Quantity with Quality
Is Book Burning Actually Still a Thing?
How intolerance raises its ugly head
This is my next story in a series of articles responding to Dr Mehmet Yildiz’s challenge to produce a short quality article with three take home points each day for thirty days.
I have chosen to use Wikipedia’s main page as inspiration, choosing one topic from the “Did You Know” section as topical encouragement.
Baby Be-Bop is the title of the fifth book in the Dangerous Angel series of Young Adult novels written by Francesca Lia Block. Baby Be-Bop tells the back story of one of the characters in the novel series who happens to be gay.
Written as a coming-of-age story of someone ultimately gaining acceptance and peace around their sexuality, it seems like a welcome source of inspiration or guidance for anyone that might be experiencing similar feelings and circumstance.
However, the book’s one sin (if you can consider it as such) is that it was first published in 1995, which while it may seem like only yesterday, is a complete world away from where we are today.
However, while we might forgive some resistance 25 years ago, it was as recently as 2009 that a group of residents in West Bend, Wisconsin sought to have this, and several other titles, removed from the shelves of the public library.
Fortunately, censorship didn’t find its day in Wisconsin, and after a well-attended public hearing, the library board voted to leave the books as they were without removal or relocation in the library.
Then, in a scene straight from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, a group of four individuals sued the city for compensatory damages for their emotional well-being after being subjected to the material within, as well as for the right to publicly burn the book.
Largely a publicity stunt with little legal substance the suit likely quickly evaporated, but the fact that a group sought to call on the law for the right to censor others should make us stop and ponder its significance for a moment.
What We Can Learn from an Unburnt Young Adult Novel
It is an unfortunate fact that hate, bigotry, intolerance and discrimination are all very much alive today.
One might think that in America we would seek to protect our freedoms collectively rather than selectively, but sadly, that is not the case.
Take home points:
- We have the right to express our opinions freely in America. However, when our opinion seeks to silence that of others the definition of freedom becomes very murky.
- Censorship is an incredibly powerful tool nearly always wielded with sinister intent.
- We need to guard against censorship and support the concept of collective (not selective) freedom of expression. This is a global community issue, not just one for the United States.
There is nothing black and white about this topic, it is a miasma of swirling gray for sure, i.e. someone exercising their free speech to pass on false information.
I don’t have easy answers but ask each of you to consider carefully how you treat information in an expanding world of content and ideas.
“It’s much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.” — Leo Tolstoy
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Timothy Key spent over 26 years in the fire service as a firefighter/paramedic and various fire chief management roles. He firmly believes that bad managers destroy more than companies, and good managers create a passion that is contagious. Compassion, grace and gratitude drive the world; or at least they should. Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and join the mail list.
