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.