FIGHT CENSORHIP THE RIGHT WAY

 

Perhaps the most encouraging development of the last year was seeing so many people stand up and champion Art Spiegelman’s Maus, a Holocaust parable told in terms of cats and mice, after a Tennessee school board voted to remove it from the middle-school curriculum. To me it wasn’t specifically about Maus,it was about standing up to authoritarians and their shallow misreading of literature. Presenting students in their formative years with challenging, often disturbing works is a fundamental component of their intellectual and emotional development.

And yet, the hypocrisy of some of the people rightfully defending Maus is not lost on me. I can’t speak for all of them, but I don’t remember any of them coming to the defense of To Kill a Mockingbird, a number of Steinbeck’s Depression-era works, The Adventures of Huck Finn or The Catcher in the Rye. It is striking indeed as some of the reasoning behind the withdrawal of those works is notably similar to the reason McMinn County Board of Education gave for voting to eradicate Maus; troublesome language, violent behavior and, the most infuriating reason given that it defeats the purpose of education and the role of educators, the tackling of difficult topics such as racism.

The eradicators of the works listed above and the McMinn Country Board both demonstrated a reading and understanding of the targeted works that is at best obtuse and, frankly, ignorant (anyone who takes To Kill a Mockingbird or Huck Finn as advocations of racism is in no position to be making decisions regarding the education of youth) and at worst an unwillingness to engage students in, often much needed, discussions about the challenging matters behind the work in question.

It is all the more baffling, then, that these freedom fighters are only storming the keyboards now when a lot of the points they are bringing up (i.e; look past the profanity or troublesome terminology and into what the author is truly getting at, books that pose the most difficult discussions are, often, the most valuable, education is about challenging and breaking down comfort zones, etc.) have been the defense weapons for decades and were yet left untouched by the current mob.

In fairness this is partly due to a new generation of literary scholars experiencing this kind of authoritarianism. But for most of the people who not only stood by silently when, say, Huck Finn was pulled but also “understood” the move their defense of Maus, no matter how admirable the case they build against censorship reeks as one more example of partisan politics.

Here they are not arguing against myopic “enlightened” educators concerned about problematic language, but a stuffy board of trustees from a rural school system in a red state. They are not engaging in the more challenging task of asking for the contextualization of problematic language and channeling it into productive discussions. They are instead taking the high road as opponents to a puritanical purge. In other words they are going after easy targets of the opposition with sure-fire verbal weaponry.

Perhaps, however, we have reached a teaching moment. At one time most people, of various political persuasions, decried censorship. Now, many will excuse or even defend it so long as it affects the other side and then will self-righteously fashion themselves as champions of the free exchange of ideas when the ax is, inevitably, turned to them. That is not the way to take a stand. It is partisan and cowardly. They are not advocates of free speech but, instead, only good teammates for their side. Such behavior never eliminates the un-American practice of censorship it only kicks it to the other side until it comes back, and it will, to bite you.

If I can get liberals and conservatives to finally agree that confronting and talking about the many (often conflicting) emotions great works of art evoke is a far better approach than appointing oneself moral guardian of art, I will consider my work in this area finished.