The Marketplace of Ideas
I was thinking about the Hester Prynne sock puppet I made in high school as my creative project for the book, The Scarlet Letter about an adulterous woman in a complicated relationship with her pastor. Later in college, I called home with glee about the chapter of a book I was assigned to report on for an ethics class. The chapter was called “Bullshit,” about honesty, trust, and how to sort out what’s true from what isn’t. This wouldn’t have been appropriate for me as a middle schooler, but I understood at age 18 about nuance in how we communicate with each other.
Becoming a Reader
My parents were conservative Christians who encouraged me to read most things. My mom was a frequent library visitor who loved Stephen King and mysteries. My dad loved history books and biographies. My parents understood the value of reading wide and varied topics to help form critical thinking skills. They warned me that in college, I would be introduced to ideas that went against how they brought us (five kids) up, but they didn’t dissuade me from studying and making up my own mind. We didn’t agree on politics and this wedge continued into my adulthood, offering lots of lively debates around the kitchen table. Sometimes it got heated.
The Banned and Challenged Books
A bunch of books I was assigned in high school and college now find themselves in lists created by people who I’m not convinced do much reading. Picking apart a single word, phrase, or even a paragraph out of a book in order to ban it, may be missing the bigger picture about what is being said in the story. Is there an offensive term we don’t today? OK, well consider what year that book was written and what was going on in the country and world during that time.
Should parents have the right to help their kids decide which books are appropriate? Absolutely! But should they choose for other kids and their families by banning books in school libraries? No. Those kids, especially in rural areas, may not have access to a public library. And, for what’s it’s worth, banning books is like banning music, it only creates intrigue and enhances popularity in the underground sharing. It’s not having the effect the book banners are hoping for.
The Marketplace of Ideas
In 1859, philosopher John Stuart Mill published On Liberty, where he argued against censorship and encouraged the free flow of ideas. His idea was that people should have open discussions about ideas and theories to separate fact from fiction. One person’s truth may be another person’s falsehood. Duke it out with words instead of banning the free exchange of ideas. The idea that there is one ultimate truth is part of some folks' worldview, but it doesn’t mean it is everyone’s truth.
Reading wide and varied texts has shaped my worldview, helped me become a critical thinker, and broadened my horizons, and continues to do so. I hope that if you are considering keeping your children from reading any book, that you read the entire book first, before deciding. Maybe it’s not age appropriate. I totally get that. I do. but we’re moving into mob mentality as was written about in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson in 1948. And although it’s been joked about, this issue is very much addressed in George Orwell’s book 1984, about totalitarianism, which is about controlling people and their access to information.
On the bright side, I’ve had a great time reading! I have imagined drinking champagne and dancing at one of Jay Gatsby’s fantastic parties, and watching a bullfight (as much as I hate violence and misogyny) with one of Hemingway’s characters. I would have been a fly on the wall for the escapades in William Burrough’s Naked Lunch, and maybe wielded bug spray in Kafka’s, Metamorphosis.
That’s all for now.