The week that adieu'ed us was Banned Books Week. Every year on the last week of September, the Banned Books Week pays homage to challenged or banned books and celebrates the freedoms that, some say, banning books undermines—the freedom to access information, and the freedom to express oneself. These are rights that the First Amendment safeguards.
But do the doctrines of the First Amendment and book banning cancel each other out? Whenever a book is banned, do human rights take a blow?
On this, nations do not agree, pressure groups do not agree and individuals cannot seem to hit a consensus. Heck, the chambers of my own conscience cannot even come to a solid conclusion about the soundness of book banning. The burning questions are these:
1) Should book banning be happening at all or does it fundamentally and inextricably offend the moral foundations of our political and social landscape? In other words, does the amorality of a book’s content ever trump the amorality of denying someone the freedom of expression?
2) If so, how do we pick which books to ban? Should there be a standardized cut-off point?
3) If so, who decides? Who is the moral arbiter? The government, the majority, the Pope? (From the 16th to the 20th century, the Vatican had a list of prohibited books, an index to protect Catholics from controversial ideas. Those were the perils of the medieval era—the plague, intensely odorized armpits and “controversial ideas”.)
4) What’s the ideal banning process that would not set a precedent for oppression of free speech and plurality? Do we prefer a ratings system, like there is with movies? Is Harry Potter “Family Appropriate” or does Harry’s make-out session with Cho Chang (they were alone, unchaperoned) bump it to a PG-13?
5) There’s the moral precedent but also the literary impact: what if institutionalized book banning pushes authors to ‘play it safe’ for the market’s sake, and they end up butchering their inspirations?
The list is not exhaustive.
In honor of Banned Books Week, Washington DC’s Takoma Park library hosted a Read-Out, where volunteers read excerpts of selected children’s books that have been challenged. Examples of “misbehaved” books were Heather Has Two Mummies, Daddy’s Roommate, and Elbert’s Bad Word. (Visit http://www.takomapark.info/library/children/archives/002343.html for more spicy titles.)
For the record, “challenging” a book means attempting to ban it, but not quite achieving the goal. As for “banning” a book, sanctions come in degrees. Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto, Mein Kampf, for instance is explicitly denounced in Germany. There, it cannot be republished, sold, or even held under possession. The Netherlands, on the other hand, allows lending it and reading it but enjoins people from selling it.
Over the years, there have been many reasons to ban books. The first banned book in the colony of New England was the 1650 theological treatise, The Meritorious Price of our Redemption, by the Englander, William Pynchon. The book blasted the teachings of the ministers of Boston, and the General Court of Massachusetts duly condemned it. Here was a book demonized for its so-called dangerous ideas, ideas that challenged the powers that be. Fortunately, times have a-changed, and in the U.S. you can write against your government if you want to. How else would Michael Moore spend his time?
Then there have been books whose very writing style became cause for a good banning. The Catcher in the Rye has been, and still is, a favorite for banning practice amongst libraries across the US. Cause of death? Its profane language tops its list of offences, given that the book popularized a few slang expressions in wide (and dirty) use today. How awesome is the line, "Boy, it really screws up my sex life something awful" for the 1950's, especially as it's voiced by a teenager? And yet, the novel made an admirable dent in the course of novel-writing, as it was one of the first American novels to focus heavily on character development, rather than plot.
Mein Kampf is a good example of a book that is not about a bad word or two, but about the insidious ideas behind one of the most destructive historical events. Its 694 pages, this assembly of mere words, this string of chapters, have posed an outright menace to public health.
In the same category of threats to public health falls the book The Global Bell Curve, by psychiatrist—and therefore perceived scientific authority—Richard Lynn, who argues that intelligence is racially inherited, putting Sahel Africans at the bottom of the…erm, race. According to loon Lynn, East Asians are the most genetically intelligent. Frankly, it reminds me of the scientist who claimed that Caucasians are more intelligent because he managed to fit more marbles in a Caucasian skull. I wish I knew more about this, but I also regret hearing about it at all.
Although Mein Kampf and Bell Curve have not had the same impact, what they share is that they are more than just offensive to the dainty parent—they propel ideas that could mean, or have meant, large-scale disaster and the outbreak of racial prosecution. And that is where we shift gears from free speech to public harm; from free will to license.
I suppose I have set myself up for a defense of book banning. All the while, however, I can’t help thinking of Heinrich Heine’s oft-quoted line from his play, Almansor: “Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn human beings.”
