Banned Books Week: Day 1
It's Banned Books Week again!
The American Library Association said it so well, I can't think of a reason not to directly quote them:
September 25−October 2, 2010
Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.
Intellectual freedom-the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular-provides the foundation for Banned Books Week. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.
I've decided that this year I'll try to make a post each day of Banned Books Week discussing one of the 'most-challenged-books' -- whether because it's a favorite of mine, I think it's an important book, it amuses me to see it being challenged, or because the mood strikes me -- to honor the importance of BBW, and the importance of not letting art and literature be censored because they offend. Sometimes we, individually and as a society need to be offended. Sometimes we deserve to be.
And that makes a beautiful segue into the first book I wanted to discuss: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that it took till college when this was an assigned book for me to read it, but I am glad to say I immediately recognized its importance. Even at the time I recognized how much greater a danger our society was in of mirroring Huxley's dystopia than Orwell's 1984, and the parallels have only grown.
If I discuss a society of conspicuous consumption, sexualized grammar-school children, socially encouraged mood-stabilizing drug use (soma? prozac/ritalin/valium/zoloft? what's the difference? all your problems can easily be taken care of with the right socially approved drugs), and obsessive national security policies ... is it a fictional novel or a contemporary social analysis? And that was before 2001.
People sill went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were sovereign goods. Right up till the time of the ... [w]ar. That made them change their tunes all right. What's the point of truth or beauty when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? ... People were ready to have their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. ... It hasn't been very good for truth of course. But it's been very good for happiness.
One could almost think the last decade has been carefully choreographed using Brave New World as a road map. And yet people spend more time panicking about 1984 and worrying about government becoming 'Big Brother'. It doesn't need to when people are asking for 'World Controllers'.
Yes, it is a very offensive book.
And we deserve to be offended.
Maybe just maybe if enough people are offended by what they read in this novel they just might do something about the society that is trying to mirror it.
Thank God for banned and challenged books. If we only read things that made us feel better about ourselves, God only knows what horrors we'd unleash upon ourselves.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#54 on the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 1990-1999
#36 of the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009
The American Library Association said it so well, I can't think of a reason not to directly quote them:
September 25−October 2, 2010
Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.
Intellectual freedom-the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular-provides the foundation for Banned Books Week. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.
I've decided that this year I'll try to make a post each day of Banned Books Week discussing one of the 'most-challenged-books' -- whether because it's a favorite of mine, I think it's an important book, it amuses me to see it being challenged, or because the mood strikes me -- to honor the importance of BBW, and the importance of not letting art and literature be censored because they offend. Sometimes we, individually and as a society need to be offended. Sometimes we deserve to be.
And that makes a beautiful segue into the first book I wanted to discuss: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that it took till college when this was an assigned book for me to read it, but I am glad to say I immediately recognized its importance. Even at the time I recognized how much greater a danger our society was in of mirroring Huxley's dystopia than Orwell's 1984, and the parallels have only grown.
If I discuss a society of conspicuous consumption, sexualized grammar-school children, socially encouraged mood-stabilizing drug use (soma? prozac/ritalin/valium/zoloft? what's the difference? all your problems can easily be taken care of with the right socially approved drugs), and obsessive national security policies ... is it a fictional novel or a contemporary social analysis? And that was before 2001.
People sill went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were sovereign goods. Right up till the time of the ... [w]ar. That made them change their tunes all right. What's the point of truth or beauty when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? ... People were ready to have their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. ... It hasn't been very good for truth of course. But it's been very good for happiness.
One could almost think the last decade has been carefully choreographed using Brave New World as a road map. And yet people spend more time panicking about 1984 and worrying about government becoming 'Big Brother'. It doesn't need to when people are asking for 'World Controllers'.
Yes, it is a very offensive book.
And we deserve to be offended.
Maybe just maybe if enough people are offended by what they read in this novel they just might do something about the society that is trying to mirror it.
Thank God for banned and challenged books. If we only read things that made us feel better about ourselves, God only knows what horrors we'd unleash upon ourselves.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#54 on the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 1990-1999
#36 of the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009