UPDATE: Slartibartfast, who I have a great deal of respect for, was offended by this column (apparently missing the smiley face at the end of it). I don't think it's appropriate to edit the text, but I will concede, as others have pointed out, that liberals have been known to call for books to be banned as well (although, arguably not as often as the other way around) and change the title of this post, as requested.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Serious question. Is there something about conservatism that's incompatible with the exposure of differing ideas?
First we saw Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen suggest his state not purchase any books by gay authors or with gay characters for public schools, and now we're seeing an increase in the actual banning of books in other parts of the country. And when folks look for reasons there's a growing attack on books, the answers point to conservatism:
According to the American Library Association, which asks school districts and libraries to report efforts to ban books - that is, have them removed from shelves or reading lists - they are on the rise again: 547 books were challenged last year, up from 458 in 2003. These aren't record numbers. In the 1990's the appearance of the Harry Potter books, with their themes of witchcraft and wizardry, caused a raft of objections from evangelical Christians.
Judith Krug, director of the library association's office for intellectual freedom, attributed the most recent spike to the empowerment of conservatives in general and to the re-election of President Bush in particular. The same thing happened 25 years ago, she said. "In 1980, we were dealing with an average of 300 or so challenges a year, and then Reagan was elected," she said. "And challenges went to 900 or 1,000 a year."
So from evangelical Christians objecting to children's books that challenge their notions about wizardry (or whatever) to a general sense of empowerment among conservatives when the Federal government leans toward the right, we see that the desire to limit knowledge is strong among conservatives. But why? Can't conservatives and their children read something, disagree with it, find it distasteful, even get angry and heave the book across the room, without demanding that everyone else be "protected" from it? Why this draconian overreaction to ideas? How do ideas threaten them?
If I'm missing something here, I'd be happy to learn what it is. Is there a book on this? ;-p
UPDATE: Hat tip to constant reader cleek for pointing me to this list published by Human Events (The National Conservative Weekly) of, get this, the "Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries." They truly freakin' are afraid of books. Incredible.
Even more incredible that the titles that make the list (Das Kapital, Mein Kampf, etc.) is that one of the books that just missed the top ten is Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. Are these people out of their minds? Second Sex harmful? To whom? Misogynists?
UPDATE II: Constant reader Jesurgislac argues that both left and right voices have called for banning books (and the American Library Assoication list of the top 100 books banned between 1990 and 2000 does include books banned apparently for reasons of political correctness [like Huckleberry Finn], which it's probably safe to assume were initiated by liberals), although still, the ALA insists the trend increases when conservatives are empowered. Another interesting statistic is that initiators of book bannings are overwhelmingly parents. See this chart by the ALA (pdf file).
"But when youre at 360 degrees, the extremes are exactly the same."
Actually, they'd be flipped. Did you mean 270 or 90? Now who's the fussbudget?
Posted by: sidereal | June 02, 2005 at 08:12 PM
"I like the term 'control addict' (borrowed from William S. Burroughs)."
I suspect you can keep it; he probably doesn't need it back.
Posted by: Gary Farber | June 02, 2005 at 08:15 PM
It's like taking Andrea Dworkin as representative of all feminists everywhere, or Phyllis Schlafly as representative of all evangelical women.
Posted by: nous_athanatos | June 2, 2005 03:17 PM
I have to add something to this...Dworkin get's on my nerves, but her influence on anything looking like the political left is questionable...most leftist thinkers are out of the loop, when it comes to American political culture...Michael Harrington was probably the last famous leftists with influence over the political left (remember Bill Buckley's comment, "That's like being the tallest building in Topeka, Kansas).
However, Phyllis Schlafly and many other rabid right-wingers have way more sway over the political right.
Posted by: NeoDude | June 02, 2005 at 08:26 PM
Gary Farber,
"Posts" and "comments." I'll follow your guidline.
-"I suspect you can keep it; he probably doesn't need it back."
Hahahahaha. Indeed not. Thanks for the laugh!
Posted by: otto | June 02, 2005 at 08:29 PM
NeoDude--Agreed, though actually not what I was trying to argue (but interesting, nonetheless). I was thinking of them both in Limbaughian terms whereby all one has to do is select one representative of the extreme* viewpoint from any group and tar the rest of the group with it. The type of thing that is generally brought to its idiotic apotheosis in sports talk radio.
* as in farthest from the actual institutional center, not in the purjorative sense.
Posted by: nous_athanatos | June 02, 2005 at 09:11 PM
I'm generally in agreement with most of the views expressed on this thread, but I'd like to take issue with one minor thing:
In other words, even a pile of racist filth written by a homicidal would-be genocidal maniac had some potential value--the fact that Europe foolishly failed to heed it doesn't change that.
I don't think you can really call people's dismissal of Mein Kampf "foolish" because Hitler did something so profound and unprecedented that we can't really imagine how shocking it was nowadays:
1) He told people what he was going to do if he ever came to power, and it involved a titanic war and copious amounts of death and the utter annihilation of a people.
2) He then did it.
I can't think of a single example prior to Mein Kampf -- and few thereafter -- of a major political leader who actually kept his promises with the literalism and severity that Hitler did.* Sure, it's blindingly obvious in retrospect but that was the beauty (in a warped and hideous way) of the technique: who on earth would believe that an orator with the rhetorical flamboyancy of Hitler would actually be telling the unvarnished truth? And that, given the power to execute his vilest fantasies and the responsibility of a nation on his back, he'd actually remain true to his original goals?
Unbelievable. And yet it happened.**
All in all, I think many of Hitler's contemporaries get a bad rap for failing to apprehend the nature of his madness. [Likewise Stalin, btw; who could imagine that grey, boring Josef Djugashvilli from Georgia would turn into one of history's greatest monsters?] Now that our eyes have been opened to these new vistas of human depravity, well, ignorance is no longer an excuse.
* To be fair, I'm not familiar enough with Lenin's work to say if, for example, the NEP was foretold, but I tend to think it wasn't.
** In fact, one can argue that it happened precisely because he was telling the truth in Mein Kampf and at the various rallies: the sophisticates like von Papen literally couldn't comprehend Hitler's monomania and assumed that he could be corrupted or bought off. How wrong they were.
Posted by: Anarch | June 02, 2005 at 09:47 PM
oh...ok...
Posted by: NeoDude | June 02, 2005 at 09:56 PM
Little typo there, Anarch.
"who could imagine that grey, boring James Earl Carter from Georgia would turn into one of history's greatest monsters?"
Fixed.
Posted by: sidereal | June 02, 2005 at 11:26 PM
This is meant as a compliment: I decided I thought I knew whom the author of the comment of June 2, 2005 09:47 PM was within two sentences. (Also: I agree.)
Posted by: Gary Farber | June 02, 2005 at 11:27 PM
sidereal: "who could imagine that grey, boring James Earl Carter from Georgia would turn into one of history's greatest monsters?"
I stand corrected. Insert something Slartibartfastian about embarrassment, poison and villagers dying. Oh the shame. Oh the humanity. Etc.
Gary Farber: This is meant as a compliment: I decided I thought I knew whom the author of the comment of June 2, 2005 09:47 PM was within two sentences.
Yes, but were you right?
Posted by: Anarch | June 03, 2005 at 12:11 AM
I can't think of a single example prior to Mein Kampf -- and few thereafter -- of a major political leader who actually kept his promises with the literalism and severity that Hitler did.* Sure, it's blindingly obvious in retrospect but that was the beauty (in a warped and hideous way) of the technique: who on earth would believe that an orator with the rhetorical flamboyancy of Hitler would actually be telling the unvarnished truth? And that, given the power to execute his vilest fantasies and the responsibility of a nation on his back, he'd actually remain true to his original goals?
First, let me add my praise to Mr Farber's for a well-written reply that made me think.
Now, my response to your first comment would be--had anyone who had risen to lead a major nation ever described such a horrific vision for his country and its neighbors before reaching power? I'm not a history PhD, but I can't think of anything that approaches it--the Communists certainly weren't quite so blunt about their intentions. Whether he was taken seriously or not, one would think that Europe would be very, very concerned with Germany being led by a man whose stated goal was to conquer them--at the very least it was a sign that the man was not going to be looking at them in a friendly way.
The second point is that Europe was in a unique position--and had a unique responsibility--re Germany as opposed to, say, dealing with the equally vicious S.O.B. who was running the Soviet Union at the time. Europe had chosen to impose a harsh peace on Germany, and had basically stood on its neck since the Treaty of Versailles, causing great economic distress to Germany and helping foster the conditions that caused Hitler to come to power. I would argue that Europe had an obligation to either continue to keep their foot on Germany's neck indefinitely, or to metaphorically twist their foot and go in and clean up the mess on a permanent basis--which they certainly had the capacity to do in the days when Hitler was rebuilding his air force and reoccupying the Rhineland (both clear violations of the Treaty of Versailles). By stepping back and letting Germany regain its footing just as a leader who had long before sworn revenge against Europe and the rest of the world rose to power, and watching as he began to systematically ignore treaty obligations and bully his neighbors, they abdicated their responsibility and served as a midwife to the horrors that followed. As you say, they had no way of knowing just how bad the situation would get, but what they knew and were capable of acting on should have been enough.
Posted by: M. Scott Eiland | June 03, 2005 at 02:03 PM
Returning late to this thread . . .
Let me acknowledge first the several reactions to my mangling of Jesurgislac's name. After 3 tries I gave up on spelling it and picked the nearest phonetic that suggested itself, with no malicious intent, but it was surely disrespectful, and I apologize. Thanks for his broad-minded reaction.
Regarding this thread, I am puzzled: I understood the original post to be a request for clarification of the (putatively) characteristically conservative profile of book-banners - that is, a proposal for discussion of a factual proposition (one which I think is largely correct, but nevermind). That makes some of the folowing discussion strange to me.
(1) I don't understand how the post could have been offensive, even understanding that it implies that book-banning is a conservative undertaking. Offense being a subjective state, I suppose it is one of the tastes over which, famously, there is no disputing, but it seems hyper-reactive to me to argue that such a suggestion cannot even be made. There are some propositions, no doubt, that are offensive even as grounds for discussion ("Why is it always blacks who commit crimes?"), but I don't see that this one rises to that level. I would guess that most, even, of those of us who view book-banning as a very bad thing don't regard the false imputation of book-banning as being akin to racism. And, presumably, one possible response to the proposition is to deny it: to claim that it is not a characteristically conservative practice - a claim which itself cannot be made unless the discussion is allowed to go forward.
2) Nobody here seems to want to endorse wholesale book-banning, nor did I expect anyone would - but what, then, is the conversation about (especially if it is not to be about who bans books, and why)? The thread seems to have drifted, to a significant degree, onto what books one might like to ban, but will not. This evidences an admirable committment not to ban books, but also means that that subset of the conversation is not a conversation about book-banning. We are no nearer to understanding the mindset that makes banning seem reasonable - in part because no one here has that mindset, and in part because we cannot name, out loud, those who do. (I am not criticizing thread drift - it's an enjoyable phenomenon. I'm just pointing out that the thread hasn't answered the question that began it.)
What prompts this comment is that I found the original post intriguing not merely because it flattered a prejudice I have about conservatives, but because it opened the question of motivation and mindset. I, too, suspect that "they truly freakin' are afraid of books" - but I would have been willing to see a discussion that either (a) demonstrated that the implicit empirical claim in the original post was false, or (b) elucidated some explanation for book-banning efforts that made sense out of it in a way that did not collapse into simple fear of knowledge. (As a start, I think the way toward that latter possibility was hinted at by those - including myself - who acknowledged that there are attempts at book-banning by liberals, even if they are not the majority of such attempts. There may be a common motivation that both sides can access, though with different likelihood - identifying it would have been a step toward answering the broader question from the post.) I don't think either of those possibilities is present in the discussion, however, and to that extent I think the opportunity presented by the first post remains unfulfilled.
Posted by: Kevin T. Keith | June 03, 2005 at 06:02 PM
Having, in my immediately-previous comment, challenged the conversation to re-engage the premise of the original post, I suppose I should make an effort myself. To that end, I make the following modest suggestions:
Book-Banning Is Characteristically, Though Not Uniquely, a Conservative Impulse
As evidence, I offer, from the ALA's list of the 10 Most-Challenged Books of 2004, not the titles, but the reasons each book was challenged:
Let me note as well that two of the three books challenged for "racism" were by black authors, depicting their treatment by white society; both have won literary awards.
Now, at the risk of stereotyping, what might we be likely to say about those who gave us this list?
On a purely factual basis, we can identify some of their obsessions:
Further, we note that they don't just want the books removed from certain grade levels; they don't want anyone to read them (only two objections specified "unsuited for age group" - the others were absolute). Also, "political viewpoint" and "accuracy" issues challenging preferred conservative positions (gun rights) were enough to vault one book to the #3 spot on the list for that year, but appear for no other book. (To be fair, that book, Arming America, by Michale Bellesiles, has come in for withering procedural criticism across the board. But it provides an interesting test scenario, since a competing book with exactly the opposite premise, More Guns, Less Crime, by John Lott, had been published less than two years previously and had also been widely faulted for methodological errors and the author's habit of falsifying fraudulent endorsements. The two had been played against each other in the press for some time - and neither is aimed at a children's audience - but only one, the one disliked by conservatives, became the third-most "challenged" book in the country.) And, we can note that the implausibility of the charges is no barrier to banning the books - the title cited for "nudity" is a 30+-year-old picture book by Maurice Sendak (one of his many Caldecott Award winners, and the sequel to his acclaimed Where the Wild Things Are). Finally, I can only speculate about the biggest category, but it is still sugestive. "Offensive language" is ambiguous, but I'm assuming it means "swear words" - they are specifically cited as objections to several titles on that list, and offensive racial language is probably covered under "racism".
So, who are we talking about? Who is obsessed with swearing, sex, gays, and material "unsuitable for age group"? Who turns out in droves to protest books about gun control that were already failing just fine on their own? Who scours cartoon books about children and dream-monsters for hints of cartoon genitalia? (There is reportedly a long history of parents and librarians painting over the "dirty" pictures in Sendak's book.) Who thinks books with realistic teen characters "model bad behavior"? Who thinks blacks are twice as racist as whites? Who, in a list of their 10-worst books, manages to name an 8-time Caldecott Award winner, a double-Newberry/double-Corretta Scott King-award winner (yeah - the "racist" got a trophy from MLK's wife - twice), a Nobel Prize winner, a Pulitzer- & Tony-award nominee, and a boatload of other prizewinners?
I've already copped to Huckleberry Finn, but that's it on the liberal side. (And note that Huck Finn is not on the list for 2004 - the books above pushed it off.) I'm willing to go out on a limb and guess that none of last year's crop of book-challengings was instigated by liberals. We don't have those obsessions, and we're not that dumb.
But there's more. Another thing liberals don't do is band together to keep anybody from thinking anything they don't like. Parents sometimes protest books on school reading lists - and both liberal and conservative parents do this. (I'd bet again it's more often conservatives, but you'd have to survey local school boards to find out. The ALA does so, and they think it's true, but who knows?) Conservatives form organizations and launch coordinated nation-wide campaigns. There are, among other things, the anti-book campaigns of the general-issue conservative groups like Focus on the Family (issues an annual press release arguing that ALA's "Banned Books Week" is misguided; does not officially condemn Harry Potter books but praises those who seek to ban them) and the American Family Association (their Web site is filled with news bites and position statements about "offensive" public speech in every aspect of the media). But beyond this, there are national organizations devoted to systematic complaints about books:
So I don't think it's too much to say there's a conservative theme to the impetus to prevent people from reading certain books. What's obvious from the thread above is that the feeling that some books offer dangerous or offensive ideas is hardly unique to conservatives, and even the idea that some books might be better off not read, or even never having been written is one that suggests itself to many of us from time to time. But overt action to keep other people from reading them is not universal, and it has certain hallmarks that, really, are not very subtle or hard to make out.
What is worthwhile here is figuring out why it falls out this way. Some obvious, superficial suggestions leap to mind: conservatism is inherently negative, in the sense of resisting changes - so the impulse to prevent "bad" ideas from taking hold may be more natural to those whose inclination is to prevent bad changes being made in general; conservatives have adopted a self-description, in the US, of a victimized minority, so perhaps the traditional expedients of minorities - insularism, protection of culture and tradition - may seem appropriate to them. Those are just possibilities. Likely the answers are more nuanced than that.
What is needed - and, I think, would be useful and interesting, and further might shed light on other aspects of the liberal/conservative political dynamic - is a better, more careful, and more searching examination of this phenomenon. The issue of book banning is a particularly ripe platform for inspection of differences in modes of political activism, precisely because (I would have thought until now) nobody is likely to get offended enough by it that they can't carry on the conversation. I hope that is true notwithstanding. But I do think there is a conversation to be had, because I do think - as I've tried to show above - there is something to discuss, as the original post suggested.
Now, having made that inflammatory suggestion, let me in an oblique way douse the flames somewhat (does one douse "obliquely"? - douse "slightly"? - "sprinkle"?) by offering a characterization of one aspect of book-banning in which both liberals and conservatives are implicated - the one in which, again, Huck Finn so often rears its waterlogged head.
Most "Book Banning" Is Really School-Textbook Choice, and Liberals and Conservatives Both Play That Game
Focus on the Family does make one good point in its annual diatribe against the people who are against banning books: the vast majority of "challenges" to books are made in public school systems, not public libraries or bookstores. And these consist of parental complaints (often prompted by organized, large-scale banning efforts, it is true) about the books their own children are assigned in school. The history of parental meddling in school curricula is not a good one (think Kansas if you're in any doubt), but one can understand their concerns, and schools are a place where parents are expected to at least have some input. I think it is reasonable to regard these issues as distinct in kind from "book burning" as we - and the ALA - sometimes stereotype it.
Also, as I mentioned, this process is one that has seen participation by liberal and conservative parents. As such, it may offer a valuable starting-point for understanding the banning impulse in a simple form.
Assuming that at least some of these parents (and I'm not using the terms "liberal" or "conservative" here) are people who would in general not be inclined to ban books or discourage reading, why would they interfere with school reading lists particularly? Are the motivations of liberal and conservative parents in this respect the same? Are the solutions they seek (alternate readings, removal from reading lists, removal from school libraries, banning outright) the same?
As above, superficially plausible answers suggest themselves: The objections to Huck Finn center on the idea that kids need to read that one book, suffused as it is with the racism of almost 200 years ago and its pervasively offensive language - it is not an objection to an idea in the book in general ("racism" being too broad to be an idea), and it is not a suggestion that the book be banned entirely; the objections to, say, Harry Potter often take the form of a demand that the book be removed from school libraries or placed on a restricted list. So perhaps there is a distinction there. What motivates it? Or is that characterization false - are parents from across the political spectrum more alike each other in their reactions to schoolbooks than to other books? What both reactions have in common is that parents demand that school districts not provide ("expose" is the usual word - like books are a disease) their children with material the parents object to but cannot monitor while the kids are in the schoolroom. Parental control is a unifying theme, I suspect, for liberal and conservative parents reviewing their children's school assignments.
Does that theme extend to their reactions to books outside the classroom? (I think it obviously does not, but, again, it's a question worth pursuing.) Why or why not?
Discuss.
Posted by: Kevin T. Keith | June 03, 2005 at 08:22 PM
Excellent comment, Kevin--one worthy of its own post, I think, were it not already 100% on-topic.
My theory on why social conservatives typically invest a lot more effort in trying to restrict what information other people have access to ties into some comments I made on another thread today. In part:
The consistent tendency of society (particularly American society) over the last several hundred years has been towards inexorable social liberalism, as obsolete prejudices are rejected and new knowledge continues to render existing ones socially unacceptable.
I believe that (generally speaking) social liberalism is not only right, but more moral and reasonable than social conservatism. Of course, I would believe that, given that I'm socially liberal. I believe that most socially conservative attitudes are based on bigotry, ignorance, fear of the Other, superstition, irrational sexual taboos, or some combination of the above, and that the antidote to social conservatism is information. People who have more accurate information are able to make smarter, more informed decisions based on facts and a clearer understanding of the way the world works. Let the children find the Bible in their school library, along with the Quran, Heather Has Two Mommies, or And The Band Played On. Let them make up their own minds, and if the prospect of them doing that scares you, perhaps you should be doing more to encourage them to come to you with questions about what they read.
Social conservatives generally try to restrict access to information that contradicts their belief systems, because they know from long experience that you cannot regurgitate the Fruit of Knowledge: once someone has been exposed to, for instance, the facts about the age of the Earth, or examples of loving homosexual families, that they cannot take that knowledge away from that person, and it decreases their ability to control what that person believes.
No doubt some will take offense to this characterization. If you do, ask yourself whether or not the shoe fits: do you hold socially conservative views, but still believe that other people should have the opportunity to be exposed to opposing views so that they can evaluate the facts for themselves and make their own decision? Splendid--let's have a drink and talk shop. But if you think that children shouldn't be allowed to read about happy gay families because it might give them the "wrong" idea, or if you so fear your child's ability to think for themselves that you're willing to control what everyone else's children can read just to protect your own--then yes, I'm talking about you. And you should be offended. Not to mention ashamed.
Posted by: Catsy | June 03, 2005 at 09:15 PM
I agree with Catsy that Frank's post is worthy of being a discussion starter in its own right.
I am a publ;ic school taecher and on the firing line of the book banning wwar. (BY the way, the minute I admit that I am a teacher I get paranoid that people are going to criticize my spelling, punctuation, tec. so I will pre-empt that with this disclosure; I am also legally blind in one eye and have very poor vision in the otherr one. I read get by by using context skills and a sort of global scanning technique. I can't see my typos.)
Anyway, to get to my point, I think that teachers should show respect for the social mores of the families we serve unless those mores violate the basic prinicples of our society. The real fight should be for ideas, not swear words and sex scenes.
Books, for the most part, are targeted for banning because of word choice or sex scenes, not ideas. With the hundreds of good books on serious themes available for childrenn annd young adults, I can't see why a taecher would be justified in choosing one that used bad language or sex scenes offensive to parents. In my opinnionn, it is bad manners annd disrespectful of parents to choose literature that contians words and scenes that will offend them.
Note that I am not defendinng people who attack liberaries or who make silly interpetations like the accusation taht SpongBob is gay. I am focusing narrowly on the issue of books choosen for classroom use. In that context I think that teachers should pick books which provide a vehicle for discussing important ideas, but refrain form using books that piss off people unnecessarily.
Textbooks are in an different catagory. We have to fight to defend academic freedom and the inntegrity of science.
Posted by: lily | June 03, 2005 at 11:48 PM
BY the way, the minute I admit that I am a teacher I get paranoid that people are going to criticize my spelling, punctuation, tec.
What is tec.? ;^} I'm being mean, but really I'm just pretending that I'm Gary. (So now I've been mean to both of you!)
Now, that said, I agree. On the old discussionI revealed that my wife is a school librarian, and I think in general that they do a good job of selecting material that is appropriate for the kids. Sexual politics, one way or another, have no business in a K-8 school. Neither do overly violent materials.
Now people that want EVERYTHING available to children in school should have to accept tobacco advertising, unlimited pop machines, MacDonalds food service instead of vegetable dishes, etc. There are quite a few both liberal and conservative parents who are concerned about these matters and they are entitled to air their opinions. I personally am not ashamed to be against including "Naked Lunch" in the school library, although I don't particularly care if it is in the public library. But the school staff should have the final say, especially if they demonstrate a modicum of common sense.
I also agree that social conservatives are much more likely to want censorship. My sister is a public librarian in a very conservative area, and she has a problem with mysterious people taking magic markers and marking out the bad words in books! My thought is that instead of just a children's section and adult section of the library, perhaps there should be separate childrens, adults, and adults-who-are-easily-offended sections.
Posted by: DaveC | June 04, 2005 at 02:50 AM
I go back to the point that this is mostly about school books, not outright banning across society. The public schools are a socialistic institution, and a lot of conservatives have a problem with that. To the extent that teachers have power outside the classroom, they exercise it through their union, and a lot of conservatives have a problem with unions. There are parents of all political persuasions that have a genuine concern about their kids' school exxperience, but I think there is also a conservative political agenda to trash the reputation of the public schools. But the primary motive seems to me to be about exerting power, not directly censoring ideas.
Posted by: Amos Newcombe | June 04, 2005 at 01:34 PM
DaveC--instead of just a children's section and adult section of the library, perhaps there should be separate childrens, adults, and adults-who-are-easily-offended sections.
That would work if everyone were being tolerant. I suspect, though, that some crusading soul would take it upon themselves to frequent the (now de facto) 'adult-offensive' section of the library with the idea that it is now much easier to find offensive books for censoring. (This, by the way, is better than the preferred method of censorship in my home town which was to simply steal the book from the library.) The proportional response to which would be to take the words stricken from the offensive books and inscribe them (somewhat in context) in the inoffensive books.
Which, it seems to me, recreates in microcosm the current partisan political climate in D.C. pretty accurately.
Posted by: nous_athanatos | June 04, 2005 at 02:05 PM
To nous's point:
Don Juan, Canto 1.
44.
Juan was taught from out the best edition,
Expurgated by learned men, who place
Judiciously from out the schoolboy's vision
The grosser parts, but fearful to deface
Too much their modest bard by this omission
And pitying sore his mutilated case,
They only add them all in an appendix,
Which saves in fact the trouble of an index.
45.
For there we have them all at one fell swoop,
Instead of being scattered through the pages.
They stand forth mashalled in a handsome troop
To meet the ingenuous youth of future ages,
Till some less rigid editor shall stoop
To call them back into their separate cages,
Instead of standing staring altogether
Like garden gods--and not so decent either.
Posted by: Jackmormon | June 04, 2005 at 03:33 PM
All,
Earlier I mentioned some books that help explain the conservative trend in America over the last generation or so (2 June 5:16 pm). After reading some of the recent comments about school curriculum and text book choice, I thought I might add "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" by James Loewen. One may not agree with the arguments by the author about historical events and their context (I think he hits the nail on the head most of the time), but it is a great read for understanding the function of textbooks, how they get written, publishing and vetting issues, tec.*
*Thanks for the laugh, DaveC.
Posted by: otto | June 04, 2005 at 04:43 PM
Posted by: Gary Farber | June 04, 2005 at 10:06 PM
"tec" on a blackbord
Caught you there! Unless you were baiting me like I was you by spelling the word "fourword" on another thread. From what I can tell, you really are/were a good editor. It gives me a little thrill whenever you catch me doing something.
Posted by: DaveC | June 04, 2005 at 10:34 PM
I see Jackmormon's taking over my function here of citing verse in comments (and from a poet I just damned with faint praise over at Rilkeblog!). Just as well, since my wife and I are off into the wilds soon.
Have fun but keep it civil, everybody, so the Kitten doesn't have to kill you.
Posted by: rilkefan | June 04, 2005 at 10:35 PM
"From what I can tell, you really are/were a good editor. It gives me a little thrill whenever you catch me doing something."
Thanks for the implied wishes and thought. Being a good copyeditor, and a good line editor, and a good acquiring editor (in whatever market) are actually three quite separate things as they are practiced in general. In all honesty, while I can do the first decently (with adequate refererences at hand), and have done an adequate copyedit job on many manuscripts, I'm probably better at the latter two. (It does make sense that, in fact, modern publishing practice puts the copyedit job in the separate hands of a specific, per manuscript, copyeditor, although, of course, competence varies from wonderful to not so much.)
I did read the "fourword" as obvious bait, and thus declined to put the hook in my mouth, though. ;-)
(And I noticed the "blackbord" typo as soon as I posted, but figured I should let someone else have fun picking on me; I've never claimed to be typo-free -- although if you pay me....)
Posted by: Gary Farber | June 04, 2005 at 10:57 PM
Oh, damn, forgot to include: happy honeymoon, rilkefan and rilkefanfan!
Posted by: Gary Farber | June 04, 2005 at 10:58 PM
rilkefan -- happy honeymoon, and give my best to the rilkebride!
Posted by: hilzoy | June 04, 2005 at 11:15 PM
jackmormon--
Byron and Shelley and Keats
Were a trio of Lyrical treats.
The forehead of Shelley was cluttered with curls,
And Keats never was a descendant of earls,
And Byron walked out with a number of girls,
But it didn't impair the poetical feats
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley and Keats.
Although for pure macabre glee, nothing beats Dorothy Parker's other poem about a poet, "Dante Gabriel Rossetti."
Posted by: nous_athanatos | June 04, 2005 at 11:50 PM
lily wrote:
I am also legally blind in one eye and have very poor vision in the otherr one. I read get by by using context skills and a sort of global scanning technique. I can't see my typos.
Gary replied
I'll pretend to be myself and ask who is correcting the spelling and punctuation of Lily's students? I'd also wonder what her students do when she writes something like "tec" on a blackbord, test, or paper. (I don't intend this to be "mean"; I'm wondering how it works; I assume she has assistants editing what she writes in all cases, or somesuch.)
I'd pretend to be Gary, but I'd be unable to type out of embarrassment. I hope that Rilkefan didn't notice it because he has Galapagos on his mind rather than just becoming inured to the whole shtick.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | June 05, 2005 at 12:37 AM
"I'd pretend to be Gary, but I'd be unable to type out of embarrassment."
I'll pretend to be myself again, and say that I was very irritated when I wrote the previous, and that I'm therefore sorry for being less polite than I might have been. My apologies to Lily and all. (I'm wrestling down the urge to say further; murphlefm!.)
Posted by: Gary Farber | June 05, 2005 at 12:55 AM
Gary, I think you misspelled "mxyzptlk". Gary, you there?
Oh wait, that's supposed to only work backwards. Shoot, never mind.
Posted by: rilkefan | June 05, 2005 at 01:10 AM
It only works for Bat-Mite!
Posted by: Gary Farber | June 05, 2005 at 01:51 AM
"Oh wait, that's supposed to only work backwards."
Occasionally I actually wonder if I'm perceived as, you know, evil, rather than merely from another dimension, by the way. I tend to think that that would be bad. (It's almost as if I have, like, feelings.)
Posted by: Gary Farber | June 05, 2005 at 02:05 AM
Not evil. (At least, not by me.) Possibly from another dimension, where people are frighteningly well-informed, and don't make typos ;)
Posted by: hilzoy | June 05, 2005 at 02:20 AM
And you are, of course, welcome to speculate about the nature of my own home galaxy.
Posted by: hilzoy | June 05, 2005 at 02:24 AM
I'd certainly like to see the "evil Gary Farber" versus "born-again Gerard Vanderleun" celebrity editor death-match!
sorry, DIDNT INCLUDE ENOUGH EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!!
(i still am pissed that i didn't receive the "most popular and glamourous thread commenter" award, even though i practically begged for it, so i think that people perceive me as evil, too. and for chrissakes, i agreed w/ Jes, do i have to friggin agree with everybody on that other whole darn thread as well? and what am i going to do with this tiara if i fail this time? i think gary is behind all this.)
Posted by: DaveC | June 05, 2005 at 02:48 AM
Wasn't Mr. Metc. mostly impish and at worst obstreperous?
Btw, hilzoy, will do, esp. since her folks know your folks, which I guess makes you and me first acquaintance-cousins-in-law or something.
Posted by: rilkefan | June 05, 2005 at 02:49 AM
DaveC: i still am pissed that i didn't receive the "most popular and glamourous thread commenter" award, even though i practically begged for it, so i think that people perceive me as evil, too
I've never received the "most popular and glamourous thread commenter" award either. Dammit.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | June 05, 2005 at 05:59 AM
rilkefan -- really?? cool. I'm honored to welcome you into the acquaintance-extended-family-analog.
Posted by: hilzoy | June 05, 2005 at 10:41 AM
Btw, hilzoy, will do, esp. since her folks know your folks, which I guess makes you and me first acquaintance-cousins-in-law or something.
Time for another rousing rendition of It's A Small World After All! Everyone sing along! First verse is same as the ten thousandth, so what are you all waiting for?!
Posted by: Anarch | June 05, 2005 at 12:30 PM
Well you know that this is a very weird topic, but people being afraid of books is rare but not out of reason. They might be afraid because they might be a lot in religion and the chuch doesn't allow them to or maybe they have a book phobia, but to make society better we have to accept them and help them in any way. Because a da without reading is like a day without sunshine.
Posted by: FHK | November 19, 2006 at 09:07 PM