This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
It's incredible to me that busybodies spent so much of their time and energy last year trying to banish books from library shelves. "Incredible" in its literal sense: I can't believe that anyone in 2012 is still trying to "protect" others from salacious stuff like Huckleberry Finn and The Diary of Anne Frank, or that they think anyone can hide anything from anyone in the Internet era.
This came to my attention during Banned Books Week, when book lovers of all kinds celebrated the freedom to read. I had to wonder: Do we really still have to debate this? Seriously? Book-banning? Didn't that go out with the rack?
The mere concept of banning books brings to mind ancient barbarisms — like burning witches or the Inquisition, shooting the messenger or cutting out people's tongues for blasphemy.
Bill Moyers is chairman of the American Library Association's Banned Books Week. He has long been a voice of reason. "It pains me today that even in this modern age some folks in communities across America are saying, 'No, that book isn't for you,'" Moyers says. "And for reasons that have nothing to do with community, the school or the reader — and everything to do with prejudice."
Book-banning — as boneheaded, wrong-headed and downright un-American as it is — has not gone out of style.
If you think about it, there are probably more, not fewer, people out there today minding other people's business, trying to tell us the right way to think — the screaming political partisans of both the right and the left, religious absolutists who encourage rioting and killing over imagined offenses to their beliefs. The crazy, self-styled Christian holy men who think they know the Truth, and so may burn other religions' holy books. The moralists who know what's best for other people's sex lives and lifestyles. Heck, there are people who beat up other people over football games.
What kinds of books are people trying to protect us from? Among the 326 books challenged in 2011-12: Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five ("soft pornography"). Harry Potter (really? That's so old news). J.D. Salinger, god bless him, for his 1951 The Catcher in the Rye. Aldous Huxley's 1932 Brave New World (for sex and because it "lacks literary value"). And the unholy Quran (of course).
All this would be just silly if it weren't so dangerous. As a journalist, I come at this conversation from the broader perspective of individual liberties, freedom of expression and the absolute necessity of free exchange of ideas and information in a free society.
Like most progressive academic left-wing feminist tree-hugging secular humanists, I am a waffler who sees many nuances of an issue — which means I will rarely storm the barricades. This is one reason the people I admire most don't succeed in politics: "On the other hand ..." makes for an uninspiring bumper sticker.
But there is one area in which I am not a waffler: I am a First Amendment absolutist, and proud of it. There's a time and a place for everything, of course, but without free expression, humankind cannot thrive and society cannot function.
Book-banning is the antithesis of American liberty. "Censorship," said Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, "reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime."
Keep your mitts off our bookshelves, you holier-than-thou Puritan do-gooders. I won't tell you what to read and how to think — for which you should be grateful — so don't tell me or my kids what we can't read.
Ted Pease is head of the Department of Journalism & Communication at Utah State University.