Here's a link to an essay I meant to mention during "Banned Books Week" in September, but forgot about in the rush and confusion of job interviews. Enjoy.
That guy's suggestion would be counterproductive. The purpose of Banned Books Week is to show that censorship is bad because it leads to the suppression of generally recognized classics. But if people were to pass by a BBW display case featuring child pornography and do-it-yourself terrorism manuals, they would be just as likely to say "Thank God for censorship."
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Pablo @ 3:09PM | 2003-11-23| permalink
In my opinion, Felix's views on censorship have always been far too idealistic.
1. EVERYONE always gives lip service to the concept but always exempts something AT THE TIME IT MATTERS MOST. Most 13-year-old boys would rather see violent movies and look at porn than read Catcher in the Rye. Yet no one is defending the young person's right to read what he really wants to read. The result is that a school library gets Catcher in the Rye, and only a few kids check it out. (And they only do so because they think it must be dirty to cause so much contraversy.)
2. Freedom from Censorship is not an absolute right but one of several conflicting rights. For instance, banning group prayer in public schools is censorship. But in that case, freedom of religion is considered to be more important. And most people in society recognize that parents have the right to be the primary relgious influence in their children's lives, so it would be an abridgement of that freedom to force their children to go to school and then allow social pressures at school (whether it comes from the employees or from other students) to possibly contradict a parent's religious instructions.
Conflicting rights, religion wins.
3. There has always been a bias towards things "scholarly", which is itself undefineable. How is that fair and equitable to people who think that the "scholars" are wrong?
4. There's lots of ways around it. For example, if some librarian wants to add contraversial books to the library's collection, simply fire him to being uppidy, then replace him with one who doesn't make waves. (That's happened to you twice now, Felix, hasn't it?)
No censorship, merely personnel decisions.
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Felix @ 11:00PM | 2003-11-29| permalink
Well, Pablo, since you think censorship's so peachy, we'll start by outlawing "Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted."
1. Is thirteen years old the "time that matters most"? Permitting parents to censor materials available to minors is simply a recognition that the latter are not yet in possession of their full, legal rights and responsibilities as an adult. (It would, however, be questionable to try to force a single, one-size-fits-all model onto all kids, some of whose parents may want them to have more liberal access.)
2. Prayer in public schools is not "banned", contrary to the hysterical propaganda of Jerry Falwellian types. What's unconstitutional is forcing people's children to participate in a one-size-fits-all group prayer which will inevitably conflict with some childrens' and parents' principles. It's an establishment-of-religion issue: the students can pray if they want to, singly, or in groups at lunchtime or after school, but the local school board can't dictate the prayers to them. If /when some pissant school functionary forbids students from voluntarily praying on their own behalf, he/she deserves to be run out of town on a rail for overstepping the bounds of his/her authority.
3. Looks to me like the bias is the other way, in favor of pop pap and against "pointy-headed intellectuals" or materials that are deemed "too academic". Just try finding serious history, lit crit, or philosophy in a public library! If you mean in this point that many libraries "censor" the ideas and arguments of religious and/or political conservatives by not making them available, you may have a point.
4. How is this relevant? Institutional failure to respect a principle has nothing to do with the merits of the principle itself.
Carlos, I think the essayist's point is that access to REALLY controversial materials is where the actual battles usually take place -- and are usually silently conceded without a fight. Just displaying the usual "poster children" of Huck Finn and Maya Angelou during BBW neglects the fact that real intellectual freedom means having access to bad books as well as ones that virtually everyone considers "good". I will grant that for propaganda purposes the easiest course is to concentrate on the most obvious examples of silly censorship and "harmless" book-victims. But is it honest to pretend that that's what all intellectual freedom is about? And is it honest to crow about the Freedom to Read while condoning the silent censorship (or "non-selection") of controversial books that don't have Huck Finn's critical cachet? I say turn the Dangerous Books loose on the streets and let them fend for themselves in the light of day, rather than festering away in secretive little insular groups where contrary viewpoints are never aired.
"Books are dangerous. You might meet God, or Ayn Rand...." (from a bookseller's listserv)
1 comment:
Carlos Zamora @ 2:28PM | 2003-11-23| permalink
That guy's suggestion would be counterproductive. The purpose of Banned Books Week is to show that censorship is bad because it leads to the suppression of generally recognized classics. But if people were to pass by a BBW display case featuring child pornography and do-it-yourself terrorism manuals, they would be just as likely to say "Thank God for censorship."
email | website
Pablo @ 3:09PM | 2003-11-23| permalink
In my opinion, Felix's views on censorship have always been far too idealistic.
1. EVERYONE always gives lip service to the concept but always exempts something AT THE TIME IT MATTERS MOST. Most 13-year-old boys would rather see violent movies and look at porn than read Catcher in the Rye. Yet no one is defending the young person's right to read what he really wants to read. The result is that a school library gets Catcher in the Rye, and only a few kids check it out. (And they only do so because they think it must be dirty to cause so much contraversy.)
2. Freedom from Censorship is not an absolute right but one of several conflicting rights. For instance, banning group prayer in public schools is censorship. But in that case, freedom of religion is considered to be more important. And most people in society recognize that parents have the right to be the primary relgious influence in their children's lives, so it would be an abridgement of that freedom to force their children to go to school and then allow social pressures at school (whether it comes from the employees or from other students) to possibly contradict a parent's religious instructions.
Conflicting rights, religion wins.
3. There has always been a bias towards things "scholarly", which is itself undefineable. How is that fair and equitable to people who think that the "scholars" are wrong?
4. There's lots of ways around it. For example, if some librarian wants to add contraversial books to the library's collection, simply fire him to being uppidy, then replace him with one who doesn't make waves. (That's happened to you twice now, Felix, hasn't it?)
No censorship, merely personnel decisions.
email | website
Felix @ 11:00PM | 2003-11-29| permalink
Well, Pablo, since you think censorship's so peachy, we'll start by outlawing "Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted."
1. Is thirteen years old the "time that matters most"? Permitting parents to censor materials available to minors is simply a recognition that the latter are not yet in possession of their full, legal rights and responsibilities as an adult. (It would, however, be questionable to try to force a single, one-size-fits-all model onto all kids, some of whose parents may want them to have more liberal access.)
2. Prayer in public schools is not "banned", contrary to the hysterical propaganda of Jerry Falwellian types. What's unconstitutional is forcing people's children to participate in a one-size-fits-all group prayer which will inevitably conflict with some childrens' and parents' principles. It's an establishment-of-religion issue: the students can pray if they want to, singly, or in groups at lunchtime or after school, but the local school board can't dictate the prayers to them. If /when some pissant school functionary forbids students from voluntarily praying on their own behalf, he/she deserves to be run out of town on a rail for overstepping the bounds of his/her authority.
3. Looks to me like the bias is the other way, in favor of pop pap and against "pointy-headed intellectuals" or materials that are deemed "too academic". Just try finding serious history, lit crit, or philosophy in a public library! If you mean in this point that many libraries "censor" the ideas and arguments of religious and/or political conservatives by not making them available, you may have a point.
4. How is this relevant? Institutional failure to respect a principle has nothing to do with the merits of the principle itself.
Carlos, I think the essayist's point is that access to REALLY controversial materials is where the actual battles usually take place -- and are usually silently conceded without a fight. Just displaying the usual "poster children" of Huck Finn and Maya Angelou during BBW neglects the fact that real intellectual freedom means having access to bad books as well as ones that virtually everyone considers "good". I will grant that for propaganda purposes the easiest course is to concentrate on the most obvious examples of silly censorship and "harmless" book-victims. But is it honest to pretend that that's what all intellectual freedom is about? And is it honest to crow about the Freedom to Read while condoning the silent censorship (or "non-selection") of controversial books that don't have Huck Finn's critical cachet? I say turn the Dangerous Books loose on the streets and let them fend for themselves in the light of day, rather than festering away in secretive little insular groups where contrary viewpoints are never aired.
"Books are dangerous. You might meet God, or Ayn Rand...." (from a bookseller's listserv)
email | website
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