Why Stop At Banning Books? Why Not Ban Reading?
It’s much easier to control people who are illiterate
I got in trouble in high school for reading The Communist Manifest and The Critique of Pure Reason. Teachers got MAD when I walked around with those titles tucked under my arm.
“Have you done the homework I assigned you?”
“Of course I did, your assignment was for idiots.”
I got so fed up with my high school that I got a hold of a list that claimed to contain the 100 greatest books ever written. This was before the internet, so I don’t know where I got that list from, but I read all the books on it during my senior year.
A couple of the books were relatively obscure, and I ended up having to go to the public library in Minneapolis to get them. I was fearful to bring those books home to my backwards, ignorant, racist, rural hometown. I was worried the teachers might confiscate the books and burn them.
It’s hard to have any respect for people like that. I held my teachers in contempt. I held my community in contempt. I still hold them in contempt. Not much has changed.
At this point, I can’t help but wonder why they taught us to read at all? All they’ve done since we learned is complain about the choices we made once we mastered the skill. Actually, I’m not sure most of my classmates ever learned how to do it. They’re all functionally illiterate to this day. Maybe not teaching how to read was the objective in the same way they made such an effort to emphasize we shouldn’t learn math.
“Oh, math is hard…”
Once again, conservatives are on the warpath. Once again they want to ban books and defund education. They do this even as they try to protect statues of confederate generals. They do this even as they claim people who do read are evil tyrants. At some point, conservatives are going to succeed. Libraries will be but a memory and our students will be taught by listening to prerecorded lectures from Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity.
Some of us will be sneaking around copies of contraband paperbacks like in Fahrenheit 451. Good times.
Preserving history
So, I guess one of the unstated arguments of conservatives is that they don’t believe books are a “part of history.”
Remember when they used to say that all the time? They were always talking about how they wanted to “preserve history” and “teach the lessons.”
But now there are a couple of books they don’t like and they want to ban them. They also want to ban critical race theory. What happened to all the talk about preserving history?
I guess we should pause for a moment and have a look at the kind of history conservatives are willing to defend.
A newly resurfaced video shows GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene saying she would defend statues of Hitler or “Satan himself” on the grounds of preserving history and its lessons — Mia Jankowicz
Okay… got it?
So, conservatives consider books by Hitler and Satan himself to be culturally necessary. But they want to ban books that offer the alternative viewpoint to Hitler and Satan.
And… basically, half the United States is fine with that?
Tyranny propaganda
The funny thing about conservatives is that they see themselves as defenders of liberty. They claim they don’t like excessive government regulation.
Do they really not think it’s “excessive” for agents of the government to march into a high school library and start removing books?
“When it comes to these gun-grabbing, freedom-hating, over-regulating, civil liberty-violating tyrants,” Kaufmann said, “Here’s my message … thank you,” state Rep. Bobby Kaufmann (R) said, holding up both his middle fingers, at the Convention of States gathering.
Kaufmann, the son of Iowa’s Republican Party chairman Jeff Kaufmann, was one of multiple speakers at the event, which pushed residents to join a movement to limit the federal government’s powers and spending — The Hill
It’s hard to keep up with all of this because it makes no sense, but let me summarize:
Conservatives don’t want to do anything to “destroy history.” But they’ll burn books and refuse to teach critical race theory.
Conservatives hate over-regulating government agencies, but they insist on removing books from the shelves of public schools.
Don’t feel bad if you can’t carry all those thoughts in your mind at the same time. They’re blatantly contradictory. It takes a massive amount of cognitive dissonance to try to defend those positions.
“Oh, but that thing I said about ‘over-regulating’ doesn’t apply here.”
No! You don’t get to pick and choose when your dumb, socially destructive policies can be applied. Once you get the milk out of the cow you can’t put it back in. There isn’t any justification for how conservatives think. It’s blatant lies and hypocrisy and social control.
You don’t get that a party that doesn’t let you read what you want doesn’t care about freedom? Seriously?
What books are they banning?
Let me guess when conservatives sit down and come up with their lists of books to ban, it doesn’t include Mein Kampf. The most infuriating thing is that when they defend allowing Mein Kampf to stay in libraries, they can sound almost reasonable.
“Well, we need to keep this book around because it’s an important relic of history and it can be valuable for many lessons…”
You see, this is the sneaky part of the argument those fiends like to sink their teeth into. These are the arguments they make for the televised sound bites that get them elected.
It’s about lessons.
It’s about history.
It’s about teaching.
It’s about the children.
All of that stuff sounds good. Yeah, I’m for teaching lessons. I’m for teaching history. I’m for protecting children. We must be on the same page.
So you say, “So, we agree, we shouldn’t ban any books because some of them do have an important educational value…”
“Well… we wouldn’t go that far, some books pose a danger to our children!”
“Like what?”
Then you go online and you see articles like this:
Arizona schools are scrambling to find teachers to fill classrooms, with the state Board of Education forced on Monday to pass an emergency rule so that anyone with a high school diploma or a GED can teach your kids for up to two years.
Meanwhile, the House Education Committee spent hours on Tuesday debating whether to ban classics like “The Great Gatsby” and “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” from schools — Laurie Roberts
Ungh…
So, conservatives want unqualified people teaching children lessons based on Mein Kampf, even as they remove The Great Gatsby from libraries.
What could possibly go wrong?
How can you ‘do your own research if you can’t read?
You know what? I can’t even be mad anymore. I just find this funny somehow. I’m just going to sit in my living room and use peanut butter as finger paint and giggle to myself. I’m not going to wear clothing when I go out shopping from now on. Maybe I’ll stick a bone in my beard. I’ll wipe some peanut butter on my chest. If anyone objects, I’ll call myself a patriot and scream freedom and break all the windows.
I’ll break them with my face.
About a decade ago I wrote a novel about a society that banned reading. At the time, I thought I was writing a satire. I didn’t think it was a practical idea. I had a nagging doubt that the book was too far-fetched to be believed.
Now, here we are, marching straight into that imagined hellscape. All the dumb kids in my high school class, the ones that ate paint and refused to learn how to multiply, are running the government. The only thing they learned about American History was what they saw in The Patriot.
Somehow, they have it in their heads that they are the good guys. They’re passing laws about giving parents the right to control what children are taught in schools. I’m a parent. I’m also a teacher. Why don’t I get to decide?
I’d start with more reading, more logic, and less white supremacy.
The final part I don’t get is this: the people who want to ban books don’t read books anyway! Why do they care so much? Then again, men who are physically incapable of ever needing an abortion also want to ban the procedure; the people who don’t want to have a gay marriage also want to ban that; the people who don’t believe racism exists don’t want us to talk about racism…
It’s almost as if conservatives and not liberals are the true “gun-grabbing, freedom-hating, over-regulating, civil liberty-violating tyrants.” Is anyone else starting to think that?
I’ll just sit here and start on a new peanut butter floor fresco as you mull it over. I’m just exploring new ways to express myself in the event conservatives have their way and reading is banned.
Of course, sooner or later personal expression will be banned too…
Might as well get used to it.