Just take a peak at the books that have been banned, everything from Little Red Riding Hood to the Bible.
Banned Books Online
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/banned-books.html Banned Books Week (2007)
American Library Association http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bannedbooksweek.htm
The Most Challenged Books (American Library Association) http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/100mostfrequently.htm
Office of Intellectual Freedon http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=oif
Where does this motivation for censorship come from? And how do we face it?
When you look at the history of the books that have been banned and even the recent ALA’s list of books most challenged, it really begins to look like a whim of fancy. Popularity comes and goes like the wind, it is unpredictable and there doesn’t on the surface appear to be much reason behind it. So to start basing decisions that affect a collection because one person raises their hand with a problem can be so unjust. Yet I can see how it happens, it isn’t fun to have someone confront you on something. Another interesting thing is that it is easier to judge, it is much more difficult to see the good. So the person who comes up to you to criticize a choice may be adding an extra mask covering up the fifteen people who were really glad to see the material who did not speak up about it. And really where is the protocol for that? Does that even get recorded when you get the compliments? Does that go to committee too?
Censorship occurs when people in a community are driven by fear of trusting others and this idea that it is both possible and good to make vanish what is not like you or your ideals. I think it also has to do with people seeing people in general as innately bad versus trusting people are essentially good. Anyway the problem is, it really isn’t good for a community to squelch ideas and differences, that stifles growth and conversation and action. To this day we can see a city’s health and growth reflected by its prioritizing inclusive protocols and embracing cultures. The problem comes I think when people don’t want to think and seeing someone different from them may make them think or rethink and that can become extremely threatening to people so they choose to pretend everything is like they imagine it.
Fundamentalism can happen within any religion and at its core is the proposition that “the problem” is that you are asking why or wanting to know, not that you don’t know.
Has anyone had people complaining to where you just decide that you are just not going to make everyone happy and you just have to come to terms with that is the way it is going to be, at least let me do what I know is right?
