The root of the evil that gives us Banned Books Week

 At this crucial point in our country's history, Banned Books Week is about to start as another reminder of the freedoms that we cherish as a nation. 

Nowadays, sadly, those freedoms are feeling few and far between with civil liberties being violated on a daily basis and what once were established norms of a supposedly mature society being tossed by the wayside.

Don't worry,folks-I'm not going to get into a big political rant(most of my regular readers probably have a good sense of my viewpoints in that regard) here. However, instead of listing current and past books targeted by censorship, I thought this would be the right time to talk about why books and authors are banned/challenged in the first place.

 

We all know the familiar string of excuses(foul language, sexual content, religious objections, etc.) and that old standby "Won't someone think of the children?". 

Protecting the young ones is both true and false, which I will get into in a moment. After much consideration on my part, I find that the real reason, past and present, for censorship like this is simply fear.

No doubt many of these dubious do-gooders would insist that they're not afraid of words on a page, only their influence on others. A half truth at best; what upsets them the most is that these words challenge their already established notions of how the world should be.

These are the type of people who loudly proclaim their love of liberty but when it comes to caring about the rights of people who are not of their social circle, that privilege is not deemed worthy of those who "complain" and "don't appreciate their country", conveniently forgetting that this entire country was brought into being by those who complained about unfair treatment by a government in the first place.

It's no wonder that books about rebelling against totalitarian regimes as The Hunger Games series and George Orwell's 1984 are often challenged. People like this say they're all for democracy but the past four years alone have shown us that they would actually prefer a Big Brother system that takes away any pesky protests about the way things are and simply spoon feed them propaganda, flavored with hate and heartlessness:

So what exactly are they afraid of? Well, that things like racism(the works of Toni Morrison), sexism(The Handmaid's Tale), bias against certain religions(The Kite Runner) and the LGBTQIA community(And Tango Makes Three) are problems that we need to work and make real generational changes that will last.

That's where the kids come into the picture; a lot of these people feel that the way they were taught by parents/school/church was just fine and what was good enough for them is good enough for their children.

Like the song says "children are our future" and many of these narrow minded minions don't want their offspring to change the world. After all, that would invalidate their beliefs, which is their ultimate nightmare, to be proven wrong.

While they accuse others of "thought control", that is exactly what they're after and one of the places where such battles begin is with books both in classrooms and libraries. We may not have those Fahrenheit 451 book burning mandates but trust me, there are many out there who crave them indeed:

So, what can we do about this? While there are numerous challenges to our freedoms all going on right now, intellectual freedom is one of the most important as it's a valuable component to tackling the other situations at hand.

Fighting back in the right way is key and be willing to face off against our own fears is a major step in that direction. Fear can be used against us not only by encouraging the weak to embrace chaos but also to cast doubt in ourselves and stun us into inaction.

Well, as a special litany in Frank Herbert's Dune teaches us, "Fear is the mind killer" and we must be ready to stand against it. It's not an easy task, I well know, yet by facing down such a powerful emotion , we will be the stronger for it. 

You don't have to do anything truly dramatic to overcome fear, even if it feels like an epic storm of woe is about to descend upon us. A small step, such as signing a petition or refusing to give into negative peer pressure either online or off, is just as great a victory:

A great benefit of Banned Books Week is that it reminds us that our right to freedom of thought and speech has always been a long and hard fought battle that we should never take for granted.

Adding that on to the huge bundle of burdens we are up against this year in particular may seem like too much. Yet, it's one that we can't give up on or put on the back burner until later. Keeping it safe from those ready to destroy such a valuable asset is an absolute must.

Banned Books Week begins this Sunday, September 27 and runs until October 3. Please bear it in mind as we make our mark in history by remembering those who took up this cause in the past. Let us honor their struggles and pay respect to those gone before us, on this and many other fronts. Freedom of speech is freedom of choice, something to hold onto in these troubling times: