School Board Bans Literary Masterpiece

I must admit that I have never understood why anyone would ever want to ban or burn a book -- any kind of book. The simple act of banning or burning a book shows fear -- a fear of the ideas that book contains. It also shows a lack of faith in human beings to be exposed to an idea, and either follow or reject that idea based upon its merit.

The very concept of a democracy is that the people are intelligent enough to rule themselves, if educated and made aware of all the facts. This is why the Founding Fathers added the First Amendment to the Constitution. They believed in the free flow of information and ideas, and the judgement of an educated people. And they understood that the survival of our democracy depended upon this belief.

But there are many Americans today who do not seem to have this belief in the power of education and information. And some of those people are on the School Board in Republic, Missouri (a suburb of Springfield with slightly more than 14,000 inhabitants). That school board voted 4-0 to ban two books from the district's high school library -- Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler and the literary masterpiece Slaughterhouse Five by the great American novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

And why were these books banned? It seems there were a few people in that community who believed the books "teach principles that are contrary to the Bible." I had thought our schools were created and sustained to provide a well-rounded education to students -- not to teach biblical principles. Religious principles should be taught in churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques -- not public schools. But evidently the people, and the school board, of Republic think differently. Making matters even more idiotic it seems that only one of the four school board members had read both books (and a third which had survived the banning).

It makes me wonder just where the fear of these books comes from. Are the nearly-adult children of these people so weak-minded that a book would cause them irreparable harm? I find that hard to believe. I cannot speak to the Ockler book because I am not familiar with it, but I bought my daughter a copy of Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle while she was in high school. She loved it and bought and read on her own all of his other books, including Slaughterhouse Five. They not only didn't harm her, but they opened her mind to new ways of thinking about the world. This was a good thing, and teaching any child to think for themselves is always a good thing.

Perhaps their fear of these books says something about their religion or faith. Is their faith or religion so weak that it can be defeated by the ideas contained in a book. If so, is it a religion worth following or a faith worth keeping? Is their god so weak he can be defeated by a mere book?

Books are not things to be feared -- even bad books with ridiculous ideas. Anyone who believes in the efficacy of democracy must also believe in the ability of people to recognize flawed or bad ideas and reject them. Democracy and freedom are threatened far more by the burning or banning of books than by allowing the reading of books with disagreeable ideas or content. And the banning of a recognized literary masterpiece makes no sense at all.