Even I was surprised to see that the following books were banned (or attempts were made to ban them) once upon a time in a state or county far, far away (or maybe not so far):
Gone With The Wind
Forrest Gump
Lord of the Rings (actually burned as a Satanic book, something it shares, I suppose with the Qu’ran)
To Kill a Mockingbird
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (banned in Boulder, CO no less)
Usually when I think about freedom, one of the ones I cherish the most is the opportunity to read what I want regardless of whether someone else approves or disapproves of my choices. The public library was as much a sacred place for me growing up as church. Yet for a “free country” the United States has a well known history of banning or restricting access to books, even in recent times.
Iconic American books as famous as Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the Rye, The Leaves of Grass and The Grapes of Wrath have all been banned at one time or another. However what is surprising is the number of small-minded morons who have successfully banned books such Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Did You See, a book for young children (by the Texas School Board in 2010 because they thought the author was a Marxist) and Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl (also in 2010, by a county in Virginia).
It seems everyday someone makes a complaint about why certain books should not be available because they find something about it that doesn’t agree with their most cherished beliefs or prejudices. But isn’t the entire point of freedom that we get to make those decisions for ourselves? That we don’t turn away from books with ideas that we don’t hold, but engage them and their ideas and make up our own minds?
I despise Ayn Rand as an author, but I would never tell someone her books were off limits to them merely because of my superior moral judgment about their merits. Nor would I seek to ban the sacred books of any religion as this petitioner would have us do to the Qu’ran Qur’an [note: thanks to Hurria for correcting my spelling]. I wouldn’t ban Mein Kampf or Glenn Beck’s latest tripe, either.
When you ban books, you ban speech and you ban ideas. When you ban ideas you effectively neuter our right to free speech, not only for the author of the book but also for those who would choose to read it to discover what they might learn.
Yet, we are faced with a number of candidates on the right for political office this year who would joyfully and wholeheartedly limit your right to read what you want given the opportunity, as well as a number of other rights you now possess or for some, hope to receive. In some states this is already a regular occurrence. Many candidates support the elimination of net neutrality, a threat your ability to access and read the blogs and online publications of your choice.
The Republicans are constantly concerned that Democrats are going to take away their “rights” by which they usually mean the right to own an unregistered handgun or other firearm. Funny, though, how they have so little concern for a freedom that is far more important to our society: the freedom to think what we want, to say what we want and to learn what we want.
The banning of books invariably destroys that right, that essential liberty which is fundamental to our society. Just ask anyone who has lived in a country where books and newspapers and magazines are censored. They will tell you that limiting what you can read or watch or learn is the easiest way to lose all your freedoms.
On the good news end of things, if net neutrality falls, you will see an almost immediate rise in one or more ‘disruptive’ technologies and market responses – people will seek and use systems they feel are the most ‘free’. One of the great things about the ‘net is how rapidly things can happen.
Plus, if you think there is true neutrality in practice now, you may be mistaken, since most people use a search site to find web content. Nothing keeps google from letting folks pay to have their sites show up on page #1 or hiding or censoring sites (see Google in China, elsewhere).
Don’t get me wrong, having neutrality on the books is a good thing and it should be expanded, rather than reduced.
Ray Bradbury raised these issues over half a century ago in 1953 with Fahrenheit 451. I read it as a teen and suspect it helped shape my early leftist political beliefs. Wingers be afraid – be very afraid.
Strange, I did become a fireman in real life, but, thankfully, we never burned any books.
you are saving books from the fire!!!
As a teenager I read that book, as well as others by Ray Bradbury and of course George Orwell. My mother encouraged me to read Orwell, and probably also Bradbury – don’t remember. I found them so compelling that I kept a chair in my walk-in closet, and read them in there with the door closed so my parents would not see the light. I am sure those books influenced my point of view a lot. It would be interesting to read them again as an adult.
PS Well, that closet bit sounds kind of funny unless I mention that I did this late at night after “bedtime”. Couldn’t explain why it was so hard to wake up in the morning and why I kept nodding off in school (aside from the uninspired teachers and uninteresting content, of course).
God. Mein Kampf is a fabulous example. As loathsome as the book is, if more people had read it there would have been support for standing up to the Austrian corporal and not falling for his sweet lies.
Here’s something probably available thanks to net neutrality..
A must read, from JesusIsALiberal.com (especially for ‘process wonks’),
http://www.jesusisaliberal.org/Z_040805_Unitarian_Jihad.html
UNITARIAN JIHAD!!
Too funny. Too true.
too funny, thanks. love the part about dressing like trout, well, love the whole thing, but the trout part even more.
I’ve gotta get me one of those great epitaphs, like A’chron, Bloody Scimitar of Lower Back Massage or something.
Good one and quite familiar after innumerable hours of committee work.
It’s clear the many people have no real idea of what freedom means–freedom to read what one wishes, freedom in the privacy of your bedroom or doctor’s office or freedom to practice your own religion or no religion. But these are the same people who cannot stop talking about their own loss of freedoms, which apparently includes the right to limit other people’s freedoms. How strange.
Steven, I could not agree with you more. Having lived and spent extended time in totalitarian countries, I know what mechanisms the State uses to control the minds and actions of its citizenry, so I see very clearly the aspects of totalitarianism in the U.S., including censorship. It is not always as blatant as having paragraphs redacted or pages torn out of magazine and newspaper articles, or the banning of certain books, but it is there, and it is increasing. I can see the United States drifting toward what could fairly be called an elected totalitarian government.
By the way, thanks very much for taking the effort to transliterate the word Qur’an correctly. Those kinds of respectful gestures do not go unnoticed. Small correction, though. the ‘ belongs after the r, not before it.
Thanks. I never know what is correct. I can’t even get my its and it’s right most of the time much less other words. will correct.
The ‘ represents hamza which is a glottal stop (the initial sounds in the English “uh oh”, for example). So, it is a letter not punctuation as in it’s and its. Qur’an is much easier for English speakers to say than Qu’ran – try it, and you’ll see.
Well, I guess Boulder tried to ban Willie Wonka because they heard vague rumors about “fudge packing”, yet somehow completely missed the loud snickering about “teabagging”.
It’s always hard to figure out why stupid people do any particular stupid thing (TX Board of Ed, I’m looking at you), but you can always count on them to oppose books that they find disquieting, even if they don’t quite understand why.