Books are not inert tools of pedagogy. They are mind-changing, world-changing.
...In the United States, the battle over books is heating up, with some politicians and parents demanding the removal of certain books from libraries and school curriculums. Just in the last week, we saw reports of a Tennessee school board that voted to ban Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, "Maus," from classrooms, and a mayor in Mississippi who is withholding $110,000 in funding from his city's library until it removes books depicting L.G.B.T.Q. people. Those seeking to ban books argue that these stories and ideas can be dangerous to young minds...
But those who seek to ban books are wrong no matter how dangerous books can be. Books are inseparable from ideas, and this is really what is at stake: the struggle over what a child, a reader and a society are allowed to think, to know and to question. A book can open doors and show the possibility of new experiences, even new identities and futures.
Book banning doesn't fit neatly into the rubrics of left and right politics. Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" has been banned at various points because of Twain's prolific use of a racial slur, among other things. Toni Morrison's "Beloved" has been banned before and is being threatened again — in one case after a mother complained that the book gave her son nightmares. To be sure, "Beloved" is an upsetting novel. It depicts infanticide, rape, bestiality, torture and lynching. But coming amid a movement to oppose critical race theory — or rather a caricature of critical race theory — it seems clear that the latest attempts to suppress this masterpiece of American literature are less about its graphic depictions of atrocity than about the book's insistence that we confront the brutality of slavery.
Here's the thing: If we oppose banning some books, we should oppose banning any book. If our society isn't strong enough to withstand the weight of difficult or challenging — and even hateful or problematic — ideas, then something must be fixed in our society. Banning books is a shortcut that sends us to the wrong destination.
As Ray Bradbury depicted in "Fahrenheit 451," another book often targeted by book banners, book burning is meant to stop people from thinking, which makes them easier to govern, to control and ultimately to lead into war. And once a society acquiesces to burning books, it tends to soon see the need to burn the people who love books.
And loving books is really the point — not reading them to educate oneself or become more conscious or politically active (which can be extra benefits). I could recommend "Fahrenheit 451" because of its edifying political and ethical dimensions or argue that reading this novel is good for you, but that really misses the point. The book gets us to care about politics and ethics by making us care about a man who burns books for a living and who has a life-changing crisis about his awful work. That man and his realization could be any of us.
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Banning is an act of fear — the fear of dangerous and contagious ideas... nyt
...In the United States, the battle over books is heating up, with some politicians and parents demanding the removal of certain books from libraries and school curriculums. Just in the last week, we saw reports of a Tennessee school board that voted to ban Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, "Maus," from classrooms, and a mayor in Mississippi who is withholding $110,000 in funding from his city's library until it removes books depicting L.G.B.T.Q. people. Those seeking to ban books argue that these stories and ideas can be dangerous to young minds...
But those who seek to ban books are wrong no matter how dangerous books can be. Books are inseparable from ideas, and this is really what is at stake: the struggle over what a child, a reader and a society are allowed to think, to know and to question. A book can open doors and show the possibility of new experiences, even new identities and futures.
Book banning doesn't fit neatly into the rubrics of left and right politics. Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" has been banned at various points because of Twain's prolific use of a racial slur, among other things. Toni Morrison's "Beloved" has been banned before and is being threatened again — in one case after a mother complained that the book gave her son nightmares. To be sure, "Beloved" is an upsetting novel. It depicts infanticide, rape, bestiality, torture and lynching. But coming amid a movement to oppose critical race theory — or rather a caricature of critical race theory — it seems clear that the latest attempts to suppress this masterpiece of American literature are less about its graphic depictions of atrocity than about the book's insistence that we confront the brutality of slavery.
Here's the thing: If we oppose banning some books, we should oppose banning any book. If our society isn't strong enough to withstand the weight of difficult or challenging — and even hateful or problematic — ideas, then something must be fixed in our society. Banning books is a shortcut that sends us to the wrong destination.
As Ray Bradbury depicted in "Fahrenheit 451," another book often targeted by book banners, book burning is meant to stop people from thinking, which makes them easier to govern, to control and ultimately to lead into war. And once a society acquiesces to burning books, it tends to soon see the need to burn the people who love books.
And loving books is really the point — not reading them to educate oneself or become more conscious or politically active (which can be extra benefits). I could recommend "Fahrenheit 451" because of its edifying political and ethical dimensions or argue that reading this novel is good for you, but that really misses the point. The book gets us to care about politics and ethics by making us care about a man who burns books for a living and who has a life-changing crisis about his awful work. That man and his realization could be any of us.
...
Banning is an act of fear — the fear of dangerous and contagious ideas... nyt
I am a firm believe that we should learn form the experiences of others' just as we learn from our own. Books give us the opportunity and means of doing so. I believe books to be provocative and is what sparks curiosity and progression. Therefore, I believe those who find convenience and benefit in banning books must inevitably support a halt in societal progression.
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