In Defence of the Fantastic

I would love to harness my ability to do all my best thinking in the shower and find a way to sue my powers for good. Until that time comes, I shall have to content myself with remembering some of the nifty things.

One of the big reasons books get challenged in libraries, bookstores and anywhere else people feel that their views are better than someone else's and therefore must be imposed upon us, will we or nil we, is that is fantasy is, well, fantasy. That is, not real and therefore likely to corrupt young impressionable minds to believe in things that can't be (or perhaps, shouldn't be) and lead them into doing evil things like asking that most dangerous of all questions: "Why not?"

Every science fiction writer who has ever written, has written about something that was proved to be scientifically impossible at the time she wrote or five minutes or fifty years later. However, a substantial portion of the time, that which was impossible was positioned at some slight angle to the possible. Isaac Asimov's world, galaxy and eventually universe spanning computer, whose name changes as its size does, but ends with with VAC, standing for the vacuum tubes which run it has been overrun by vanishingly small computers that can be held in the palm of a small child's hand. And yet, they span the world and reach as far beyond as we can (the story in which this computer appears, "The Last Question" may well have been challenged many times, and would certainly would be if "they" knew about it, if for no othe reason than the four words with which it ends).

Digressions aside, the example is sound. Science fiction is fiction, but it is based in some idea of science, some question of "what if" and leads to the question of "why not"? When the answer is that it is outside the laws of physics, for those with the right inclinations, one of two things happens. One is that the laws of physics are examined to find a way in which it might be possible, and often they are rewritten by new knowledge of the possibly infinite universe we are pivleged to be part. The other is that a different way to do the same thing is found. Or at least the first steps on the road forward are made.

Many of the what ifs and why nots will take decades or even centuries to master and to manage. This only really matters to those of who thought we might one day live on the moon and are resigned to lives walking on and trying to secure the future of this single earth. In the long run it only matters that we continue moving forward.

The fantastic, the unreal, the maybes, are, in my opinion, the challenges, not the things that should be challenged. Anything that keeps us as a human race, wondering, hoping and looking forward, is a good thing, nor does it deny all the other mysterious, fantastic and wondrous things which might be out there or in here.

Library Book Safety

I wasn't sure I was going to continue this once class got out and I suppose it doesn't matter, as I don't think anyone outside the course read it anyway, but I keep catching flashes on the news of testing libraries books. I think I've seen reports on both lead content (I know I've seen reports on lead) and germ content. Part of me wonders if this is an IF issue. Not directly, but it seems to me it could be a really insidious way of getting things off the shelves that certain factors -- and I'm not trying to single any one group out, as I've discovered, being for intellectual freedom is more than just being for the freedom to read what I think is good to read, its for I'd want to hide from my children if I had any -- don't feel should be in any given library. If all else fails, test it for lead or some other harmful particulate.

Another way this issue interests me is in the costs and cuts libraries are facing. The price of books goes up every year (month, week, day) and I'm sure publishers are just as interested as everyone else in cutting costs, which sadly, today seems to involve outsourcing the manufacturing to a county where wages and safety checks are lower. How will having to adhere to higher safety standards -- which I'm all for, who among us hasn't licked a finger to turn a page? Do we ever think about where the book was before us or does the fact that it's in our hands make it safe? And don't even get me started about small children and putting things in their mouths -- impact book costs, libraries and publishers? I'd really like to see some argument for stopping outsourcing and increasing production in this country as cost-effective once you get past all the environmental costs of shipping, the import fees, the testing fees and how it would benefit the economy, but this isn't the place for it and someone would probably tell me I'm wrong anyway.

Censorship Will Always Be With US

In this final week of the quarter, I have come to the conclusion that there is no way to get away from censorship, or at least attempts at it. And this is not due to ill-will on anyone's part. Would-be censors and other trammlers upon intellectual freedom are trying to protect us, and our children, from ourselves.

It is hard to conclude that attempts to remove reading material from libraries falls essentially under the same category as me trying to keep the dog from licking open the spot where she jabbed herself with a branch. I know she shouldn't do it because it will ultimately keep the wound from healing. Her brain tells her it itches.

What brought me to this conclusion about censors was looking at some of the history of censorship. Books by Mark Twain, Harper Lee and others have been protested in the past, because they essentially stated that blacks were people too. Now they are being challenged because of unflattering views on blacks. The same happens to books in the Little House on the Prairie Series (you heard me) because of the way the First Nations are depicted. I have to agree that there are unflattering portrayals, but not only is that the way people used to think, it is the way some still do and that is something we need to be aware of. If we try to clean up all objectionable references to everyone everywhere ever, we will have no unexpurgated reading material, along with a lot of people who're shocked senseless by the real world when they walk out of the library.

I know I've discussed this before, and if I keep up with this blog once the course is over, will probably come back to it again. This is because it matters to me. But I've never tried to look at it from the view of the censor. This is something that should be done as well, and is probably the best way to combat it.

What made me really aware of the challenger's perspective was looking at the regulations of Canada, where hate speech is banned. Overall, I like that idea. But it does cause problems when importing books which may appear to have hate speech in their pages. This is done at the discretion of the custom's agent and may never be known to the public, which leads to secret censorship as well. Keeping hate speech down is admirable, but protecting us from the knowledge that hate exists is not the same as making hate go away.

So, I guess the real trick is, convincing the challengers that they aren't protecting us from the evils of the world, but only giving them dark, quiet places to thrive.

Engagement

It has been suggested that I use this forum to discuss the deterioration of the English language, particularly in newscasts. Over useage of such useages as "at the end of the day," and "moving forward," seem to be driving certain aspects of the population a little nuts. While I tend to agree and would love to go off on a rant about the above, as well as other butchery I hear on a daily basis -- nothing has "less" carbs, calories or xylophones than anything else, although it may have FEWER -- or that have sent me up a wall for years -- there is no such word as "snuck." The past tense of sneak to "sneaked" or "to sneak" -- I am ambivalent about where that stands in regard to intellectual freedom. Particularly in libraries. Does not everyone have the right to butcher the English language as they will, outside of English classes, college papers and resumes? What if we started trying to ban books because they people in them didn't talk pretty? So, that is not I will be discussing.

Something that came up recently in class has taken me back to other arguments I've but forward. A punk rocker who supports the use of valium and has his own sexually suggestive lyrics has been up in arms since August against the Multnomah County Library in OR because his son was able to check out out a graphic novel with, well, graphic images. The way this has been portrayed by the father and the media is that this comic was in the "adult" section of the library (read, big flashing neon XXX sign over that section rather than the section with books about the economy and nuclear holocaust). The Library, as everyone should know, does not act as a parent. Kids can check out any books, anything else is censorship.

What needs to happen, in my not so humble opinion, is that if parents care that much about what their kids read, they need to come to the library with them, or at the very least, ask what they checked out as if they're really interested, not as if they're simply looking for an excuse to forbid a book. If your kid is checking out books with graphic sexual images and this bothers you, find out why and then explain why you think this is bad. ENGAGE with the kids. I know it's difficult. A lot of kids, especially teens and (speaking of words I hate) tweens, really don't want to share with their parents. Being certain they're going to get shot down and censored without even having a chance to explain what thier interest in the subject is, is going to make them want to even less.

Kids deserve intellectual freedom too and while it is a parents' job to protect them (further, if the library starts telling kids they can't read certain things, that's going to tick a lot of parents off too) from .... things, unless the parent is involved in the kids' lives, there's no way to know what they're ready for or not or are reading about because they're trying to process some aspect of their world. Intellectual freedom isn't just about allowing anyone to read whatever they want, it's about keeping the world of knowledge open so that people can continue to think and grow and become people engaged with the world.

Define Banned

This is more a question that has arisen in my mind due to the current assignment for this class than an issue I'm grappling with, but as my group is comparing Banned Books in Canada vs those in the US and we're having very little luck finding banned books in Canada. Challenged yes, banned, not so much. It crossed my mind to wonder how we actually defined banned. Banned where? And by whom? Does even one banning count enough to bring a book to notice? It should in my mind, but I'm just wondering.

If anyone actually reads this, what's your opinion?

How Many Does It Take To Tango?

I am constantly fascinated by the issue of homosexuality and challenged books. I grew up in a small town in Wyoming and obviously knew of the stigma attached to being gay, I was also in high school in 1986 when I and my peers first became aware of AIDS, which made male homosexuality at least that much "worse." It wasn't until the appearance of AIDS that I realized homosexuality was problematic due to it being scary. I learned this in my discussions with my male friends when I found myself explaining why gay men were more prone to getting HIV than straight men and how that same exchange process made women much more vulnerable than straight men. It was there that I began the slow process of learning that not understanding something made it threatening.

Over the course of my life I've studied History and Folklore and this has only strengthened this conclusion. That anything that is not exactly like us (for some value of us) is Other and the other is scary. When I teach, I try to bring this up. Not necessarily on the subject of homosexuality (although if I can bring up the Golden Band of Thebes I do) but on the subject of the Other in general and how that has coloured our history and most of the wars and conquest. James Tiptree Jr. had a wonderful line in one of her stories which stated that the whole history of humanity has been to "find the other, f--k it, or die trying." Which I have followed up in my own thoughts with the idea that once we've had sex with the other, they often give birth to "us" making them us. Ultimately making everyone like everybody else.

It's getting harder and harder to object to people due to Other skin colour, race and religion, at least to do so out in the open. For whatever reason, in the realm of who one loves and who one sleeps with is still grounds for fear and therefore rejection.

This is why we feel it's ok to say that allowing people who love each other and are in committed relationships to get married with threaten the institution (this arguement always makes me want to declare that no celebrity should ever be allowed to get married because thier divorce rates are high and thier divorces are public and glamorized, but that would be a violation of thier civil rights). And, to keep this on the topic of intellectual freedom, it allows parents and religious activists to protest a book called Tango Makes Three about two male penguins raising an egg. This is a true story. I haven't investigated it sufficiently to find out if the penguins are having sex or not, but the people protesting it obviously assume they are or that children will assume they are. They don't take into consideration that male penguins are the ones who take care of the eggs in nature (or maybe they do and don't want their kids to know about that either because it might threaten "traditional" family roles, but that's just me being snarky). This is not a book about homosexuality. But it is fear of homosexuality, fear of what we percieve of as the other which makes it a threat.

It is also my personal suspicion that, given the general age group of its readers, that not a one of them is going to consider sex unless their parents bring it up. But then, I'm sheltered, I could be wrong.

God and the FBI

The Intellectual Freedom has been remarkably silent toward me this week. Probably too many other things in my tiny little brain. Or perhaps I've been trying to find a topic other than the one which keeps drifting to the fore when listening to lectures and reading readings and other students' blogs. It is going to be difficult to say what I'm thinking without offending, but I might as well try. Although, coherence may be a greater problem than offense.

It starts with looking at one of texts, by James LaRue, where he talks about the various generations and how they look at censorship/protecting children from information. We of the baby boomer generation are tending toward being helicopter parents, who somehow expect children to spring fully formed from the protective cocoon of our skulls, fully armoured and prepared to deal with everything the world brings.

And then my thoughts drift to "discussions" I have with certain of my friends over the role of God in America. Most of these people tend to feel that a lot of organizations, including libraries, are trying to take God out of people's daily lives. Which inevitably leaves me to point out that "In God We Trust" didn't appear on the dollar until the 1950s...

Which, unless I'm wrong, was about the time the FBI came into being. And a week doesn't go past in this course, where we don't have at least one mention of the FBI or other authority figures trying to circumvent the ALA's intellectual freedom polices for reasons of greater or lesser validity. With differing degrees of sucess.

Leading me to the thought that this all seems to tie together, as by far, the largest groups trying to censor books in libraries identify themselves as Christian, and have religious belief and arguments behind thier desire to limit what we can read.

All of which gets me to the question of whether we are, as a culture, as "liberal" and culturally aware (of ourselves as well as the Other) as we think. Or, is the urge for censorship even greater now than it once was? Too much information perhaps?

Brave, With Help

In an earlier post, I noted my interest in a book which I was uncertain about seeking out. I did not get around to hunting down the title, but my hope is that this is more due to having a brain like... one of those things with holes for straining water through.. a sieve! (apologies to the late, great Douglas Adams) than lack of courage. Fortunately for me, a redoubtable colleague found the title for me.

I promptly ordered Sayyid Qutb's In the Shade of the Qur'an and am about 100 pages in. As frequently happens in cases like this, it is a slippery slope. It is definitely a pro-Islam tract, as one would expect, but almost nothing in it speaks to me of the appalling treatment of women by the Taliban (just as nothing in the Qur'an does) or a justification for requiring farmers to grow drug crops rather than food in order to finance people blowing other people up, or other acts of extremism. In other words, while there are aspects of the book I disagree with philosophically and others I don't get due to cultural differences, I don't find it (so far at least) to be that extreme.

This is where the slippery slope comes in. The foreward noted that the author was a martyr to his cause, but seems to assume the reader knows all about him already. I don't. Therefore, this text makes me want to learn more about his history and to re-read the Qur'an besides in order to place his words in context and see if I can see the incitement to violence, the presupposed inherent danger of this work. So far no men in dark glasses and suits have come to the door to search for seditionist materials, scare my cat and comment on how long it's been since I've dusted anything, so I will probably put him on my list of people to learn more about. If I really want to get myself in trouble, I should order a book about Sayyid at the same time as something on Aryan (read pre-Hindu India) history.

Or maybe nobody's paying that much attention to me at all.

If You Don't Say It, It Isn't Real

Following up on last week's posts and some other discussions that have been going on in class, I've started thinking about Folk Belief and Folk Magic in relation to attempts to censor books and subject matter. Not books on magic or belief, at least not specifically. And, oddly enough, books on folk magic (as long as they aren't labelled "witchcraft") don't seem to face anywhere near the challenges in libraries that things like Harry Potter do. My understanding of this is that people believe something that's labelled "folk" is old, antiquated and so obviously foolish that there's little chance of our children believing it and trying to follow it today.

The irony of this is that in trying to censor many of the works about sex, homosexuality, the culture and/or belief systems of people "who are not like us," a type of folk magic is being practised by those who would swear they do no such thing. This is the same magic that makes us squirm under compliments and denigrate our abilities when someone else praises them, and whisper "cancer" or "aids" when we're talking about someone who is terminally ill. It's even the magic that leads to putting people into sterile hospital rooms and pretending they aren't dying when everyone, except possibly them, knows they are, but that's a discussion for another venue entirely.

A long-standing belief has been that if something isn't said out loud, it isn't real. This comes from not wanting the devil or fairies or whatever other evil tormented a community to hear something and make it bad or worse or real. The same thing goes when trying to take books from libraries that have content which frightens or offends us. If we are silent, the evil will not crawl out of the dark and make our children think about sex, or abusing their children or being gay or racist or, or, or....

The sad fact of the matter is that while being proud of a new dress would not cause a fairy to put briars in your path, being too caught up in it might cause you to fail to notice an oncoming mud puddle that might have been easily side-stepped. The same goes for media with "objectionable content." Hopefully, the vast majority of us know that denigrating someone due to their skin colour or ancestry is wrong, but censoring materials where just this type of thing happens, and, depending on the historicity of the work, was perfectly acceptable, will not magically make racism go away. Pretending disease didn't exist failed to stop the Plague, pretending sex outside of marriage never happens won't prevent teenage hormones from rushing through the bloodstream, or protect someone from the potential consequences. Ignorance may be bliss, but it doesn't change the fundamental facts of the world. There must be understanding and communication, not an attempt to magic away anything we're uncomfortable with.

Sex and Violence in Libraries

One of my colleagues recently posted in her blog a discussion of certain issues regarding sex in teen novels in libraries -- http://lisfreedom.wordpress.com/ -- which has raised quite a lot of hullaballoo. This interests me, not because it's so surprising but because some things never change. At least in my opinion.

Historically, I don't know how long we, as a species, have seemed to feel that if certain portions of our communities and cultures are protected from even the idea of sex, that it will make the world a better place for all of us. I have a degree in History and have taught some courses and could make a few guesses, but don't want to get into that argument here. This seems to me to be a non-starter. Sex is one of the imperatives for keeping the species going, which means certain urges will exist regardless. I'm not, nor do I believe any librarians out there are, saying that how-to manuals are a must-have for every teen library section, but the simple experience as humans has taught us again and again that being ignorant of any subject has never been particularly efficacious in dealing with it. Not to mention, that time has also proved that the best way to make something really interesting is to make it forbidden. And that not even tachyons move faster than rumour. So, if a teen or tween finds out that there's an effort to keep any given book out of a library because it has sex in it, a minute later, everyone in that age group will be trying to get their hands on a copy.

Nor can I think about this subject without considering another. I remember being very young and in the car with my parents at a drive-in movie and two previews came on, one for an R-Rated movie and another for a PG. My parents, a clinical psychologist and a social worker, both of whom have dealt as a matter of course during their careers with abused (all forms) children, commented how hypocritical it was that the movie where people were having sex was R and the one where they were hacking off each other's limbs was PG. While it was a given that I was too young to see either one, they both agreed that they'd rather I see people having sex than killing each other.

I am not advocating pulling books out of libraries due to violence any more than I am for sex (or for virtually any other reason), but there does seem to me to be a double-standard. When I was ten or or so and checking out everything I could find in our local library on King Arthur and the Crusades and the Age of Charlemange, the only comment I ever got was on reading such advanced books. I suspect had I tried to check out something with an equivalent level of sex to the violence in those stories, someone might have tried to discourage me or called my parents or something. I find the double-standard fascinating, and am grateful that a small-town library didn't try to curtail my reading from the adult section when I felt I was old enough.

My personal belief is that understanding is always better than ignorance, and that parents should engage with what their children are reading and watching, but that engaging is not necessarily the same as forbidding, and it is certainly different from trying to prevent someone else's children, simply due to the belief that it is bad for yours.

This week's class lecture is on policies and this, combined with the recent inauguration has led me to an issue which wanders through my mind from time to time. It is not strictly library related, but certainly relates to intellectual freedom in it's broadest sense, and my own fears and thoughts around the same.
Some months back, I came in in the middle of a program on the History Channel dealing with terrorism. I was very interested in the part about the man who wrote the book which has been credited with inspiring Osama Bin-Laden. This particularly struck me, as the author was "inspired" while attending the University of Northern Colorado, where my father did some graduate work, I attended several summer programs and another good friend went to school. The book would have appealed to my sense of curiosity regardless, but the personal note made it extra interesting -- Was there something specific about the small town of Greeley, CO that exemplified the "wrongness" of American culture to this man?
Unfortunately, I didn't hear the name of the book or the author. And this is where the issue ties into intellectual freedom in my mind. I have, thus far, been too cowardly to instigate the kind of search necessary to track down this book. I'm not worried about librarians looking at me askance, but rather, the FBI knocking at my door. An additional area that intrigues me is that my sister and her significant other saw the program, but have the same problem with recall of the title. He is a naturalized US citizen, but was not born in this country, which provides him with an additional degree of worry in trying to hunt this book down.
With potential changes to the Patriot Act in the air, I may decide to be brave enough to try and find this book. Or, since I'm taking this class on Intellectual Freedom, maybe I should put my money where my mouth is, and try to find it anyway.

Intellectual Freedom Post 1

This blog has been created, along with many others, as part of a course on intellectual freedom in libraries. To support intellectual freedom, we must needs offer up our own expressions, freely, but with the awareness of the impact our words may have on others and a willingness to respect their opinions.
I've never worked in a library, but was employed for over two years at MUNFLA (the Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive) where similar considerations are relevant. Housed as it is, within the confines of a Canadian university, and established for a specific purpose, the exact tenants of intellectual freedom that we see as vital in American libraries were not applied, but the study and collection of Folklore has long grappled with freedom of speech and thought. For example, the primary consideration behind accepting a personal donation into the collection, was how much value it had to the person donating it.
Which I think is crucial to intellectual freedom: that of the value placed on any given document (either positive or negative) by any given group. As has been noted elsewhere, the definition of what should be allowed under intellectual freedom is not a static concept. It has changed in the past and will change in the future and probably will never make everyone happy, but allowing for evolution and accepting challenges as part of the growth of our culture helps to make us what we are.