Book censorship, is a wrongful attempt to control human thought by the pernicious regulation of free speech and is no less than an arrogant abomination and an existential impediment to human enlightenment. The toxicity of this, chronic, undemocratic pathology, eternally, oppresses man’s universal aspirations toward advancement, mature perception and the ultimate goal of enlightenment.
As we are presently able to recall, approximately fifty years ago, most censorship challenges, focused primarily, on the subject of obscenity and sexuality. Controversies roiled over great works of literature, no less than,” Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” “Sons and Lovers.” by D.H. Lawrence, and even, (possibly, for other reasons) Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn.”
In the 1990s, the Thomas Jefferson Center For Free Expression, publicly, declared, that the foundational guarantees of freedom of speech were in grave danger from certain parents and School Boards, that arrogating to themselves, the delusional and neurotically, self-serving, conceit, “the moral majority.” Their atavistic and reductive rationalization, with especial regard to children, appeared to be that (to their mind) the child is “not ready” for the subject matter, or the behavior depicted in the book. It is our view that their fundamental motivation is motivated by, an irrational, unachievable and neurotic desire to control thoughts, defensively perceived, as inimical to their own, personal, moral or religious mindset.
In the 1950s and ’60s, the clouds of censorship seemed to cast a dark, and dangerous, pall upon the community by the paranoid fantasy, of a pervasive and dedicated Communist fifth column, secretly, embedded and operating in America. This delusional false and completely erroneous schema, portrayed to a gullible and fearful, Nation by the delusional, paranoiac, human rights abuser, Senator Joseph McCarthy, led to a harmful era of book and movie censorship, the Rosenberg travesty, and the unjust destruction of many innocent and highly talented careers, notably, in Hollywood.
Apparently, the pernicious practice of censorship seems, contemporaneously, to aspire to a radical attempt to spread its invasive, un-American, tentacles into a myriad of contexts, some of which may be attributed to, the Nation’s political divisiveness, but as well as the “usual suspects,” religious or faux sense of personal morality. Thus, themes including sexual abuse (as well as sex, in general), racism, slavery, the Federal Government’s early treatment of First Americans, rational science (evolution, etc.) are among the chosen and reductive, targets for book (and movie) censorship.
The salient point, for consideration in this context, is that the restriction of the freedom of thought undermines the primary function of childhood and adult education, to learn mature wisdom and experience, to enable the individual, to think for himself. The policing of thought, through book censorship or otherwise, universally and eternally, endangers human tolerance, creativity, free expression and democracy, itself. It may, additionally, be relevantly, observed that books on the library shelf are available by free and unrestricted choice.
Finally, we would choose to avail ourselves of the irresistible opportunity, to express our view of the self-appointed, dedicated and smug thought constabulary (“thought police”). There are few flaws in character, equivalent in arrogance, hubris, audacity and just plain chutzpah, to that of the self-anointed, often, reductively ignorant, or ethnocentric persona, that arrogates to itself sufficient, objective discernment and authority, to evaluate or tailor, the thoughts of other people. It seems to us, that such bizarre, and delusional undertaken supervisory duty, is best exchanged for modest and circumspect tolerance, and a mature understanding of others.
–p.
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