In the dystopian Ray Bradbury novel “Fahrenheit 451,” a totalitarian government mandates the burning of books.
At the time of its writing, 1953, the author suggested that the impetus for the book was the Red Scare that was taking place in the country.
Throughout the years, his reasoning evolved, to the point where he ultimately came to believe “political correctness” was the problem.
I am probably what you would call a “free speech” absolutist, because I understand what happens when you censor words and thoughts you don’t like.
It starts benignly, as when someone suggests that you’re offensive and should “tone it down.”
From there, it moves fairly quickly into subject matter censorship. We saw that happening during the pandemic, where social media blocked almost any criticism of the government’s vaccine mandates, or the Black Lives Matter hysteria, where some people got fired for writing the wrong sort of newspaper headlines.
Censorship is very bad, and it is the most powerful tool in keeping people docile, uninformed and slaves to a certain totalitarian philosophy.
It was the reason that several generations of Eastern Europeans were trapped behind the Iron Curtain, with Radio Free Europe as their only conduit to information.
But not every attempt to keep books off of shelves is censorship, or an attack on the First Amendment.
Not every book needs to be available to every person in every venue, regardless of its value or the nature of the audience.
The only people who say that are the people who know they are on the wrong side of history and so they have to “protest too much.”
That’s exactly what is happening in my own backyard in Radnor Township in the outskirts of Philadelphia.
This week, the school board voted unanimously, with three abstentions, to reinstate several books in the high school library which are, without any doubt, obscene.
How do I know they are obscene?
To quote Justice Potter Stewart, “I know it when I see it.”
Let’s take the most obvious example, “Gender Queer.”
Here is a passage from that book, which you would never confuse with “Anne of Green Gables”: “I got a new strap-on harness today. I can’t wait to put it on you. It will fit my favorite dildo perfectly. You’re going to look so hot. … “
Radnor decided it wanted to keep that on library shelves.
The language gets more explicit and this publication isn’t even able to print the whole quote.
When a parent objected to the book being available to students, the school board initially agreed and took it out of circulation.
It did not strictly “ban” the book, because parents and students who thought that this was a valuable contribution to the academic oeuvre had every right to buy their own copies.
I remember when I was 11 and in the sixth grade, that is exactly what we did with the then-controversial book “Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret,” and as I recall there was no talk of dildos in that one.
And then the usual suspects started screaming about censorship and the First Amendment and the school board caved and brought the obscenity back. Because anyone reading those words knows it’s obscenity, it is pornography, and it is inappropriate material for a school that doesn’t have pole dancing on its regular curriculum.
This idea that only librarians get to determine what should be included on library bookshelves is similar to the philosophy that parents should not know if their children are being sexually active, if they want to get an abortion, if they are transitioning, and a whole host of other intimate issues.
This is driving a wedge between parents and their sons and daughters — who might decide eventually that they want to be their daughters and sons.
Protecting children who might be afraid to “come out” to their parents on sensitive issues can be done in ways that don’t destroy family integrity.
Allowing strangers to act in loco parentis is generally destructive.
I hope Radnor enjoys its Bob Guccione award for free speech.
Christine Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times in Pennsylvania. Her column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.
