We’re in an odd fix over books. A lot of people want to burrow into what children and young adults are reading or should not be reading. Organized groups are out to ban reading that explores sensitive, often controversial topics. Classrooms and libraries are in their crosshairs. Consider:
‒ In St. Marys, The Pottawatomie Wabaunsee Regional Library leases a city-owned building. The library serves eight area communities and is supported with county taxes. The library’s landlords are city commissioners, all members of Society of St. Pius X, an extreme Catholic religious sect.
Last August, a local parent was upset when his child checked out “Melissa,” a book about a transgender child. Commissioners, worried that the library contained immoral material, issued a lease renewal for 2023 that insisted the library banish material that was sexually explicit “or racially or socially divisive.”
The proposed book purge ignited a public uproar, drew a protest petition with more than 1,000 signatures and brought legal pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union. After a series of tense public meetings, the commission last month extended the lease without restrictions, but promised rigorous scrutiny of the library’s inventory.
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‒ In Newton, Schools Superintendent Fred Van Ranken has proposed a special panel to evaluate reading materials for, among other things, sexual content, language, violence, drugs and alcohol, religious and political threads.
Van Ranken insists that Newton is not banning books. The idea is to improve the “level of communication” with parents who may be concerned about what their children are reading, he told The Wichita Eagle.
‒ In Missouri, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has received more than 10,000 public comments on a proposed rule that threatens public libraries’ state funding if they make “age-inappropriate materials” available to minors.
Ashcroft’s rule would prohibit libraries from using state funds to purchase materials that appeal to the “prurient interest of a minor.” Parents may challenge materials, displays or events if they think they’re not age appropriate. The result of any challenge would be posted on the library’s website.
Across America, special interests have launched efforts to ban from classrooms books that depict race or LGBTQ issues. Legislators in Kansas and elsewhere have introduced bills to ban teachers from discussing homosexuality or topics on race. Discussion of the impact of historic racism in the U.S. has already been banned in several other states.
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Telling people what they can or can’t read is another way of telling them what they can or can’t think. Youngsters are at the front because they and their schools are easy targets. But the mind, no matter its age, is not a public affair but a private affair, and the library is its well spring.
In this country an enduring political theory is that our conscience is a confidential concern and only our deeds and words ‒ not our thoughts ‒ should be open to survey, censure or punishment. It’s a fine idea that has held for a long time. It is an idea that cannot safely be compromised, lest it be destroyed. Nor should it be modified, even under the guise of “security,” or “morality.”
Politicians may say that people who sample irregular or robust ideas are “dangerous”, or belong to subversive elements. A difference of opinion suddenly becomes a mark of infamy, of failure to conform, to be “normal.” Teachers, legislators, athletes and others may come under scrutiny. Demanding political conformity for a place in line or the price of a job is the principle of hundred percentism, the age-old blood brother of witch burning.
We enter a dark place when the government begins examining a person’s library or conscience. People’s acts and words may be open to inspection, but not their reading habits, or thoughts, or their political affiliation or philosophical bent.
Those who long to investigate morality or loyalty insist that they would use this power wisely. This is a wistful notion. We only need to watch totalitarians at work to see that once people gain power over others’ minds, such power is never used sparingly or wisely, but lavishly and brutally and with unspeakable results.
The fuss over books comes from fear of change, from conjuring fictive threats to our “freedoms.” It seeks to control, to clear the decks of doubtful characters. We can achieve reasonably clear decks if we apply our civil rights and duties to all citizens, even those with opinions and reading appetites opposite ours. This may be a dangerous idea but holding it does not necessarily make one a dangerous person.
