My Weekend and More Adventures in Censorship

My long weekend proved to be entirely worthless; out of the three or four things I meant to get done, I think I actually did 1.5. I plan to do the other half of the second task as work this morning, we'll see how that goes. But, I got my Shaman to 48 and played several games of DotA, and that's important too. Kind of.

I what I consider to be entertaining news, parents in Montgomery county, TX, are calling for a ban of the book Fahrenheit 451 from their daughter's classroom. Full story here. As reasons, they cite "discussion of being drunk, smoking cigarettes, violence, "dirty talk," references to the Bible and using God's name in vain." I've read Fahrenheit 451. Yeah, they discuss drunkenness. So does most classic literature, including the Bible (I include this due to the obvious religious background of the complainers). Discussion is not advocation. As for smoking, first of all, same thing as drinking; if you live in America, you can't get away from the image of smoking as being "cool". Violence: same thing, how do parents actually think they affect things by complaining about this anymore? Fahrenheit 451 is not a violent story; there's one act of violence in the book; really, find another book, great or not, that doesn't have one (again, the Bible). Dirty talk? Used sparingly, and as far as this works, tastefully. Also, I'm guessing this family has a TV in their house, and I'm guessing they let their kids watch it; therefore, if language is a concern, the book may not be the first place they need to look. As for the biblical references, one of the major themes of the book is the role of religion in society; the world of the book is a world of atheists who remember religion, and a couple of lengthy discussions are had as to the benefits and ills of religion. Be you religious or not, they're interesting and rather insightful conversations.

There are two great irionies in this story. One, the obvious one, is that Fahrenheit 451 is a book about censorship, and now people are trying to ban it. Being that the book deals with the negative consequences of censorship taken to an extreme, this makes me laugh, and it makes me a little sad. The second irony, as pointed out by the article, is that the proposed ban was suggested during Nation Banned Books week, the celebration of free speech and its triumph over censorship. The irony is staggering.

My favorite part of the story, however, is near the top. "said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read 'Fahrenheit 451.'" He's calling for a ban of a classic piece of literature, a brilliant social commentary, originally written more than 50 years ago in response to Cold War Era McCarthyism, Russian artists and writers being suppressed by Stalin, and, going back further, the Nazi book burnings that happened all across occupied Europe, and he HASN'T EVEN READ THE BOOK? In the words of Kuffs, "what a toolbox."

There's a difference between protecting children and trying to force your own preferences on other people under the guise of protecting your children. If you're really such a pretentious moron that you think your opinions are always right and that no one should think differently than you, what business do you have having children? There's also a difference between protecting children and keeping them so insulated that they're not allowed to think. Yes, keep children from reading pornographic or truly obscene material, like things that would advocate genocide or whatever. But allowing kids to read and be exposed to things that they might not agree with, or god forbid, might actually offend them and force them to think, that's not something that should be taken away. That's something that should be encouraged. Kids taught to think about the world around them might actually grow up to be adults who do the same.