What Books Are On Your "Ban" List?
On Dr. Seuss and Censorship
I’ve been captivated by the latest story about the self-imposed “cancellation” of six Dr. Seuss books.
In his column today, Ross Douthat writes, “As a Catholic I have a certain nostalgia for the Index of Forbidden Books. But it’s seriously strange logic coming from liberal writers and liberal publications.”
Douthat’s observation got me thinking that most of us are far less absolutist about free speech than we think, especially in our personal lives. We may, in theory, embrace a maximalist view of tolerance in public, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have strong views on what should be censored in our own local communities. How many parents let their kids read and watch anything? How many of us don’t purposefully keep at a distance from things we find toxic? Thus, I wrote:
Should Dr. Seuss books be removed from eBay while Mein Kampf remains? This is certainly a fair question, but perhaps less meaningful than the personal question of what we choose to ban in our own lives and why. Over-focus on the right to free speech neglects the harder question of what we judge to be worthy of reading and saying, as I’ve written about here.
While protecting the rights of others to read whatever they want, we should not neglect the question of asking ourselves what makes for a good and noble reading list and what does not.
What sorts of books might you softly ban from your house (your school? your Temple? your local library?) and why? How many of us can say we would not ban at all?
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