Monday Musing 12/5/22-Book bans

There has been a marked increase in book bans across America recently. One group doesn’t like a book, feels their child should not exposed to it.

Simple solution- Don’t buy your kid that book.

Oh, but what if they get access to it at a library or a school?

What if they get access to it at a friend’s house or a book store?

Do you think that dealers in forbidden knowledge are just standing on a street corner, their trench coat full of things that YOU don’t think your kids should have access to?

Fine.

Don’t buy them the book.

I’m not sure if they told you that you cannot control everything. Information is like water, it finds its way out.

And although YOU don’t want YOUR kids to read a certain book, maybe others do not care if their kid has access to a certain book. Whatever sins you think the book has done.

But what if my kid learns to do X, when I don’t believe in it.

Okay.

You do realize that the kid is not a perfect carbon copy of you. And has thoughts and feelings about what they would like to read.

No?

Okay then.

Knowledge is, of itself, dangerous. And free knowledge even more so.

Have you heard that libraries are free? Anyone can go in and pick up a book, take it home. No questions asked. The only limits is how many books you can check out.

Of course they want you to return the book.

That means the next person can read it.

And so on.

Of course there are books being banned. And pearl clutching.

Think of little Timmy.

Those of us not in the book banning business are thinking of little Timmy. And of broadening his worldview so that when he encounters something unfamiliar to him his first instinct is to wonder what the new thing is, not to kill the new thing.

Ah, I get it.

Information is freedom.

And you would rather their mind not be free? To not question?

The mass banning of books only serves to make the information exciting and exceptional. Not all information is exciting and exception. Until you ban the knowledge.

You are not protecting others, you are forcing them into the little box that you grew up in. That you still reside in, judging others about how big their boxes are.

I can hear the complaining now. “Well, if you had kids you would understand.”

No, I don’t have kids. But I was a kid. Books were never banned in my house. Ever. I could read whatever I want. And I wanted. If something made me confused, I would ask an adult to explain. Or I’d read another book to explain what I just read.

Ah.

And of course hoarding of information is power.

Boy, do I have bad news for you.