Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Whether it is the Old Oxford Junior Dictionary dropping established words, especially with Christian or historical heritage, from its listing … The forbidding of reading The Bible or The Koran. Or a news media intentionally manipulating or omitting the facts in a war or an election campaign … Or the looming threat of a government to silence the voice of political opposition under the mask of “fairness”.

Or a school teacher ripping ‘offensive’ pages from a book the student has been assigned to read. Would those same teachers also justify taking a black marker and smudging out all the “N” words in a Mark Twain novel? How about the un-PC “offensive” parts in “Gone With The Wind”? But then what would you expect from a civilization or society who is increasingly ‘revisionist’ in its historical facts?

My problem is WHY was this book even on the reading list for school kids to read? While I do NOT believe in “book banning” or book burning (censorship) … I do believe some books should not be offered in certain libraries or environments to certain age groups in our society.

As a writer I know that I would be ‘wounded’ (and I use that word generously) were something of mine that was published to be torn apart and the entire context was kicked off kilter from the intent of the whole … if that makes sense.

The fact is, we have the free ability not to read things we believe are wrong … and spend time with those writings we more relate to. The Bible or any other religious book(s). Liberal or conservative leaning political books. Classics and modern trash.

The fact that mankind developed languages and was able to cipher alphabets to express those languages to the mind via the eye (or finger-tips if blind) is perhaps mankind’s most astounding and outstanding accomplishment … that, and mathematics of course. From this all things were derived. Reading and ciphering were such incredible and valued marvels and accomplishments at one time that only the upper class and the elites were taught. In our own history, it was punishable by death for slaves to learn to read. Today our inner city schools can’t seem to enlighten their students to the gift.

And then we come to documentation. Historical recordings. Tutorial texts. Instruction manuals. Biographies and autobiographies. Almanacs. All more than worthy and much needed in the growth of civilization.

But beyond that, for better or worse, works of fiction are most amazing to me. To put to word and paragraph whole alternate realities from inside one’s head … to paint pictures and scenes through words for the reader to watch with his mind’s eye … to convey complete fantasy to another person so successfully is nothing short of a miracle.

And then there are those books that recount the events in someone’s life. The various spectrum of what happened on September 11th, 2001 (some beyond sci-fi). A Michael Yon and his war journal. Anne Frank’s Diary. The ‘Mommy Dearest’ side of Joan Crawford. Any number of our own Presidents. Even Joe The Plumber has a book deal (much to the chagrin of a NYTimes writer who can’t write). Even Susanna Kaysen’s “Girl, Interrupted” would have some worth to those who might seek out and read it (For me, if the movie was true to the book … not-so-much).

The fact is, we live in a society that is free to write and publish most anything. While there is a responsibility to inform the person who may be exposed to the material of its content … it’s the stupidity of certain people in charge of such places as schools who stick such books on the reading lists of students who are not mature enough to process the material within. Yanking whole pages from the text not only is not the answer … it adds to the problem created when the book was allowed in the first place.

I read Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. in high school (in addition to sci-fi). Only couple Vonnegut books were permitted on my senior English Lit reading list. When I finished them I discovered (through my sneaky Vonnegut fan Uncle) there were MORE! He was just trashy and risque enough to wake and instigate a part of me that I may never have tapped. But to me the worst book I had read during high school was “Johnny Got His Gun” by Dalton Trumbo. I was tortured by the soldier’s being trapped inside his helpless world. It tore at my mind, heart and soul like no other book before it or since. In all its insanity, fear, ugliness, hopelessness and loneliness … it made me more ‘human’. Made me realize the young men fighting in Vietnam, at that time, were actual individuals … not just numbers on the evening news. It is not a book I would allow a grade school child to read … or perhaps even a middle school child. Neither are any of Vonnegut’s novels.

So, I suppose what I am getting at, in my round-about way, is tearing up or forbidding words is not an answer. Being personally responsible (or in the case of those not nearly mature enough to judge for themselves, responsible for them) for what we read or don’t read is as basic as the very alphabet the books are written from.

Freedom of speech comes with much responsibility. I am pretty certain the writer, Susanna Kaysen, did not intend her book to be read by minors. There is responsibility with the writer, as there is with the reader. What this school system did was irresponsible on several levels. As we are so fond of saying in our culture, “Two wrongs don’t make a right”.