Imagine a community much like the one in which you live, similar but strikingly dissimilar. In this hypothetical society, most, if not all citizens, are neoliberal, fervently anti-corporation and anti-consumerist. Frequently, large groups of activists protest corporate authority and systemic greed. Though it may seem counterintuitive, a growing number of community leaders want to silence the breeding grounds of societal decay by banning voices considered destructive to the welfare of “we the people.” If that’s how you want to play the game, they say, let’s do it your way. And so, in a move commensurate to what neocon communities have done, not to mention some do-it-my-way dictatorial national leaders, and especially the Nazis prior to WWII, our imaginary society proposes to fight degeneration by disallowing the spread of propaganda that is harmful to our social order. As such, the following literature, they proclaim, will no longer be available in libraries and on classroom shelves:
"Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand
"Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville
"On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill
"God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of 'Academic Freedom'" by William F. Buckley, Jr.
“Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right” by Ann Coulter
“The Federalist Papers”
“The Road to Serfdom” by F.A. Hayek
That’s for starters. Many more titles will be banned as community leaders thumb through library holdings undermining the common good. In fact, a heavy-duty inchoate movement is underway prohibiting non-woke voices from fouling the air in education. Of course, all Christian Nationalists will be kept from spewing their toxic views in public spaces. Additionally, as you may have heard, leadership is now considering redacting the Second Amendment from the Constitution, though many in the cohort believe such a move may stir too great an opposition from the powerful but foolish rightwing goons. The question one ought to ask is: What is best for the public good? The best protection for the most people? In this case, censorship is good because it keeps vile influences from promoting avaricious ends, and because it improves civic behavior.
Opponents of this proposition might point out that a good reason for banning books is that once something is banned it becomes attractive. Case in point, the sign posted in a vacant lot somewhere in the north of England: “It is forbidden to throw stones at this notice.” Passersby, of course, would see the sign and immediately scan the ground for a suitable rock to throw. That’s the weakness in my argument, I suppose; tell people that they mustn’t, and they will straightaway think they must.
As a counterbalance, perhaps we should just leave things be. Apparently, school board meetings across America are having oodles of brouhahas over books educators use as teaching tools. I recall how eager I was to read The Catcher in the Rye during my school days because I was told I mustn’t read it. In fact, those proscriptions became a must-read list for me.
Seems that fed up parents are storming school board meetings across the country with demands that some book or another be banned, that their children not be exposed to filth and degenerate influences. Parental rights are all the rage. Got it. Tit for tat, eh. Is it fair to suggest that many, if not most, of the complaints come from parents influenced more by dogma than by educational wisdom? If a parent suspects that a book mentions anything relating to gay or trans hanky-panky, an immediate rejection is raised to that book’s place on a library shelf even if the objecting parent has never opened the book’s cover. Parental rights should apply to all parents, shouldn’t they, not only those who object to rainbows and naughty words. Can we assume a baseline standard of virtuousness when it comes to what is taught in our public schools? Freedom of thought and teaching students to think for themselves have long been cornerstones of the American educational system, but throughout our educational history people have stepped forward to call attention to worms in the fruit, so to speak.
So if I and likeminded parents object to our children assigned to read “The Federalist Papers,” shouldn’t we be able to ban that assignment and its perfidious conclusions? We don’t want our progeny exposed to the poison of federalist propaganda, do we?
Understand, I disagree with most of the above drivel. Banning books, subjects, ideas, simply denies a minority view, as well as discovery.
If a book offends, don’t read any further. Leave teachers, librarians, and readers free to determine what’s beyond the well-meaning but naysayer censors.