Censorship in Texas

[sartorias]

Stemming from the news about YA poet Ellen Hopkins being uninvited from the Teen Lit Fest in Humble, Texas, Texan Katherine Eliska Kimbriel speaks upIt's easy to condemn the parent committees for minding their neighbors business, especially when they haven't actually read the book in question. The really vexing question that I see is, what exactly

Comments

[deborahjross]

For me, the question is what should we do about bad books (the words "should" and "we" being as open to debate as "bad")? Banning them removes them from free and open discussion. They are then read in secrecy and isolation. I think it's far better to create a culture of public debate, critical analysis that educates and encourages people to question -- accept/reject/modify -- the contents for themselves. This goes for books of which I disapprove as well as those I applaud.

[sartorias]

I agree with that.

The question becomes troublesome with respect to children. Some parents would rather read what their kids read, so they can stand by to discuss the issues the kids encounter. Other parents would rather shield their children from troublesome, distasteful, or conflicting points of view. I find it difficult to condemn them for that--there were some things I would rather my kids not have found out about at a tender age, if life had permitted. But (speaking as a teacher, now) kids who are curious and determined are going to find their way to those points of view, and sometimes the very fact that they are forbidden gives them a glamour that otherwise might not have existed. Then there is that wall of secrecy in the family, where there might have been some guidance.

[cakmpls]

We always hoped that our kids would encounter troublesome or distasteful things in reading (or video) BEFORE they encountered them in real life. It seems to me that one has a slight advantage in dealing with a difficult situation if one knows ahead of time at least that the situation exists.

[sartorias]

Yep.

[ex_fashioni]

Thanks for the link. that's one of the best posts I've read with respect to the situation. I especially loved this passage:

It’s very easy for righteous indignation to carry a concerned parent from “My child is not old enough to read about this” to “No ninth grader should be reading a book about this.” When a persuasive parent or politician states that “This book is dangerous to the mental health of our children,” the ball is rolling in earnest.

[sartorias]

Yes!

[kalimac]

On the other hand, lots of Germans with pretensions to philosophical insight wrote like that. Mein Kampf was indeed not read much even when Hitler did come to power; if it had, people might not have been so surprised when he launched his campaigns of national aggrandizement and anti-Semitism, because he laid it all out right in the book.

[estara]

I'm rather annoyed we can't read it in history lessons in Germany - the nearest I'v seen is excerpts pre-chosen (and only one or two) in the history book for the 9th grade. Annoying.

A fellow teacher bought one outside of Germany, as it is still illegal (as far as I know) to own one here.

[sartorias]

Well, if you travel, I suppose you could read it, but it's killingly boring. And the ideas are not new--just rehashed versions of List, Wiligut, and the various Ariosophists. I suspect it's forbidden because of the horrific dark glamor still attached to his name.

[estara]

The point for me is that it would be an original work - not filtered through an educational publisher - and it would be possible to compare his aims and ideas with how he carried them out - clearly demonstrating that this was premeditated in all ways. Probably it could be compared to other propaganda material of previous or later ages in different cultures, so my boys have the danger signs of megalomaniac egoism reinforced.

[whswhs]

Two obvious picks are Ayn Rand and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

[sartorias]

I didn't think Rand had any influence, except in a narrow segment of society. Interesting! Stowe is a fascinating choice.

[whswhs]

There is a difference between "has acquired followers who agree with all or most of her ideas" and "has influence." I follow Tea Party news through sites such as Instapundit and NoodleFood (the first is a libertarian-leaning conservative or conservative-leaning libertarian site owned by a law professor; the second belongs to a follower of Rand), and that movement has picked up slogans such as "going Galt." And an increasing number of people seem to be seeing Atlas Shrugged . . . not as an allegory of our current political situation (obviously!) but as having applicability to it. There may even be some substantive influence; I've taken a look at the Contract from America, and while only about half of its ten action items are things Rand would have endorsed, all three of its basic principles are things she supported. I don't know how much impact the Tea Party will end up having, but I think calling it "a narrow segment of society" is almost certainly unrealistic, and progressives who simply dismiss it are being overoptimistic

[sartorias]

Indeed! That is quite interesting.

[3rdragon]

One of the things that always gets me about the "children x years old are not old enough to read this" brand of censorship is the way it completely takes agency away from the children.

I remember that a number of years ago I picked up Madeleine L'Engle's A Live Coal in the Sea from the shelves of the adult department at the library. I probably wasn't even in highschool yet. For those of you who haven't read it, it's heavy stuff when you're thirteen years old. The basic setup, as I recall, is that one of the protagonist's professors is sleeping with her mother, which she's not particularly okay with and doesn't know how to deal with . . . I didn't like it. I thought that it was probably a good book. It was, after all, Madeleine L'Engle. But it was really easy for me to tell that I was Not Ready For It, so I took it back to the library and decided that I'd stick with L'Engle's work for children and teens, at least for the next while. And while the substance of that story is my decision that I was still too young, my

[sartorias]

Yes--I did this as well, policed my own reading.

[marycatelli]

I have a cousin who still has a grudge against librarians. When he was a child, some librarians shelved Watership Down in the children's sections 'cause -- look, bunnies!

Which is where he found it.

He's nearly forty now and still tells the story as this is why I have a grudge against librarians.

The question is not whether some children can self-police. It's whether all of them can.