UPDATE: Slartibartfast, who I have a great deal of respect for, was offended by this column (apparently missing the smiley face at the end of it). I don’t think it’s appropriate to edit the text, but I will concede, as others have pointed out, that liberals have been known to call for books to be banned as well (although, arguably not as often as the other way around) and change the title of this post, as requested.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Serious question. Is there something about conservatism that’s incompatible with the exposure of differing ideas?
First we saw Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen suggest his state not purchase any books by gay authors or with gay characters for public schools, and now we’re seeing an increase in the actual banning of books in other parts of the country. And when folks look for reasons there’s a growing attack on books, the answers point to conservatism:
According to the American Library Association, which asks school districts and libraries to report efforts to ban books – that is, have them removed from shelves or reading lists – they are on the rise again: 547 books were challenged last year, up from 458 in 2003. These aren’t record numbers. In the 1990’s the appearance of the Harry Potter books, with their themes of witchcraft and wizardry, caused a raft of objections from evangelical Christians.
Judith Krug, director of the library association’s office for intellectual freedom, attributed the most recent spike to the empowerment of conservatives in general and to the re-election of President Bush in particular. The same thing happened 25 years ago, she said. "In 1980, we were dealing with an average of 300 or so challenges a year, and then Reagan was elected," she said. "And challenges went to 900 or 1,000 a year."
So from evangelical Christians objecting to children’s books that challenge their notions about wizardry (or whatever) to a general sense of empowerment among conservatives when the Federal government leans toward the right, we see that the desire to limit knowledge is strong among conservatives. But why? Can’t conservatives and their children read something, disagree with it, find it distasteful, even get angry and heave the book across the room, without demanding that everyone else be "protected" from it? Why this draconian overreaction to ideas? How do ideas threaten them?
If I’m missing something here, I’d be happy to learn what it is. Is there a book on this? ;-p
UPDATE: Hat tip to constant reader cleek for pointing me to this list published by Human Events (The National Conservative Weekly) of, get this, the "Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries." They truly freakin’ are afraid of books. Incredible.
Even more incredible that the titles that make the list (Das Kapital, Mein Kampf, etc.) is that one of the books that just missed the top ten is Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. Are these people out of their minds? Second Sex harmful? To whom? Misogynists?
UPDATE II: Constant reader Jesurgislac argues that both left and right voices have called for banning books (and the American Library Assoication list of the top 100 books banned between 1990 and 2000 does include books banned apparently for reasons of political correctness [like Huckleberry Finn], which it’s probably safe to assume were initiated by liberals), although still, the ALA insists the trend increases when conservatives are empowered. Another interesting statistic is that initiators of book bannings are overwhelmingly parents. See this chart by the ALA (pdf file).
no mention of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries ?
Oh My God. They ARE afraid of books…Cleek, that deserves an update…thanks.
e
I think it goes back to the Garden of Eden eviction notice when the residents tried to read the fine print (fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil).
Knowledge is dangerous and leads to evil thoughts. Unquestioning obedience to the law and the lawmakers is the path to heaven.
I wish I were kidding.
To be fair, Edward, I’d say there’s a strong strand of thinking to both left and right that believes that some ideas are too dangerous for people to read. (Just as there’s a strong strand of thinking, to left and to right, that is opposed to censorship in principle and in practice.)
It’s just that, for the most part (certainly in the West) conservatives are the ones with the collective power to have books banned! (There are odd examples, even so, of left-wingers calling for books to be banned – Huckleberry Finn is one, I recall, because of the use of the word “nigger”.)
The one book I finished reading and thought “I could cheerfully see this burned” is 120 Days of Sodom – I started reading it because some writer I admired had written an analysis/introduction that I found fascinating – but I found myself absolutely repelled when I got into the book itself. (I finished reading it: I’m not sure at this distance of time why. Stubbornness, I guess.) I have read grosser pornography, but I’ve read nothing that disgusted me so much, before or since.
Nevertheless, because in principle I oppose all censorship, I would not want that book destroyed, however much it personally offended me and however disgusting I felt it was. I think that’s the sticking point: will you stand up for a person’s right to free speech, no matter how much it offends you? And that’s a principle that the best of the left and the best of the right have in common.
I think it has to do with the principle found in Ecclesiastes 1:18: “For in much wisdom is much grief; and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.”
Stupid = happy, right?
it’s not just books – we hear near-consant cries from the right for the media to stop reporting the bad news from Iraq. information is bad, m kay?
on the other hand, the face of music censorship in the 80’s was Al Gore’s wife, Tipper.
Who are you, and what have you done with Jes? ;=)
I think that’s the sticking point: will you stand up for a person’s right to free speech, no matter how much it offends you? And that’s a principle that the best of the left and the best of the right have in common.
I wish there were statistics on this (google here I come). The Library Association’s spokeswoman’s note about the rise in bannings when the President is more conservative seems to argue that this is more of a conservative than liberal desire.
I recall the Huck Finn fiasco, but don’t understand it. I’ve never been offended by a book in which a character is offensive, even when the author seems to like that character. The truth is, offensive people exist, and they won’t cease to exist just because I stop reading about them. Lord knows there are plenty of books I’ve read that are beyond offensive toward gays.
OK, so here are the most frequently banned books of 1990-2000. The link goes up to 100, but here are the top ten.
1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
There are “conservatives” and then there are “right-wingers”. Conservative and orthodox Christians who seem to be a different breed than there “right-winging/Fundamentalist” counterparts.
Although…Fundamentalism is becoming the mainstream in Protestant communities.
Reinhold Niebor, Paul Tillch, Karl Jaspers and many other Progressive Protestant theologians are becoming “the fringe”.
I think Jesusexlax is simply wrong – book-banning, while not unknown on the left, is very uncharacteristic of them, and a staple of the right.
The controversy over Huck Finn is invariably over its being an assigned text in junior-high or high-schools (i.e., ages roughly 12-17, for non-US readers). Parents object to their kids being forced to endure hundreds of pages of casual racism, and one of the main characters – the only significant black character in the book – constantly being referred to as a “nigger”, or even as “Nigger Jim” (as if it was part of his name). (Defenders counter that the book is intended to throw racist attitudes into a critical light, but critics don’t find this a sufficient counterweight.) The debate is not over whether certain books are allowed, but over what books should be assigned as required reading – and I have to say I am more and more sympathetic to black parents on this one. No one has ever argued that this book should be banned outright, or even kept out of school libraries – let alone burned, or banned from an entire state. And Huck Finn is virtually unique as a target of liberal critics.
The ALA site also has the ten most challenged books of 2004. It looks to me like most would have been challenged from the “right”, but some mentions of racism and violence suggest that the “left” may have had some input as well.
Yeah, I wish they had hurried up and banned that damn Scary Stories book when I was in elementary school. I can still keep myself awake by thinking too hard about some of those illustrations. Why didn’t anyone think of the children?
Other than that, I agree with Jes’s comment. Banning books is stupid, regardless if its done in the name of political correctness or to protect people from allegedly harmful ideas.
This has always puzzled me, in both its left and right versions. As a kid who was always left to her own devices as far as reading, and who therefore read all sorts of things written from every imaginable point of view, I can’t imagine thinking that reading some particular book would have this sort of odd effect on me, since if every book I read had indoctrinated me, I would have had to develop multiple personality disorder to deal with all the views I would simultaneously have held.
I think Slacktivist had something interesting to say about this, but alas I can’t find it.
Also, I discovered last night from his Fresh Air interview that Tim Winter, head of the Parents Television Council (most famous for bombarding the FCC with complaints during Nipplegate), is a Democrat. But TV is different from books.
Most depressing about that list is that the second most scary idea for most book banners is the notion of gay parents. If anything argues for the need to expose people to more ideas rather than fewer, that’s it IMO.
So, I want to go completely ape—- over this, having read “The Origin of the Species” and been corrupted, but
I already did over at Kevin Drum’s site where I can make a fool of myself unedited. Here. I’m a fool with good editors. 😉
But it occurs to me that, following the Ecclesiastes verse, some conservatives view the world as a great big dinner table where certain things just aren’t talked about in front of the kids. We’re, all of us, the kids. Spreading the news, for example, that condoms are pretty effective in preventing transmission of disease is just a little bit too much knowledge that might be put to good use. Better that we are hushed up completely.
I wonder what they would think about condoms for books to prevent the transmission of ideas. I’m all for it. How about condoms made of kevlar for anything written by Ayn Rand, although the Gary Cooper movie “The Fountainhead” ain’t half bad. But, I mean, that virulent selfish crapola has got to be bad for us. Especially the disgust I’m elicited to feel for the homeless as I step over them. I might catch socialism, although, as in the old joke, I think I gave it to myself years ago.
I wanna spray my kid with a protective gel every time he gets close to reading any column by drama queen Michelle Malkin in the local paper. Bad cooties there.
And for God’s sake, keep Grover Norquist’s simian eructations away from Slartibartfast. 😉 He might like it.
O.K. Gotta go read every book on the forbidden list. Is there any sex in the Communist Manifesto? What page?
Hilzoy, I don’t think many people believe that reading a book is going to immediately indoctrinate their kids, but surely you don’t believe that reading those books had no effect on you at all. Are you exactly the same person you would have been if you’d never read them? I don’t agree with the banners (although I’m not sure that’s the right word, as Kevin suggests), but I think I understand some of their motivation.
i’m gonna go out on a limb and say that book banning is essentially a conservative action, regardless of who does it. the desire to limit exposure to unwelcome thoughts and ideas fits well with the non-partisan definitions of “conservative”:
saw away…
John, I don’t know about socialism, but apparently you can catch homosexuality and other forms of sin:
Good comment, Jes.
I love “Huckleberry Finn.”
The answer is not to ban, but to read more.
You could read the speeches of Martin Luther King as an antidote. And if blacks are really pissed off, and who wasn’t, or isn’t, read some Malcolm X or Eldridge Cleaver, or a biography of John Brown for that matter. If that’s no good, read some Dinesh D’Souza or Charles Murray. Then take a bath and go back and read “Soul on Ice” again, because you’ll need to.
Bookburning
[Via Obsidian Wings In the wake of a truly absurd list of The Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries from the ultra-rightwing mag, Human Events (who helpfully but rather ironically provide links to the Amazon pages for each tome should y…
Cleek, what if the books being banned are books that support “traditional values” and oppose change?
I’m one of those no-good liberal parents who allows his (now 14-year-old) child to read anything. I haven’t seen any problems with it, though recommending Huck Finn (I don’t trust liberals who want to ban it, they don’t seem capable of thinking or understanding how culture changes over time) doesn’t seem to have worked to get him to read it. He finds the writing style too dated. Instead, he talks me into reading Infinite Jest (completely misleading comparison for those unfamiliar with it: Catcher in the Rye for the turn of the century) something that would have been on the list of banned books if any of these reactionaries had bothered to read it.
KCinDC:
Yes, Colorado Springs the nasty city is 60 miles to the south of me. I never stray too far from the highway, for fear of book inspections. Just kidding.
Although I’m thinking of writing a book called “Reading Lolita in Colorado Springs”, but I certainly wouldn’t read it.
“Is there any sex in the Communist Manifesto?”
I think only Univ of Chicago students can use “sex” and “Communist Manifesto” in the same sentence and end up getting any (err…sex that is, although the occasional manifesto, communist or otherwise, has been known to show up in the course of such flirtations).
Outside of the more specific book-banning issue, Nat Hentoff has the excellent Free Speech For Me, But Not For The, detailing censorship efforts by both left and right; and there’s another book whose name I can’t recall, from within the last four years, discussing censorship efforts from both sides in school textbooks and testing material.
Also, unless it was a very amazing typo, I believe “Kevin T. Keith” violated the posting rules in his first sentence.
KCinDC: the reason I wrote what I did is that the idea behind banning books, I would have thought, is that certain ideas or themes are contagious. We can’t expect kids to assess those books, decide for themselves which are the parts they like and which are the parts they don’t, reject some books altogether as vile, and so forth. Since one of the effects of my reading was precisely to force me to become a critical reader at an early age, I don’t get this at all.
And I have to say that the focus on the Harry Potter books, of all things, is completely bizarre: they are (imho) deeply moral books.
…what if the books being banned are books that support “traditional values” and oppose change?
any examples ?
i suppose one can always argue that since people have different traditions, banning a book always preserves someone’s traditions.
To me, and to many readers on this thread, the idea that “it’s just a book” is so noncontroversial, that it’s difficult to understand how others don’t see it that way. Here’s a thought:
Does the urge to ban books stem in part from the Judeo-Christian focus on The Book as scripture? When your religion is built on the notion that there’s a book that issues ethical commands, what to (not) do, etc., is it that much harder to accept the existence of books that don’t “tell you” to do anything at all?
Is it that much harder for someone raised in the tradition of “The Book” to read (say) Sade while rejecting any notion that the exhortations of the author are safely & easily ignored?
(Because, I think it’s safe to say, Sade really DOES want readers to adopt the beliefs he’s expressing. Cf. “Philosophy in the Bedroom.”)
Don’t worry, John. They’ll have you prayed out of the area soon, along with the other witches.
Wasn’t there a long discussion about Jr. H.S. kids reading Naked Lunch on this board a while back?
When I was a teen, I used to read every book I could find that someone, preferably Falwell, had declared evil and in need of banning. (Though I never did get through Joyce’s Ulysses.) Maybe declaring certain books off limits will encourage kids to read them.
I do worry about some books warping my kids.I worry, frex, about my advanced reader 8yo stumbling on porn and reading that. My worry is that what I consider sick attitudes (that sex is dirty, or that objectification is sexy) catching hold. What I try to do, then, is to “inoculate” rather than provide an antidote. I try to expose her to material which shows that the body is healthy and wonderful, that explains reproduction, that explains privacy, etc, so that hopefully, when she does stumble across porn (*does warding off gesture*), she’ll be repelled rather than aroused.
Cleek, I’m talking about efforts from the “left” (in some sense) to “ban” books like Huck Finn because they believe they support racism or sometimes sexism, which would be “traditional values”. I don’t understand what’s conservative about such efforts. Certainly most book banning comes from conservatives, but I don’t agree that it all does (and that the “PC” book banners are closet conservatives). (I think I’ve used up my quota of scare quotes for the week.)
And I agree with Phil about Kevin’s third-grade gratuitous insult. Not sure how I overlooked it before.
Also, unless it was a very amazing typo, I believe “Kevin T. Keith” violated the posting rules in his first sentence.
Hmmm…I missed that. Yes, Kevin, please confirm that was a typo or see the Posting rules. We seriously frown on such things around here.
“..I believe Kevin T Keith violated the posting rules in his first sentence.”
Yeah, that wasn’t very nice. And if it was a typo, what a typo. But, I’m curious as to who Kevin thinks Jes is, given the content of his post.
(Because, I think it’s safe to say, Sade really DOES want readers to adopt the beliefs he’s expressing. Cf. “Philosophy in the Bedroom.”)
Posted by: Anderson | June 2, 2005 08:32 AM
If you get that from Sade, you missed the point.
He didn’t care whether you accepted or regected his beliefs.
His nihilism was not to be proselytized…it was not political.
Cleek, I’m talking about efforts from the “left” (in some sense) to “ban” books like Huck Finn because they believe they support racism or sometimes sexism, which would be “traditional values”.
you’re right. that doesn’t fulfill the “Favoring traditional views and values” definition.
and i’m not sure why, but that Huck Finn ban still seems “conservative” to me. maybe it’s because telling someone that something is Bad and Shouldn’t Be Read feels like a conservative idea, even when the reason behind the “bad” isn’t. a Real Liberal would give everyone the opportunity to evaluate ideas on their own, and not make lists of what’s approved and what’s banned.
These people are nuts. Underlying their rhetoric is the notion of immorality as contagion, which spreads through contact. It’s a truly weird and utterly arational picture of the human subject. Also, it speaks to the fragility of traditional (read: white evangelical) morality. I think that’s why the Charlotte Simmons book struck such a chord with these people: the protaganist’s moral code was so fragile & uninterrogated that mere contact with the impurity of others was enough to make it crumble.
… and let me add:
the morally-weak liberal who won’t say X Is Bad, Y Is Good is a favored punching bag of conservatives everywhere. so, when a liberal makes a hard distinction about a book, it seems like a conservative thing to do.
time for lunch.. blood sugar at record lows.
Hilzoy–We can’t expect kids to assess those books, decide for themselves which are the parts they like and which are the parts they don’t, reject some books altogether as vile, and so forth. Since one of the effects of my reading was precisely to force me to become a critical reader at an early age, I don’t get this at all.
But that is exactly the point. Critical thinking is not something that book banners (of any stripe) care about. A book banner is not at all interested in the fact that someone who once read Nietzsche and went through a nihilistic phase then went on to read Arendt later and came out the other side as a fairly well adjusted adult. Critical thought is unnecessary so long as the child is provided with the correct worldview from the beginning and never deviate from it.
That is why book banners do not care about process or method or net results. There are certain viewpoints that are just wrong, and to entertain them for even a moment shows a dangerous lack of judgement on the part of humanity. The fact that someone has read a book and grown out of it just raises the spectre that someone else could read it and never grow out of it. That is what haunts the book banner.
Neodude, why don’t you think Sade wanted to “proselytize”?
From the Intro to “La philosophie dans le boudoir”:
Seems pretty straightforward to me, though he does omit the part about the red waxed thread.
remember that old hymn:
“‘Tis a gift to be simple, ’tis a gift to be free”
far too many evangelicals believe that certain ideas [e.g. homosexuality is normal] are so dangerous that any discussion of them must be banned.
It’s astonishing that books like the Turner Diaries aren’t on the list.
Although I’d like to think I scarcely have to say I’m thoroughly opposed to “banning” any books, and a lifelong defender of the First Amendment and the ACLU, I’d like to stand up for the notion that, in fact, books are dangerous. Good books can be highly dangerous. Good books contain ideas, and ideas are contagious, and that’s most dangerous, indeed.
And that’s a, uh, goldarn good thing! But let no one ever say that books and ideas and knowledge can’t be powerful, society-changing, dangerous things. Look what Uncle Tom’s Cabin did to slavery. Look indeed at the power of Marx’s words, and Hitler’s, and Thomas Jefferson’s, and Thomas Paine’s. And, yes, the Bible and the Torah and the Koran.
Books can be the most dangerous things in the world. And how empty and different our world would be were this not true!
“Why this draconian overreaction to ideas? How do ideas threaten them?”
How did Common Sense threaten British rule in America? How did the Declaration of Independence? How did samizdata help lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union? How did Keynesian theory change economics? How did Einstein change physics? Through the power of writing.
There’s nothing more threatening to the world than ideas, than words. Not H-bombs, nor anthrax, nor bubonic plague. Words, ideas, knowledge, books: the most threatening and dangerous things imaginable.
Do you really want to argue that point, Edward?
Needless to say (but apparently not), if books, writing, ideas, and speech have no power, no danger, then we have no need for a First Amendment to protect them. If words are pointless, meaningless, things which change no one’s mind, there is no reason whatever to value them, and banning them is as okay as forbidding smoking or chewing gum.
It’s only because words are important, powerful, dangerous, that we must protect them, guard them, value them, defend them, and make them available.
To declare that books, ideas, and knowledge, have no value, no power, no danger, is to stand against the First Amendment and free speech. Surely this should be entirely obvious?
Seems pretty straightforward to me, though he does omit the part about the red waxed thread.
Posted by: Anderson
I stand corrected…I think.
When we begin to deal with nihilistic thought, “force of will” becomes the standard of truth. Not the conversion of the mind/soul through discourse. Pluralism and discourse are an Enlightenment pipe-dream, acording to modern Sadist.
Kind-of off the point, but it can put De Sade, James Dobeson and the NeoCons in context.
The negative discourses of the postmodern reflected a pessi¬mistic take on the trajectories of modern societies. Toynbee, Mills, Bell, Steiner, and others saw Western societies and culture in decline, threatened by change and instability, as well as by the new developments of mass society and culture. The negative discourse of the postmodern thus posits a crisis for Western civilization at the end of the modern world. This pessimistic and apocalyptic discourse would be reproduced in postmodern theor¬ists like Baudrillard. The negative cultural discourse of Howe, Steiner, Bell and others would also prepare the way for the neo-conservative attacks on contemporary culture in the 1980s.
[…]
Thus, by the 1980s, the postmodern discourses were split into cultural conservatives decrying the new developments and avant-gardists celebrating them. Postmodern discourses were proliferat¬ing through different academic fields and by the 1980s debates erupted concerning breaks with modernity, modernism, and modern theory. More extreme advocates of the postmodern were calling for ruptures with modern discourses and the development of new theories, politics, modes of writing, and values. While the discussions of postmodern cultural forms were primarily initiated in North America, it was in France that Baudrillard and Lyotard were developing notions of a new postmodern era that were much more comprehensive and extreme than those produced earlier in Britain and the United States. The developments in postmodern theory in France constituted a rupture with the French rationalist tradition founded by Descartes and further developed in the French Enlightenment. New French Theory can be read as one of a series of revolts against Cartesian rationalism ranging from the Enlightenment attack on theoretical reason in favour of promoting rational social change, through Comte and Durkheim’s revolt against philosophical rationalism in favour of social science, to Sartre and Merleau-Ponty’s attempts to make philosophy serve the needs of concrete human existence. As we shall see in the next section, French structuralism, poststructuralism, and postmodern theory constituted a series of attacks on rationalist and Enlighten¬ment theory. Yet these critiques built on another French counter-Enlightenment tradition rooted in the critiques of reason by de Sade, Bataille, Artaud, and others whom Habermas (1987a) terms ‘the dark writers of the bourgeoisie’. A French ‘dandy’ and bohemian tradition stemming from Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and others also helped produce the aestheticized, ironic, and subver¬sive ethos of French postmodern theory. In addition, the French reception of Nietzsche and Heidegger played a major role in turning French theory away from Hegel, Marx, phenomenology and existentialism and toward development of new theoretical formations that eventually produced postmodern theory.
From:
In Search of the Postmodern
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/pomo/ch1.html
See also Jim Henley, by the way.
“If I’m missing something here, I’d be happy to learn what it is.”
Have I helped at all, Edward?
fwiw: I did not mean to deny that books are dangerous and challenging and earthshaking; just the (to me) completely different idea that they just march into your head uncriticized and unquestioned and set up shop. Only some such idea, I think, could possibly explain the urge to ban Harry Potter. That is all 😉
All that to suggest Michele Foucault and James Dobson are both anti-Enlightened tyrants.
But it seems the religious anti-modernist/Enlightenment is eager to use the force of the State to implement their vision, while the a-religious are happy to keep their vision away from the government as long as the government stays away from them.
Perhaps this will help explain why social conservatives go batshit over Harry Potter. :>
I think ‘dangerous’ needs to be treated as a transitive adjective here, meaning dangerous to whom? As Gary elucidates, books are always dangerous to those who thrive on ignorance. . generally the authoritarians. However, the strong implication of the moral [sic] majority [sic] is that the books must be removed because they are dangerous to the reader. This is the idea that I believe Edward is askance at. And I’m inclined to agree with him. I’ve never seen any evidence, data or anecdotal, that reading any book has caused great harm to a reader, and on the flip side I have enormous anecdotal evidence that reading just about anything has enriched the reader.
Have I helped at all, Edward?
Always, Mr. Farber. 😉
Very disappointing, Edward. I urge you to get back to your happy place and retitle this post.
Slarti…
what? did you miss the smiley face?
seriously though…if you can counter the ALA spokesperson’s claim that bannings increase significantly when conservatives are in power, please do so.
re: Sade
Jes- Important question…when you say you “could cheerfully see [120 Days of Sodom] burned,” does that include all copies of the work and does that extend to Sade’s other writings?
NeoDude–Sade and Bataille are absolutely a part of post-structuralist and postmodern discourses. But that does not mean that they have been embraced prima facie but rather that they are situated as a response to other discourses (you know this, but some of the rampaging anti-postmodernist culture warriors miss this entirely). Sade is mostly read for his anarchistic utopian ideals and formulation of power rather than for his teenage satanist fixation on sexual cruelty. Also, there is currently some push-back from scholars of the early modern period against post-structuralism and postmodernism as “anti-enlightenment”, arguing that they are more precisely anti-romanticist. I think these critiques are currently in flux and postmodernism is going to emerge from the crucible somewhat changed. At least that is how it looks from here.
“I’ve never seen any evidence, data or anecdotal, that reading any book has caused great harm to a reader….”
Say, would you like to take a personality test?
How about a nice read of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion? No harm ever came from that one!
Was anyone damaged by the ideas of Father Charles Coughlin and his “Social Justice”? Nah, they only picked up good ideas.
And these persuaded no one of nothing! Right?
And the words of Fred Phelps: only beneficial!
Should people be prevented from reading any book? No. Has no one ever gotten terrible ideas from a book, ideas which changed their life in a terrible way? Obviously, yes.
Edward, while I agree 100% with the premise of this post, I have to agree with Slart. It begs a question that is a posting rules violation: to wit, if one of us said “conservatives are afraid of books/conservatives want to ban books”, it would be a generalization worthy of a warning.
Again, this is not to register disagreement with the premise, which I think is accurate: fundamentalists, social conservatives, and right-wing politicians have a far stronger track record of trying to ban ideas the find objectionable.
Well…I was just so…so unaware that I had this deep-seated aversion to the written word. Shocking, really, to a guy who’s devoted a sizable quantity of wall space to bookshelves.
Oh, and as for the ALA’s claim: laughable. Look, this is a school board voting to remove books from the curriculum, not the US Congress outlawing books. Is it your/their contention that the demographic makeup of the school district changes radically as a function of who’s in power in D.C.?
Is it your/their contention that the demographic makeup of the school district changes radically as a function of who’s in power in D.C.?
No, I think the argument is that the urge is always there, but when a more liberal government is in place the book banners feel less empowered and raise their voices less often.
By the way. You were right. The title was out of bounds. I’m sorry. It seemed sort of cute this morning, but as the day wears on, I can see where it may not come across that way.
Catsy.
Yeah, Catsy, I would have brought that up, but I’ve been in meetings all day long. And yes, I wouldn’t have any issue at all with some case being made for some Conservatives being more likely to be in favor of banning books than some Liberals, but I’d still want to see the evidence.
Thanks, Edward, and in defense of the not-noticing-the-smiley: imagine if it were you; would you have even made it that far?
No worries, Edward. I actually was expecting a great deal more disagreement, and for the record I’ve been rather grouchy myself the last few days.
Sounds rather oppressive. 8p
I am not rabidly anti-postmodern, by any means…but I share Habermas’s critique…that it has hi-jacked much of the left’s energy.
Many activists focused on the “symbols of culture and power” and away from the “economics of culture and power”. Wages and labor and became boring.
Many on the left began to resemble right-winging Christians….You know…focusing on Janet Jackson’s nipple and Terri Schivo, while the economic rug is being pulled from under them.
How many young leftists spent as much time preserving labour rights as they spend on defeating the oppressive and tyranical gender-specific symbols on public restrooms?
Sounds rather oppressive. 8p
relative to the alternative, I’d say appropriately so.
Slarti–Sounds rather oppressive. 8p
We’re all sworn to do the bidding of our evil overlords, the school librarians.
I, for one…ok, not really.
How many young leftists spent as much time preserving labour rights as they spend on defeating the oppressive and tyranical gender-specific symbols on public restrooms?
That characterizes a phase in the whole post-whatever dialogue, and just shows that young academics are just as vulnerable to getting carried away with things as paranoid PTA book banners. It’s like taking Andrea Dworkin as representative of all feminists everywhere, or Phyllis Schlafly as representative of all evangelical women. There is much more to post-structuralism/postmodernism/post-colonialism than Habermas (or Sokol) would credit, and criticism are listened to and responded to. Post-(insert whipping-boy here) is not forever frozen in 1990’s amber.
Post-(insert whipping-boy here) is not forever frozen in 1990’s amber.
You got me there.
One thing that’s missing from this discussion is the idea that children are not miniature adults, and thus aren’t necessarily affected by books in the same way that adults are. Kevin above thinks that 17-year-olds need to be protected not just from a book but from a single word, and I have no problem disagreeing with that. But I’m not as comfortable dismissing votermom’s concerns about her 8-year-old, especially since I’m not a parent. Of course parents can’t shelter their children from everything, but perhaps it’s not unreasonable for them to be able to shelter them from some things, sometimes — preferably without having to move to a shack in the Montana wilderness.
perhaps it’s not unreasonable for them to be able to shelter them from some things, sometimes
Jeez, d’ya think?? This is a silly thread — first of all, the ALA uses the inflammatory word “banned”, conjuring up images of book-burnings, when all that’s generally on the table is what’s available on the shelf in a school library. There are all kinds of books (and other media) that are “banned” in this sense, and rightly so — even if a small percentage of parents embrace an “anything goes” policy, and even if their children generally turn out OK, it’s not unreasonable for school libraries to accomodate the dominant parenting style in this country, in which children are protected from being exposed to certain material.
Thanks to Nous and Neodude for some interesting comments. My own, perhaps simplistic reading of Sade is that he’s “anti-Enlightenment” in much the same way as Rousseau. Except that Rousseau imagined the state of nature rather differently than Sade did.
Attempts to turn Sade into a cunning ironist are, I suspect, fig leaves. “Yes, I read Sade, but only for the irony.”
As for the “books CAN be dangerous,” well sure, if their ideas are acted upon. What the censors miss is the notion that I can read Hitler without being motivated to become a Nazi. Indeed, Mein Kampf must be one of the least dangerous books in the world; any liberal on this thread could make Nazism sound sexier than Hitler does.
in which children are protected from being exposed to certain material.
hmmm…try reading the article KenB. Stay focused on the fact that the book in question had been part of the regular curriculum for years, teachers swore by it, and NOW the damn thing is being banned. Not moved from a shelf, but actually, literally locked in a vault in the principals office.
And if it was a typo, what a typo.
FWIW, my pseud is sufficiently long and complex that I tend to assume that any mispelling is accidental and without malice aforethought.
nous_a: Jes- Important question…when you say you “could cheerfully see [120 Days of Sodom] burned,” does that include all copies of the work and does that extend to Sade’s other writings?
Well, as I said: I really don’t believe in burning books, and in fact I didn’t even burn the copy of 120 Days of Sodom I had been given. (Not leant. The friend who gave it to me said emphatically that he didn’t want it back.) I donated it to a charity in a stack of other books and thus put on their shoulders the problem of what to do with it.
And I’ve never read anything else deSade ever wrote, nor wish to.
But, principles about censorship aside (though I don’t think they should ever be put aside) I could wish that 120 Days of Sodom had been thrown out with the trash from deSade’s cell in the Bastille, and never, ever seen print. Does that answer your question?
KenB, I don’t believe that “the dominant parenting style in this country” includes protecting children from Harry Potter or Huck Finn, unless I’m misunderstanding what you intend by the word “dominant”.
So the real complaint is not that conservatives/liberals/people are “afraid of books”, but that there are certain books that certain conservatives are trying to have removed from schools that you feel should remain. Is that about right? If that’s all you’re saying, I agree entirely — it seems silly to me too to want to ban Harry Potter. But IMO, to refer to this as “banning”, by people who are “afraid of books”, is over the top.
“hmmm…try reading the article KenB. […] …NOW the damn thing is being banned. Not moved from a shelf, but actually, literally locked in a vault in the principals office.”
Um.
“In fact, on April 14, as soon as Dr. Yarworth discovered that an overzealous underling had had copies of the novel stored in the school vault, he ordered them returned to storage in classrooms so it could still be read by students who sought it out.”
It’s probably a good idea to reread an article before instructing someone to reread an article. So I’ve found, anyway.
You know, when I first moved to southern California, right out of grad school, suddenly there were no guys at all who were not either married, or in a relationship that was the moral equivalent of marriage, or gay, or my students. In the first three years I was there, I met a total of three guys who didn’t fall into one or another of these categories. One was completely, and I mean completely, silent; one was nice but I had no chemistry at all with him, and one …
Well, he decided that the way to flirt with me was to go all cosmopolitan and all, and so he leaned over and said, in this oh so sophisticated way: have you read de Sade? No, I said, a bit taken aback. Oh, you should, he said; his La Philosophie Dans La Boudoire is a truly profound criticism of modernity, and I’d be happy to lend it to you. It’s one of my favorite books.
It was all I could do to keep myself from asking whether, if he were trying to pick up someone who was Jewish, he’d come on to them by bringing up his admiration for Love Slaves of Treblinka, or something.
I should say that while I have not read any actual book by de Sade, I have had friends who have, and who have helpfully explained to me exactly why I shouldn’t bother, and what’s in them, so I had some basis for this reaction.
Edward and others,
You may want to check out, if you are not already familiar with them, “All that is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity” by Marshall Berman, “Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right” by Lisa McGirr, “What’s the Matter with Kansas” by Thomas Frank, and the classic “The Emerging Republican Majority” by Kevin Phillips.
In the wake of the failure of liberalism and social welfare policies to address the problems in America (think race riots, ghettos/housing/suburban sprawl, civil rights, consumer economy, etc. at the end of the ‘60s), Conservatives have turned away from the social science foundation that informed liberal policies (generally the period from the New Deal to the Great Society – and its failure (why John Maynard Keynes is on the list)) and turned toward faith, rejecting secular humanism and embracing moral absolutes (why Nietzsche shows up on the list: the replacement of God with science – if we can understand the world through science, there is no longer a need to lay its mysteries at the feet of God). Over the last couple of generations, with what they understand as the failure of science-based, liberal, social welfare policies, Conservatives are searching for “something solid” in an upsetting, complex, dynamic, modern world, and they are not too keen on suffering a continuation of previous approaches or anything which might compromise the certainty or solutions they are after.
It seems to me, the problems many Americans from all points on the political spectrum are trying to resolve have a lot more to do with the constant growthmanship of unregulated capitalism, corporatism, the infallibility of the free market as an article of faith, and the nature of America’s consumer economy. But that’s another discussion.
In re the list provided by cleek: What do many of them have in common? Most point out, at least potential, flaws in American institutions, policies, and ideas (Marx, Engels, and Mao have three books in the top ten – a communist, as it was used by many in the US, is most usefully understood as a euphemism for anyone who criticized the US) and thereby call into question the “solidity” that Conservatives seek.
“Silent Spring”?! Good God!
Phyllis Schlafly is one of the judges? Can’t the Conservatives do better? In the same breath she pretends to support the Constitution while bashing its system of checks and balances. How anyone takes her seriously . . .
“Should people be prevented from reading any book? No. Has no one ever gotten terrible ideas from a book, ideas which changed their life in a terrible way? Obviously, yes.”
This is, roughly, the same argument put forth by those opposed to violent video games or movies on the grounds that — even if most people are benignly affected — people predisposed to violence will be sent over the edge into violent behavior. In that case it’s quite clear to me that the blame is not with the material, it’s with the sociopathy of the person inflamed by it. And by the same argument I maintain that no harm has ever been inflicted on anyone by a book (barring the occasional failure of a poorly installed bookcase).
That harm is inflicted on people by ignorance, fear, delusion, and samsara is a fact I would of course never argue.
The top three entries from Edward’s post:
1. A collection of American folk tales
2. A tolerant appreciation of homosexual parents
3. An autobiography of black experience
Scary indeed.
BlondbutBright writes:
“I think it has to do with the principle found in Ecclesiastes 1:18: “For in much wisdom is much grief; and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.”
Stupid = happy, right?”
“Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” “Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry” (a refrain repeated three times in Ecclesiastes). Because tomorrow we’re dead: “For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.”
I wonder if the notion that the ideas in a book can “infect” a reader might be influenced by belief in “evil spirits”?
Hilzoy: It was all I could do to keep myself from asking whether, if he were trying to pick up someone who was Jewish, he’d come on to them by bringing up his admiration for Love Slaves of Treblinka, or something.
Expressing disgust for and a wish to violently abuse Jews is socially unacceptable.
Expressing disgust for and a wish to violently abuse women is somehow… not unacceptable.
while I have not read any actual book by de Sade, I have had friends who have, and who have helpfully explained to me exactly why I shouldn’t bother, and what’s in them
I’d read various political and literary discussions of de Sade’s writing, but nothing had prepared me for the lickchop style of it: nothing could, except actually reading it.
Curiously enough, the one thing I know about de Sade besides his literary and sexual history is that he was invited to sit on a tribunal, after his release from the Bastille by the revolutionaries, but was expelled from it because he refused to condemn anyone to death. I understand the difference between what someone fantasises about and what their principles permit them in reality: but just the same, I have no wish to share de Sade’s fantasies, not even at two centuries remove, no matter how well-written they may be.
Still, I do have a strong feeling against my wishes, and my feelings, being allowed to dictate what others shall read.
I had a right to decide that I wanted to judge de Sade’s writing for myself. I may now wish I hadn’t, but I’m entitled to make my own mistakes. I object to others deciding on my behalf what I may and may not read, and that is ultimately what censorship is.
Whatever the usual political label of the censor, it is a reactionary position to take: an intolerable degree of elitism and lack of respect for others to be allowed to make their own decisions. That is more usually a right-wing position than a left-wing position, perhaps, but I do see it happening on both sides – and being decried by both sides.
(Parents may have a general concern about the contents of school libraries, but I think that’s pure parental overprotectiveness and refusal to believe their children are as mature as they were at their age – and that too is common to both left and right.)
The issue here doesn’t seem so much to be a desire on the part of some to ban books from the public sphere, but rather who gets to decide what tools a teacher will use to teach children.
The tools in most other classes are pretty straightforward, numbers in Math, chemicals in Chemistry, saws in Woodshop etc. etc. These tools help the teacher teach two things: 1) Basic understanding of the course in question and 2) How to think about solving problems related to the course. Very few people will argue with the rational behind those teachers’ decisions about which tools to use, except where a teacher may wish s/he had better equipment that the district can’t afford. But the tools in English classes are different. IIRC, once a standard level of reading is met, English begins to become about how to think about a great many issues (not just history or Economics). The tools are books, about which everyone has an opinion, and one that is difficult to shout down with a degree in the way a Chemistry teacher might if provoked.
That’s why this line from the article disappointed me, not with the article, but with the people involved: that reading lists made available to parents include a ratings system, plot summaries of all assigned books, and the identification of any potentially objectionable content.
Nowhere is there a place where the teacher describes why that book was chosen. If there were, perhaps that which may seem objectionable would be seen as necessary to make a point with the students.
any liberal on this thread could make Nazism sound sexier than Hitler does..
Sure, Hitler was a mediocre writer in a language that is seldom accused of being sexy. On the other hand, Hitler knew how to make a gesture and make the people into a big part of the show. He could persuade with oration that went beyond words. Every liberal could learn a bit about getting the base revved up from Hitler. Riefenstahl’s film about the Nuremberg rally shows us spectacular theatre, theatre that is so timeless that Disney could redo it in Lion King sixty years later, and it was still effective, though attenuated by the animation.
“I think it has to do with the principle found in Ecclesiastes 1:18: “For in much wisdom is much grief; and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.”
I would imagine, the author of that passage is not promoting anti-intellectualism or even suggesting the infamous “Jerusalem vs. Athens” dichotomy.
Instead, the passage seems to suggest a humbling position concerning knowledge.
Many pastors would do well, to act with more humility when attempting to show off their perceived knowledge concerning scrpiture and hermeneutics…I could be wrong though, and he really is suggesting that “ignorance is bliss.”
Well, he decided that the way to flirt with me was to go all cosmopolitan and all, and so he leaned over and said, in this oh so sophisticated way: have you read de Sade? No, I said, a bit taken aback. Oh, you should, he said; his La Philosophie Dans La Boudoire is a truly profound criticism of modernity, and I’d be happy to lend it to you. It’s one of my favorite books.
That is too funny, and a great scene for a movie. Would that everyone were so candid on a first date; those who are interested in such things could reciprocate, and the rest of us could run like hell.
(Has anyone read Mary Gaitskill’s Two Girls, Fat & Thin? The “Hegelian” boyfriend comes to mind.)
Sure, Hitler was a mediocre writer in a language that is seldom accused of being sexy.
Heine is said to’ve had some success in that respect, tho I can’t say.
Anderson asks:
“Does the urge to ban books stem in part from the Judeo-Christian focus on The Book as scripture?”
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us . . .”
“This is, roughly, the same argument put forth by those opposed to violent video games or movies on the grounds that — even if most people are benignly affected — people predisposed to violence will be sent over the edge into violent behavior.”
Not so much the same thing, I think. Claiming that portrayals of violence, say, will lead to imitation is one thing (and something I’m utterly skeptical is statistically significant); noting that some historical ideas have had bad results — such as those from Mein Kampf is really quite another, I think. Imitation is one thing; an influential social idea is another.
In any case, observing that ideas have consequences — is this actually contestable? — is entirely different from advocating the banning of ideas.
Anderson: the thing of it was, we weren’t even on a date. He taught where I did, and was chatting me up while we were taking a speaker out to dinner.
Actually — I hadn’t thought of this person for some time — the next time we spoke, which was after another lecture, while walking another speaker to another dinner, I tried to not talk to him, but was unsuccessful, and he asked whether we might get together on some specific evening, and I said, no, I would be preparing for class, and would be nervous. He said he was never nervous; I said I always was, because whenever I taught, however much (or little) I prepared, everything would fly out of my head right before class, and then I would open my mouth and magically, something coherent would come out, but I was never sure whether or not this would happen, since it did not seem to be in any way under my control.
“Ah”, he said, “like worrying about whether one is going to get an erection.”
(His actual words. Recall, this was the second (2nd) time we had met.)
This time I did say what leapt to mind, which was a rather chilly “Frankly, I wouldn’t know about that.”
I hadn’t thought about that person for at least five years, what with no longer teaching at the same college. With any luck, I won’t think about him for at least the next five.
“BlondbutBright writes”
Who? What? Where? Why?
Is Google paying you to make people go find obscure references? (Am I in violation of a new law against citing?)
🙂
Claiming that portrayals of violence, say, will lead to imitation is one thing (and something I’m utterly skeptical is statistically significant); noting that some historical ideas have had bad results — such as those from Mein Kampf is really quite another, I think. Imitation is one thing; an influential social idea is another.
Ironically, I think that Mein Kampf is a textbook example of why banning even the most vile books is a bad idea. After all, Hitler very carefully described what his plans were if he ever gained power in Mein Kampf–if the leaders of Western Europe had simply read it carefully and taken him at his word, it would have been blatantly obvious that what needed to be done after the Nazis rose to power was to seize on the first significant violation of the Treaty of Versailles–either the German occupation of the Rhineland or beginning to rebuild the German Air Force–and use it as a reason to sweep in, slaughter the German Army if it put up any resistance, and hang Der Furher and all of the other Nazi leadership from the nearest trees. Barring such an obvious warning, such a step might have been excessive and a tad paranoid. In other words, even a pile of racist filth written by a homicidal would-be genocidal maniac had some potential value–the fact that Europe foolishly failed to heed it doesn’t change that.
“In any case, observing that ideas have consequences — is this actually contestable? — is entirely different from advocating the banning of ideas.”
Oh, sure. The disagreement now rests on whether the blame lies with the idea, or the book as its vehicle, or the mind receptive to terrible ideas when something bad happens. At which point it borders on a semantic debate and has the meat stripped from its bones.
But it raises the point that the best way to protect your children or citizens against terrible ideas is to instill in them a faculty to evaluate ideas and an ethos to evaluate them against — certainly not to try to insulate them from all bad ideas, which is a sisyphean task if ever there was one. *cough*sex ed*cough*.
I hadn’t thought about that person for at least five years, what with no longer teaching at the same college. With any luck, I won’t think about him for at least the next five.
I don’t know, I think you’ve got the makings of a good short story/memoir-essay there … What a hoot (from the safe perspective of reading about it, if not from that of living it!).
Right here in the Seattle area people want to ban books. The latest was Huckleberry Finn because it had the n-word.
“Ironically, I think that Mein Kampf is a textbook example of why banning even the most vile books is a bad idea.”
I’m not clear what’s ironic, in the absense of anyone here arguing in favor of banning books.
“The latest was Huckleberry Finn because it had the n-word.”
And still has it. 🙂
I’m not clear what’s ironic, in the absense of anyone here arguing in favor of banning books.
Ironic in the sense that the arguments for banning would seem to be strongest for something that actually did help to spread a vile ideology that ended up killing millions, yet when closely examined some very strong arguments for *not* banning it that are centered in that very vileness become obvious.
Now, if we were in a more Lovecraftian existence, I can think of a few books where burning with extreme prejudice might be wise lest they bring things that ooze and gibber crawling out of the darkness. . .
Isn’t it obvious? Those wishing to ban books are not “conservative” at all. They are totalitarians. The range of Political opinion does not lie on a straight line — it is a circle, and when you are at 180 degrees it seems there is a left side and a right side. But when youre at 360 degrees, the extremes are exactly the same.
Gary Farber,
In re: “BlondbutBright writes”
Who? What? Where? Why?
Is Google paying you to make people go find obscure references? (Am I in violation of a new law against citing?)
:-)”
Sorry if the reference was “obscure.” The quote comes from BlondbutBright’s post above – one of the first few in response to this topic. I assume we are all reading the posts, which is why I mention author before quote or otherwise provide website, book title, etc. Is there some protocol I am overlooking here?
Robb,
“Those wishing to ban books are not “conservative” at all. They are totalitarians.”
I like the term “control addict” (borrowed from William S. Burroughs).
Otto says: “The quote comes from BlondbutBright’s post above….”
Ah, at June 2, 2005 10:29 AM. My apologies; I simply missed that somehow, despite having done a “find” to check; my bad.
(On a separate niggling point, myself, I refer to posts as “posts” and comments on posts as “comments,” but that’s perhaps just me being a fussbudget.)
“But when youre at 360 degrees, the extremes are exactly the same.”
Actually, they’d be flipped. Did you mean 270 or 90? Now who’s the fussbudget?
“I like the term ‘control addict’ (borrowed from William S. Burroughs).”
I suspect you can keep it; he probably doesn’t need it back.
It’s like taking Andrea Dworkin as representative of all feminists everywhere, or Phyllis Schlafly as representative of all evangelical women.
Posted by: nous_athanatos | June 2, 2005 03:17 PM
I have to add something to this…Dworkin get’s on my nerves, but her influence on anything looking like the political left is questionable…most leftist thinkers are out of the loop, when it comes to American political culture…Michael Harrington was probably the last famous leftists with influence over the political left (remember Bill Buckley’s comment, “That’s like being the tallest building in Topeka, Kansas).
However, Phyllis Schlafly and many other rabid right-wingers have way more sway over the political right.
Gary Farber,
“Posts” and “comments.” I’ll follow your guidline.
-“I suspect you can keep it; he probably doesn’t need it back.”
Hahahahaha. Indeed not. Thanks for the laugh!
NeoDude–Agreed, though actually not what I was trying to argue (but interesting, nonetheless). I was thinking of them both in Limbaughian terms whereby all one has to do is select one representative of the extreme* viewpoint from any group and tar the rest of the group with it. The type of thing that is generally brought to its idiotic apotheosis in sports talk radio.
* as in farthest from the actual institutional center, not in the purjorative sense.
I’m generally in agreement with most of the views expressed on this thread, but I’d like to take issue with one minor thing:
In other words, even a pile of racist filth written by a homicidal would-be genocidal maniac had some potential value–the fact that Europe foolishly failed to heed it doesn’t change that.
I don’t think you can really call people’s dismissal of Mein Kampf “foolish” because Hitler did something so profound and unprecedented that we can’t really imagine how shocking it was nowadays:
1) He told people what he was going to do if he ever came to power, and it involved a titanic war and copious amounts of death and the utter annihilation of a people.
2) He then did it.
I can’t think of a single example prior to Mein Kampf — and few thereafter — of a major political leader who actually kept his promises with the literalism and severity that Hitler did.* Sure, it’s blindingly obvious in retrospect but that was the beauty (in a warped and hideous way) of the technique: who on earth would believe that an orator with the rhetorical flamboyancy of Hitler would actually be telling the unvarnished truth? And that, given the power to execute his vilest fantasies and the responsibility of a nation on his back, he’d actually remain true to his original goals?
Unbelievable. And yet it happened.**
All in all, I think many of Hitler’s contemporaries get a bad rap for failing to apprehend the nature of his madness. [Likewise Stalin, btw; who could imagine that grey, boring Josef Djugashvilli from Georgia would turn into one of history’s greatest monsters?] Now that our eyes have been opened to these new vistas of human depravity, well, ignorance is no longer an excuse.
* To be fair, I’m not familiar enough with Lenin’s work to say if, for example, the NEP was foretold, but I tend to think it wasn’t.
** In fact, one can argue that it happened precisely because he was telling the truth in Mein Kampf and at the various rallies: the sophisticates like von Papen literally couldn’t comprehend Hitler’s monomania and assumed that he could be corrupted or bought off. How wrong they were.
oh…ok…
Little typo there, Anarch.
“who could imagine that grey, boring James Earl Carter from Georgia would turn into one of history’s greatest monsters?”
Fixed.
This is meant as a compliment: I decided I thought I knew whom the author of the comment of June 2, 2005 09:47 PM was within two sentences. (Also: I agree.)
sidereal: “who could imagine that grey, boring James Earl Carter from Georgia would turn into one of history’s greatest monsters?”
I stand corrected. Insert something Slartibartfastian about embarrassment, poison and villagers dying. Oh the shame. Oh the humanity. Etc.
Gary Farber: This is meant as a compliment: I decided I thought I knew whom the author of the comment of June 2, 2005 09:47 PM was within two sentences.
Yes, but were you right?
I can’t think of a single example prior to Mein Kampf — and few thereafter — of a major political leader who actually kept his promises with the literalism and severity that Hitler did.* Sure, it’s blindingly obvious in retrospect but that was the beauty (in a warped and hideous way) of the technique: who on earth would believe that an orator with the rhetorical flamboyancy of Hitler would actually be telling the unvarnished truth? And that, given the power to execute his vilest fantasies and the responsibility of a nation on his back, he’d actually remain true to his original goals?
First, let me add my praise to Mr Farber’s for a well-written reply that made me think.
Now, my response to your first comment would be–had anyone who had risen to lead a major nation ever described such a horrific vision for his country and its neighbors before reaching power? I’m not a history PhD, but I can’t think of anything that approaches it–the Communists certainly weren’t quite so blunt about their intentions. Whether he was taken seriously or not, one would think that Europe would be very, very concerned with Germany being led by a man whose stated goal was to conquer them–at the very least it was a sign that the man was not going to be looking at them in a friendly way.
The second point is that Europe was in a unique position–and had a unique responsibility–re Germany as opposed to, say, dealing with the equally vicious S.O.B. who was running the Soviet Union at the time. Europe had chosen to impose a harsh peace on Germany, and had basically stood on its neck since the Treaty of Versailles, causing great economic distress to Germany and helping foster the conditions that caused Hitler to come to power. I would argue that Europe had an obligation to either continue to keep their foot on Germany’s neck indefinitely, or to metaphorically twist their foot and go in and clean up the mess on a permanent basis–which they certainly had the capacity to do in the days when Hitler was rebuilding his air force and reoccupying the Rhineland (both clear violations of the Treaty of Versailles). By stepping back and letting Germany regain its footing just as a leader who had long before sworn revenge against Europe and the rest of the world rose to power, and watching as he began to systematically ignore treaty obligations and bully his neighbors, they abdicated their responsibility and served as a midwife to the horrors that followed. As you say, they had no way of knowing just how bad the situation would get, but what they knew and were capable of acting on should have been enough.
Dangerous Words
The latest hot, new “thingy” on the politics-geek blogs is talking about this list of Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Century, put out by Human Events Online (a right-wing group). Beyond the whole do-left-wing-groups-ban-more-books-than-right m…
Returning late to this thread . . .
Let me acknowledge first the several reactions to my mangling of Jesurgislac’s name. After 3 tries I gave up on spelling it and picked the nearest phonetic that suggested itself, with no malicious intent, but it was surely disrespectful, and I apologize. Thanks for his broad-minded reaction.
Regarding this thread, I am puzzled: I understood the original post to be a request for clarification of the (putatively) characteristically conservative profile of book-banners – that is, a proposal for discussion of a factual proposition (one which I think is largely correct, but nevermind). That makes some of the folowing discussion strange to me.
(1) I don’t understand how the post could have been offensive, even understanding that it implies that book-banning is a conservative undertaking. Offense being a subjective state, I suppose it is one of the tastes over which, famously, there is no disputing, but it seems hyper-reactive to me to argue that such a suggestion cannot even be made. There are some propositions, no doubt, that are offensive even as grounds for discussion (“Why is it always blacks who commit crimes?”), but I don’t see that this one rises to that level. I would guess that most, even, of those of us who view book-banning as a very bad thing don’t regard the false imputation of book-banning as being akin to racism. And, presumably, one possible response to the proposition is to deny it: to claim that it is not a characteristically conservative practice – a claim which itself cannot be made unless the discussion is allowed to go forward.
2) Nobody here seems to want to endorse wholesale book-banning, nor did I expect anyone would – but what, then, is the conversation about (especially if it is not to be about who bans books, and why)? The thread seems to have drifted, to a significant degree, onto what books one might like to ban, but will not. This evidences an admirable committment not to ban books, but also means that that subset of the conversation is not a conversation about book-banning. We are no nearer to understanding the mindset that makes banning seem reasonable – in part because no one here has that mindset, and in part because we cannot name, out loud, those who do. (I am not criticizing thread drift – it’s an enjoyable phenomenon. I’m just pointing out that the thread hasn’t answered the question that began it.)
What prompts this comment is that I found the original post intriguing not merely because it flattered a prejudice I have about conservatives, but because it opened the question of motivation and mindset. I, too, suspect that “they truly freakin’ are afraid of books” – but I would have been willing to see a discussion that either (a) demonstrated that the implicit empirical claim in the original post was false, or (b) elucidated some explanation for book-banning efforts that made sense out of it in a way that did not collapse into simple fear of knowledge. (As a start, I think the way toward that latter possibility was hinted at by those – including myself – who acknowledged that there are attempts at book-banning by liberals, even if they are not the majority of such attempts. There may be a common motivation that both sides can access, though with different likelihood – identifying it would have been a step toward answering the broader question from the post.) I don’t think either of those possibilities is present in the discussion, however, and to that extent I think the opportunity presented by the first post remains unfulfilled.
Having, in my immediately-previous comment, challenged the conversation to re-engage the premise of the original post, I suppose I should make an effort myself. To that end, I make the following modest suggestions:
Book-Banning Is Characteristically, Though Not Uniquely, a Conservative Impulse
As evidence, I offer, from the ALA’s list of the 10 Most-Challenged Books of 2004, not the titles, but the reasons each book was challenged:
Let me note as well that two of the three books challenged for “racism” were by black authors, depicting their treatment by white society; both have won literary awards.
Now, at the risk of stereotyping, what might we be likely to say about those who gave us this list?
On a purely factual basis, we can identify some of their obsessions:
Further, we note that they don’t just want the books removed from certain grade levels; they don’t want anyone to read them (only two objections specified “unsuited for age group” – the others were absolute). Also, “political viewpoint” and “accuracy” issues challenging preferred conservative positions (gun rights) were enough to vault one book to the #3 spot on the list for that year, but appear for no other book. (To be fair, that book, Arming America, by Michale Bellesiles, has come in for withering procedural criticism across the board. But it provides an interesting test scenario, since a competing book with exactly the opposite premise, More Guns, Less Crime, by John Lott, had been published less than two years previously and had also been widely faulted for methodological errors and the author’s habit of falsifying fraudulent endorsements. The two had been played against each other in the press for some time – and neither is aimed at a children’s audience – but only one, the one disliked by conservatives, became the third-most “challenged” book in the country.) And, we can note that the implausibility of the charges is no barrier to banning the books – the title cited for “nudity” is a 30+-year-old picture book by Maurice Sendak (one of his many Caldecott Award winners, and the sequel to his acclaimed Where the Wild Things Are). Finally, I can only speculate about the biggest category, but it is still sugestive. “Offensive language” is ambiguous, but I’m assuming it means “swear words” – they are specifically cited as objections to several titles on that list, and offensive racial language is probably covered under “racism”.
So, who are we talking about? Who is obsessed with swearing, sex, gays, and material “unsuitable for age group”? Who turns out in droves to protest books about gun control that were already failing just fine on their own? Who scours cartoon books about children and dream-monsters for hints of cartoon genitalia? (There is reportedly a long history of parents and librarians painting over the “dirty” pictures in Sendak’s book.) Who thinks books with realistic teen characters “model bad behavior”? Who thinks blacks are twice as racist as whites? Who, in a list of their 10-worst books, manages to name an 8-time Caldecott Award winner, a double-Newberry/double-Corretta Scott King-award winner (yeah – the “racist” got a trophy from MLK’s wife – twice), a Nobel Prize winner, a Pulitzer- & Tony-award nominee, and a boatload of other prizewinners?
I’ve already copped to Huckleberry Finn, but that’s it on the liberal side. (And note that Huck Finn is not on the list for 2004 – the books above pushed it off.) I’m willing to go out on a limb and guess that none of last year’s crop of book-challengings was instigated by liberals. We don’t have those obsessions, and we’re not that dumb.
But there’s more. Another thing liberals don’t do is band together to keep anybody from thinking anything they don’t like. Parents sometimes protest books on school reading lists – and both liberal and conservative parents do this. (I’d bet again it’s more often conservatives, but you’d have to survey local school boards to find out. The ALA does so, and they think it’s true, but who knows?) Conservatives form organizations and launch coordinated nation-wide campaigns. There are, among other things, the anti-book campaigns of the general-issue conservative groups like Focus on the Family (issues an annual press release arguing that ALA’s “Banned Books Week” is misguided; does not officially condemn Harry Potter books but praises those who seek to ban them) and the American Family Association (their Web site is filled with news bites and position statements about “offensive” public speech in every aspect of the media). But beyond this, there are national organizations devoted to systematic complaints about books:
So I don’t think it’s too much to say there’s a conservative theme to the impetus to prevent people from reading certain books. What’s obvious from the thread above is that the feeling that some books offer dangerous or offensive ideas is hardly unique to conservatives, and even the idea that some books might be better off not read, or even never having been written is one that suggests itself to many of us from time to time. But overt action to keep other people from reading them is not universal, and it has certain hallmarks that, really, are not very subtle or hard to make out.
What is worthwhile here is figuring out why it falls out this way. Some obvious, superficial suggestions leap to mind: conservatism is inherently negative, in the sense of resisting changes – so the impulse to prevent “bad” ideas from taking hold may be more natural to those whose inclination is to prevent bad changes being made in general; conservatives have adopted a self-description, in the US, of a victimized minority, so perhaps the traditional expedients of minorities – insularism, protection of culture and tradition – may seem appropriate to them. Those are just possibilities. Likely the answers are more nuanced than that.
What is needed – and, I think, would be useful and interesting, and further might shed light on other aspects of the liberal/conservative political dynamic – is a better, more careful, and more searching examination of this phenomenon. The issue of book banning is a particularly ripe platform for inspection of differences in modes of political activism, precisely because (I would have thought until now) nobody is likely to get offended enough by it that they can’t carry on the conversation. I hope that is true notwithstanding. But I do think there is a conversation to be had, because I do think – as I’ve tried to show above – there is something to discuss, as the original post suggested.
Now, having made that inflammatory suggestion, let me in an oblique way douse the flames somewhat (does one douse “obliquely”? – douse “slightly”? – “sprinkle”?) by offering a characterization of one aspect of book-banning in which both liberals and conservatives are implicated – the one in which, again, Huck Finn so often rears its waterlogged head.
Most “Book Banning” Is Really School-Textbook Choice, and Liberals and Conservatives Both Play That Game
Focus on the Family does make one good point in its annual diatribe against the people who are against banning books: the vast majority of “challenges” to books are made in public school systems, not public libraries or bookstores. And these consist of parental complaints (often prompted by organized, large-scale banning efforts, it is true) about the books their own children are assigned in school. The history of parental meddling in school curricula is not a good one (think Kansas if you’re in any doubt), but one can understand their concerns, and schools are a place where parents are expected to at least have some input. I think it is reasonable to regard these issues as distinct in kind from “book burning” as we – and the ALA – sometimes stereotype it.
Also, as I mentioned, this process is one that has seen participation by liberal and conservative parents. As such, it may offer a valuable starting-point for understanding the banning impulse in a simple form.
Assuming that at least some of these parents (and I’m not using the terms “liberal” or “conservative” here) are people who would in general not be inclined to ban books or discourage reading, why would they interfere with school reading lists particularly? Are the motivations of liberal and conservative parents in this respect the same? Are the solutions they seek (alternate readings, removal from reading lists, removal from school libraries, banning outright) the same?
As above, superficially plausible answers suggest themselves: The objections to Huck Finn center on the idea that kids need to read that one book, suffused as it is with the racism of almost 200 years ago and its pervasively offensive language – it is not an objection to an idea in the book in general (“racism” being too broad to be an idea), and it is not a suggestion that the book be banned entirely; the objections to, say, Harry Potter often take the form of a demand that the book be removed from school libraries or placed on a restricted list. So perhaps there is a distinction there. What motivates it? Or is that characterization false – are parents from across the political spectrum more alike each other in their reactions to schoolbooks than to other books? What both reactions have in common is that parents demand that school districts not provide (“expose” is the usual word – like books are a disease) their children with material the parents object to but cannot monitor while the kids are in the schoolroom. Parental control is a unifying theme, I suspect, for liberal and conservative parents reviewing their children’s school assignments.
Does that theme extend to their reactions to books outside the classroom? (I think it obviously does not, but, again, it’s a question worth pursuing.) Why or why not?
Discuss.
Excellent comment, Kevin–one worthy of its own post, I think, were it not already 100% on-topic.
My theory on why social conservatives typically invest a lot more effort in trying to restrict what information other people have access to ties into some comments I made on another thread today. In part:
The consistent tendency of society (particularly American society) over the last several hundred years has been towards inexorable social liberalism, as obsolete prejudices are rejected and new knowledge continues to render existing ones socially unacceptable.
I believe that (generally speaking) social liberalism is not only right, but more moral and reasonable than social conservatism. Of course, I would believe that, given that I’m socially liberal. I believe that most socially conservative attitudes are based on bigotry, ignorance, fear of the Other, superstition, irrational sexual taboos, or some combination of the above, and that the antidote to social conservatism is information. People who have more accurate information are able to make smarter, more informed decisions based on facts and a clearer understanding of the way the world works. Let the children find the Bible in their school library, along with the Quran, Heather Has Two Mommies, or And The Band Played On. Let them make up their own minds, and if the prospect of them doing that scares you, perhaps you should be doing more to encourage them to come to you with questions about what they read.
Social conservatives generally try to restrict access to information that contradicts their belief systems, because they know from long experience that you cannot regurgitate the Fruit of Knowledge: once someone has been exposed to, for instance, the facts about the age of the Earth, or examples of loving homosexual families, that they cannot take that knowledge away from that person, and it decreases their ability to control what that person believes.
No doubt some will take offense to this characterization. If you do, ask yourself whether or not the shoe fits: do you hold socially conservative views, but still believe that other people should have the opportunity to be exposed to opposing views so that they can evaluate the facts for themselves and make their own decision? Splendid–let’s have a drink and talk shop. But if you think that children shouldn’t be allowed to read about happy gay families because it might give them the “wrong” idea, or if you so fear your child’s ability to think for themselves that you’re willing to control what everyone else’s children can read just to protect your own–then yes, I’m talking about you. And you should be offended. Not to mention ashamed.
I agree with Catsy that Frank’s post is worthy of being a discussion starter in its own right.
I am a publ;ic school taecher and on the firing line of the book banning wwar. (BY the way, the minute I admit that I am a teacher I get paranoid that people are going to criticize my spelling, punctuation, tec. so I will pre-empt that with this disclosure; I am also legally blind in one eye and have very poor vision in the otherr one. I read get by by using context skills and a sort of global scanning technique. I can’t see my typos.)
Anyway, to get to my point, I think that teachers should show respect for the social mores of the families we serve unless those mores violate the basic prinicples of our society. The real fight should be for ideas, not swear words and sex scenes.
Books, for the most part, are targeted for banning because of word choice or sex scenes, not ideas. With the hundreds of good books on serious themes available for childrenn annd young adults, I can’t see why a taecher would be justified in choosing one that used bad language or sex scenes offensive to parents. In my opinnionn, it is bad manners annd disrespectful of parents to choose literature that contians words and scenes that will offend them.
Note that I am not defendinng people who attack liberaries or who make silly interpetations like the accusation taht SpongBob is gay. I am focusing narrowly on the issue of books choosen for classroom use. In that context I think that teachers should pick books which provide a vehicle for discussing important ideas, but refrain form using books that piss off people unnecessarily.
Textbooks are in an different catagory. We have to fight to defend academic freedom and the inntegrity of science.
BY the way, the minute I admit that I am a teacher I get paranoid that people are going to criticize my spelling, punctuation, tec.
What is tec.? ;^} I’m being mean, but really I’m just pretending that I’m Gary. (So now I’ve been mean to both of you!)
Now, that said, I agree. On the old discussionI revealed that my wife is a school librarian, and I think in general that they do a good job of selecting material that is appropriate for the kids. Sexual politics, one way or another, have no business in a K-8 school. Neither do overly violent materials.
Now people that want EVERYTHING available to children in school should have to accept tobacco advertising, unlimited pop machines, MacDonalds food service instead of vegetable dishes, etc. There are quite a few both liberal and conservative parents who are concerned about these matters and they are entitled to air their opinions. I personally am not ashamed to be against including “Naked Lunch” in the school library, although I don’t particularly care if it is in the public library. But the school staff should have the final say, especially if they demonstrate a modicum of common sense.
I also agree that social conservatives are much more likely to want censorship. My sister is a public librarian in a very conservative area, and she has a problem with mysterious people taking magic markers and marking out the bad words in books! My thought is that instead of just a children’s section and adult section of the library, perhaps there should be separate childrens, adults, and adults-who-are-easily-offended sections.
I go back to the point that this is mostly about school books, not outright banning across society. The public schools are a socialistic institution, and a lot of conservatives have a problem with that. To the extent that teachers have power outside the classroom, they exercise it through their union, and a lot of conservatives have a problem with unions. There are parents of all political persuasions that have a genuine concern about their kids’ school exxperience, but I think there is also a conservative political agenda to trash the reputation of the public schools. But the primary motive seems to me to be about exerting power, not directly censoring ideas.
DaveC–instead of just a children’s section and adult section of the library, perhaps there should be separate childrens, adults, and adults-who-are-easily-offended sections.
That would work if everyone were being tolerant. I suspect, though, that some crusading soul would take it upon themselves to frequent the (now de facto) ‘adult-offensive’ section of the library with the idea that it is now much easier to find offensive books for censoring. (This, by the way, is better than the preferred method of censorship in my home town which was to simply steal the book from the library.) The proportional response to which would be to take the words stricken from the offensive books and inscribe them (somewhat in context) in the inoffensive books.
Which, it seems to me, recreates in microcosm the current partisan political climate in D.C. pretty accurately.
To nous’s point:
Don Juan, Canto 1.
44.
Juan was taught from out the best edition,
Expurgated by learned men, who place
Judiciously from out the schoolboy’s vision
The grosser parts, but fearful to deface
Too much their modest bard by this omission
And pitying sore his mutilated case,
They only add them all in an appendix,
Which saves in fact the trouble of an index.
45.
For there we have them all at one fell swoop,
Instead of being scattered through the pages.
They stand forth mashalled in a handsome troop
To meet the ingenuous youth of future ages,
Till some less rigid editor shall stoop
To call them back into their separate cages,
Instead of standing staring altogether
Like garden gods–and not so decent either.
All,
Earlier I mentioned some books that help explain the conservative trend in America over the last generation or so (2 June 5:16 pm). After reading some of the recent comments about school curriculum and text book choice, I thought I might add “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong” by James Loewen. One may not agree with the arguments by the author about historical events and their context (I think he hits the nail on the head most of the time), but it is a great read for understanding the function of textbooks, how they get written, publishing and vetting issues, tec.*
*Thanks for the laugh, DaveC.
I’ll pretend to be myself and ask who is correcting the spelling and punctuation of Lily’s students? I’d also wonder what her students do when she writes something like “tec” on a blackbord, test, or paper. (I don’t intend this to be “mean”; I’m wondering how it works; I assume she has assistants editing what she writes in all cases, or somesuch.)
“tec” on a blackbord
Caught you there! Unless you were baiting me like I was you by spelling the word “fourword” on another thread. From what I can tell, you really are/were a good editor. It gives me a little thrill whenever you catch me doing something.
I see Jackmormon‘s taking over my function here of citing verse in comments (and from a poet I just damned with faint praise over at Rilkeblog!). Just as well, since my wife and I are off into the wilds soon.
Have fun but keep it civil, everybody, so the Kitten doesn’t have to kill you.
“From what I can tell, you really are/were a good editor. It gives me a little thrill whenever you catch me doing something.”
Thanks for the implied wishes and thought. Being a good copyeditor, and a good line editor, and a good acquiring editor (in whatever market) are actually three quite separate things as they are practiced in general. In all honesty, while I can do the first decently (with adequate refererences at hand), and have done an adequate copyedit job on many manuscripts, I’m probably better at the latter two. (It does make sense that, in fact, modern publishing practice puts the copyedit job in the separate hands of a specific, per manuscript, copyeditor, although, of course, competence varies from wonderful to not so much.)
I did read the “fourword” as obvious bait, and thus declined to put the hook in my mouth, though. 😉
(And I noticed the “blackbord” typo as soon as I posted, but figured I should let someone else have fun picking on me; I’ve never claimed to be typo-free — although if you pay me….)
Oh, damn, forgot to include: happy honeymoon, rilkefan and rilkefanfan!
rilkefan — happy honeymoon, and give my best to the rilkebride!
jackmormon–
Byron and Shelley and Keats
Were a trio of Lyrical treats.
The forehead of Shelley was cluttered with curls,
And Keats never was a descendant of earls,
And Byron walked out with a number of girls,
But it didn’t impair the poetical feats
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley and Keats.
Although for pure macabre glee, nothing beats Dorothy Parker’s other poem about a poet, “Dante Gabriel Rossetti.”
lily wrote:
I am also legally blind in one eye and have very poor vision in the otherr one. I read get by by using context skills and a sort of global scanning technique. I can’t see my typos.
Gary replied
I’ll pretend to be myself and ask who is correcting the spelling and punctuation of Lily’s students? I’d also wonder what her students do when she writes something like “tec” on a blackbord, test, or paper. (I don’t intend this to be “mean”; I’m wondering how it works; I assume she has assistants editing what she writes in all cases, or somesuch.)
I’d pretend to be Gary, but I’d be unable to type out of embarrassment. I hope that Rilkefan didn’t notice it because he has Galapagos on his mind rather than just becoming inured to the whole shtick.
“I’d pretend to be Gary, but I’d be unable to type out of embarrassment.”
I’ll pretend to be myself again, and say that I was very irritated when I wrote the previous, and that I’m therefore sorry for being less polite than I might have been. My apologies to Lily and all. (I’m wrestling down the urge to say further; murphlefm!.)
Gary, I think you misspelled “mxyzptlk”. Gary, you there?
Oh wait, that’s supposed to only work backwards. Shoot, never mind.
It only works for Bat-Mite!
“Oh wait, that’s supposed to only work backwards.”
Occasionally I actually wonder if I’m perceived as, you know, evil, rather than merely from another dimension, by the way. I tend to think that that would be bad. (It’s almost as if I have, like, feelings.)
Not evil. (At least, not by me.) Possibly from another dimension, where people are frighteningly well-informed, and don’t make typos 😉
And you are, of course, welcome to speculate about the nature of my own home galaxy.
I’d certainly like to see the “evil Gary Farber” versus “born-again Gerard Vanderleun” celebrity editor death-match!
sorry, DIDNT INCLUDE ENOUGH EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!!
(i still am pissed that i didn’t receive the “most popular and glamourous thread commenter” award, even though i practically begged for it, so i think that people perceive me as evil, too. and for chrissakes, i agreed w/ Jes, do i have to friggin agree with everybody on that other whole darn thread as well? and what am i going to do with this tiara if i fail this time? i think gary is behind all this.)
Wasn’t Mr. Metc. mostly impish and at worst obstreperous?
Btw, hilzoy, will do, esp. since her folks know your folks, which I guess makes you and me first acquaintance-cousins-in-law or something.
DaveC: i still am pissed that i didn’t receive the “most popular and glamourous thread commenter” award, even though i practically begged for it, so i think that people perceive me as evil, too
I’ve never received the “most popular and glamourous thread commenter” award either. Dammit.
rilkefan — really?? cool. I’m honored to welcome you into the acquaintance-extended-family-analog.
Btw, hilzoy, will do, esp. since her folks know your folks, which I guess makes you and me first acquaintance-cousins-in-law or something.
Time for another rousing rendition of It’s A Small World After All! Everyone sing along! First verse is same as the ten thousandth, so what are you all waiting for?!
Well you know that this is a very weird topic, but people being afraid of books is rare but not out of reason. They might be afraid because they might be a lot in religion and the chuch doesn’t allow them to or maybe they have a book phobia, but to make society better we have to accept them and help them in any way. Because a da without reading is like a day without sunshine.