John Llewellyn (left to right), Andrew Ettin and Rian Bowie discuss censorship, hate speech and the First Amendment..
Banned Books Week
The importance of learning outside your 'comfort zone'
By Kim McGrath
Office of Creative Services
In observance of "Banned Books Week," Sept. 27 - Oct. 4, Professor of English Andrew Ettin, Assistant Professor of English Rian Bowie and Associate Professor of Communication John Llewellyn talk about the importance of hearing other viewpoints, even those you disagree with.
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Is banning a book the same thing as censorship?
Ettin: Probably the term "banned" is used loosely regarding what happens in the U.S. Banning books constitutes only one form of censorship. Films, TV, radio shows, works of art, plays and music are also censored and occasionally banned from public exposure.
Llewellyn: Controversial works are subject to counter-persuasive campaigns by corporate or institutional interests that are troubled by the claims being made. The latter instance is not banning per se, but political or market strong-arming.
Ettin: What gets printed, shown or broadcast may reflect political and market considerations that are often repressive. For example: "We can't do that because our advertisers or supporters will object." When the U.S. government banned news media from publishing photos showing the coffins of American war dead from Iraq, that political censorship affected everyone.
Where does the first amendment right to freedom of speech fit into the discussion?
Llewellyn: Restricting access to a book is precluding the person's right to even know that an idea exists. Short of chemically or electronically tampering with someone's brain function, restricting access is the most sweeping restriction possible. Without protection for rights of inquiry in order to form one's opinions, the mere freedom to express opinions is window-dressing.
Ettin: Perhaps this helps us answer the question about the tree that falls in the forest when nobody is around to hear. If you are allowed to publish your opinions but I am prohibited from reading them, do your words make a sound? Or do you merely have the "right" to voice them to the empty air?
Llewellyn: Freedom of speech gains its importance in a democracy when coupled with a parallel freedom of inquiry. Those two principles together create a climate for constructive discourse in which an agreeable social reality can be fashioned.
Why is it important that viewpoints that incite hatred or propagate lies be heard?
Bowie: At times, such works can be important in debunking romantic notions of war or violence. To transcend the -isms of racism, sexism and class-ism, we must read primary documentation about the conditions which helped set the stage for some of the most plaguing historical and current crises. However, in a perfect world, such material would be presented alongside a plethora of perspectives on the same event. To present a singular monolithic argument or counter-argument is to replicate that well-worn "us" against "them" ideology.
Llewellyn: Kenneth Burke's famous 1939 essay, "The Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle" (a rhetorical analysis of Mein Kampf) makes the point that it is too easy to simply discard hateful or offensive speech. In reality, that approach profits you little because you do not come to understand why those messages are effective with a portion of the population. Burke explains succinctly the value of his analysis of Hitler's writings: "let us try also to discover what kind of 'medicine' this medicine man has concocted, that we may know, with greater accuracy, exactly what to guard against if we are to forestall the concocting of similar medicine in America."
To regulate speech to accommodate the most sensitive among us is to reduce us all to that level, whatever our tastes. By analogy, knowing that some people have a serious peanut allergy, should we outlaw Snickers? One of the greatest freedoms is to walk away or use the TV clicker when we encounter ideas that offend. There may be something to be learned by exploring outside one's "comfort zone" but that choice rests with each of us.
Ettin: We have a vested interest in allowing people to speak long enough to reveal themselves. So long as others can challenge the hateful words, lies and half-truths, we are safer to let people express them than to suppress them from publication. The ugliness that spreads covertly is more dangerous because it is covert.
How good are people at being able to process what they hear, see and read?
Ettin: Some are more discerning than others. This is why education and conversation are important, as well as the opportunity to explore, even accidentally, works that offer more accurate and humane views from the inside as well as the outside of experiences different from the ones with which we are most readily comfortable.
Llewellyn: The urges that are evoked by these appeals are deeply rooted. The messages work best in modern life when the effects are cloaked in neutral or oblique terms. For politicians, a vote won through appeals to hatred or fear is relatively inexpensive — no programs or benefits are required — so it is a cost-effective strategy. One of the functions of great literature is to help us recognize and transcend these base fears and prejudices.
Are we putting too much trust in people by assuming that they will be able to make discerning judgments?
Llewellyn: That positing of trust is the fundamental risk of a free society and its greatest hallmark. One of the purposes of education is to promote those processing abilities.
Ettin: We are certainly trusting people to understand a lot. But we also trust the same people to vote for the officials who govern us and make our laws. Education can take us only so far, after which we are at the mercy of fears and prejudices as much as we are the beneficiaries of decency and openness.
Bowie: Perhaps we are expecting too much, but when did we get to the point where high expectations for people had become a problem? I do think in certain cases, parents or teachers can help young readers maneuver through difficult content or material. Still, the fear of misinterpretation should not be the major reason why a book, film, or story is banned or censored from a reading public.
Is it the author's intentions or the content alone that is most considered when censoring a work?
Llewellyn: Censorship asserts that, in the words of Colonel Jessep (Jack Nicholson's character in "A Few Good Men"), "You can't handle the truth!" Censorship is premised on the belief that someone else knows better what you should know (and not know) and is prepared to act on that belief. Censors believe that there are messages you can receive that will cause you either to receive — or to do — irreparable harm. The "beauty" of the censorship impulse is that those assumptions are not tested; the mere belief is enough to warrant the action.
Ettin: We cannot really discern what an author's intentions were. Even if we could, good intentions don't always produce good results. We need to keep in mind the complete context of time, circumstances and language, as well as the totality of the work of art. If something offensive is expressed in the work, is it shown in a positive light, or negative, or simply acknowledged as part of the experience? We also need to balance the merits of the work against its potentially offensive elements.
Bowie: I believe there will always be those who believe that books must be banned. There will be times where those decisions have merit. However, history has proven that many of those cases have been prompted by fear. Those are the decisions that I fear most, yet I am cynical enough to believe that there will always be a small part of the population willing to sacrifice great works of art for the sake of homogeneity. At the same time, I am optimistic that those numbers are growing smaller with each new generation.
For each of us, there are personal hurts when our race, gender, religion or sexual orientation is attacked. How do we deal with this?
Ettin: Write. And speak. That is, if we are personally wounded by what has been written, we have a right and obligation to try to put those feelings into words (if language is our expressive medium), giving voice to who and what we are, to the humanness of our pain, to the integrity of our being. And because we do not all excel in that capability, we also need to organize and raise a collective voice against verbal or visual violence.
Llewellyn: You are responsible for your reaction to literature. If everyone has to agree with you in order for you to be happy, prepare for a life of sadness. The free speech axiom is "the solution to bad speech is more speech." If a message offends you, write a response that speaks the truth as you see it. Reclaim your voice.
Do you see more censorship in the future?
Ettin: Access to material through the Internet and transferable files seems likely to make the environment more porous. It will be harder to censor works because they are more easily and diversely available. But that is also likely to spur attempts to regulate or restrict such access.
Llewellyn: The Internet/World Wide Web offers a forum that is, for better and worse, hard to regulate. The censorious impulse faces a global game of "whack a mole" as it tries to pin down offending sources. In the long run, you have to assume that the mole will win.
Each year, the American Library Association compiles a list of the ten most frequently challenged books. The most challenged books of 2007 were:
- "And Tango Makes Three," by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
- The Chocolate War," by Robert Cormier
- "Olive's Ocean," by Kevin Henkes
- "The Golden Compass," by Philip Pullman
- "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," by Mark Twain
- "The Color Purple," by Alice Walker
- "TTYL," by Lauren Myracle
- "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," by Maya Angelou
- "It's Perfectly Normal," by Robie Harris
- "The Perks of Being A Wallflower," by Stephen Chbosky
