THE WAR ON BOOKS IS REAL!

Do We Want The New Generations to Think for Themselves or Not?

What do we tell a child when we say this book is bad for you?

What we can say instead?

I grew up in a communist country. The list of the banned books there was longer than our daily queues for food.

Those books were not simply banned. They were out of sight out of mind: most of us were not even aware that they exist.

I try to explain to young people how it was but, even for me, it sounds like I am narrating a dystopian novel. Can I even hope to help them to imagine what I am talking about?

Now I am looking in disbelief at this strange autoimmune disease that plagues our civilization. It has many names. It takes many disguises but the effect is the same: an increased self-righteousness in the name of a greater good.

And one of its symptoms is banning books.

Ohh, there are so many reasons to ban them… “racial slurs”, “anti-Christian themes and plotlines involving witchcraft” or “because might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.” (all the quotes are taken from the article “Read the Books That Schools Want to Ban” published in The Atlantic.

Really? Do we want to ban books because they might make us feel discomfort?

The best books I ever read (including the ones for children) made me feel discomfort and “other form of psychological distress”.

Some of my favorites-ever are on that list.

The magical touch of a gifted storyteller can make a child cry while listening to The Little Prince, The Little Mermaid, The Little Match Girl, or The Happy Prince.

So forgive me for not believing the foaming-hatred-twisted mouths when they spit out half-baked slogans like “to protect our children innocence”, “to protect our values”, or “we want a safer world for our children”.

If they really want a safer world for their children they will treat them with respect. They will teach them to think for themselves.

They will give them the most precious gift a parent or a teacher can give to a young mind: the gift of critical thinking.

A real teacher teaches his students how to think not what to think.

I know that some of you out there will think: there is nothing to worry about. After all, it is not like burning large piles of books in public squares, those are just recommendations for schools and librarians.

Fair enough.

But let me tell you the real danger.

Telling our children what to think is indoctrinating them. Programming them to receive those books with a primed mindset.

Telling our children we forbidden you to read those books is telling them “we do not trust you. You cannot think for yourself. We will choose for you!”

I am glad that I’ve read this book to tell everybody how bad it is!

This is not an exact quote, it is what I recall from one of the saddest reviews I ever read online.

It makes me want to cry because the book it speaks about is Alexis Zorba (or Zorba the Greek) by Nikos Kazantzakis one book I love the most. One book that I’ve read and reread countless times until I discovered meditation.

Zorba the Greek and The Little Prince were my soul-medicine, as powerful in their effect as is meditation now.

This should not be a surprise, considering that there are many artworks dedicated to these timeless gems and people are using Zorbas’s fearless philosophy of “full catastrophe living” to bring awareness to their daily life.

I am not angry at the person that despises my favorite book. I am sad for her. It is not that she does not understand, or she is not smart enough.

It is impossible for her to understand if her understanding is twisted by an ideology.

No matter if we talk about parents, teachers, or total strangers, whoever tries to teach us to judge the past with the standards of today is trying to ruin our chance to read the masterpieces of the past with an open mind.

Here, they say. This is how you should think about this. This is what you should do. Of course, they do not use “should”. They are smarter than this.

So they tell us how right we are. How much better our world would be if we get rid of all those pesky books that remained us about what we do not like about our past…or if will stop cussing. Or if we stop reading or saying things that can make us “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress”.

Maybe we can all reach Nirvana if we stop even thinking about those things…

What we can do instead:

We can go to the banned book list. If some of our favorite childhood books (I have some) are on that list we can choose to read them with our children if we consider them as being appropriate for their age.

Then we can ask them what they think? What do they feel? Who inspired them and why? And so on…

You can challenge them to think about an alternative end. About what they would do if a friend of theirs would face the same trials as the hero of the story…

And when they are old enough to understand the danger of censorship we need to teach them that the little distress that a book can bring is a small price to pay for the freedom of speech.

This article is an answer to this excellent article, An Open Letter To The Book Banning Crowd thoughtfully written by Misty Rae.

Thank you again for reading. 🙂

Please note that all the book links in my articles are referral links. If you like Audiobooks, here you can find Zorba the Greek (this is also a referral link).

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