is from motives I sympathize with (such as the reading of To Kill a Mockingbird because it depicts black people in demoralizing situations, or The Merchant of Venice because its villain is a villain by dint of being Jewish) -- or from motives I do not sympathize with (those misguided pyre-pilers against Harry Potter for example).
So go read a banned book today, and "celebrate", "indoctrinate", and "promote" yourself, you wicked, rebellious person you.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home