Censorship Display in O’Neill

There was a display on the third floor of O’Neill Library this past week. The display was part of the library’s “Banned and Challenged Books Week” and it seemed like a very well-done display. The display consisted of a few small bookshelves and bookstands with different books on them. 

The collection included titles such as Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, among many others. However, these titles weren’t immediately visible when looking at the display, because the covers of the books were all covered by a brown paper bag with a cautionary yellow label, on which was printed: “BANNED AND CHALLENGED BOOKS WEEK” followed by a quote describing why the book was banned or restricted. 

These quotes on the books ranged from lengthy justifications, such as, “NOT A BOOK. IT IS A CESSPOOL, AN OPEN SEWER, A PIT OF PUTREFACTION, A SLIMY GATHERING OF ALL THAT IS ROTTEN IN THE DEBRIS OF HUMAN DEPRAVITY,” to the more curt “FILTHY.” This display also had a stack of bookmarks which had printed on them “CELEBRATING THE FREEDOM TO READ.”

Book burning, banning, and restricting in the modern world are looked down upon. Modern people view the restriction of information as tyrannical; literacy, education, and the availability of information have exploded in recent centuries, and people view the democratization of information as a good thing. Even if someone holds an idea or opinion to be repugnant, people say things like, “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” ironically defending the very thing that they think to be harmful.

Many of the books at the O’Neill display were books that were once suppressed, but now we recognize their worth and benefit to society. Many of us, having grown up in the United States and being products of the cultural appreciation of a loose, vaguely libertarian notion of freedom, might not be inclined to think about it, but there is no small number of arguments that some books ought to be suppressed. Books that lead people into error, books that instill vice and appeal to prurient interests all cause harm to people, so should we not try to protect them from being misled? So the argument goes. Education is, after all, presumably true and beneficial to the person receiving the education. To say that books which don’t appeal to reason, but rather subvert it, are necessary and beneficial to education is contradictory in and of itself.

If we are to be authentic in our beliefs and values, we ought not hesitate to protect people from things that we discern would be harmful to them. We ought to treat information based on its merits; we ought to celebrate good works of literature, art, music, media, etc. We ought to celebrate things that promote human flourishing, improve our lives, and build our moral character and virtue. We shouldn’t put evil and good on the same playing field, and treat them as if they are the same—they aren’t. Pursue good, avoid evil.