By G.C. Stoppel
On a Saturday morning two somewhat related messages came across my computer.
The first was from owners of Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris reminding me there would be a reading of James Joyce’s novel “Ulysses” in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of its release. When Joyce asked store founder Sylvia Beach if she would publish it, she swallowed hard and agreed.
The manuscript was a mess, so Beach hired several young American women typists to get it in shape and make revisions. Then she finally published it. It was a time and money-consuming proposition.
To make matters worse, the book was immediately banned in the United States. Beach and her friends soon became master smugglers.
“Ulysses” is still a challenge to read, but devoted fans still get together for a reading each June 16, known to them as Bloomsday. This year Shakespeare and Company will hold occasional celebrity readings from now until then.
The lead-off reader will be Margaret Atwood, whose “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a particular favorite of those wanting a return to book burning. Other noteworthy authors, who have also dealt with censors, follow.
The second message was about the newest generation of banned books. The official Banned Books Week is not until September but moving into the third year the pandemic and all the restrictions and cold weather, this is a true winter of our discontent.
Some people are excising their vitriol by demanding any book they don’t like be banned. It’s a growing trend. In 2020, more than 270 books were banned by one group or another; Since September 2021, already 230 have faced the wrath of objectors.
More specifically, the battle of wills is over history, race and human sexuality.
Ever since The New York Times published its 1619 Project a few years ago, there has been a furious debate as to how history should be studied and taught. The authors of this extensive article were basically saying “You left out and over-simplified the African and African-American experience from the beginning until now. Their history can no longer be casually dismissed and excluded.”
This in turn led Critical Race Theory now at the heart of our national debate. Some want CRT included in standard curriculums, others don’t. In turn, there are charges of censorship on both sides and the debate has been divisive.
We are all our own censors because we each choose our interests. Sometimes we narrow those down.
It’s similar to youngsters who start collecting stamps, maybe beginning by gathering every chit of colored paper from around the world.
If they stay with the hobby, they begin to narrow it down from the world to a particular country or topic. Some collectors continue to narrow down their interest until they land on a very small specialty.
For example, they might start choosing Canada, then whittle it down to Labrador and Newfoundland who had their own postage stamps until 1949.
The same thing happens when we look at the impossibly broad subject of history. In elementary school we start with world history, narrow it down to the history of this country and perhaps later to a specific state, region within it or even city.
Now a specialist in the history of pre-statehood Allegan County is acclaimed to be the go-to person, but the true genius is one who can put their specialized knowledge into the broader context of what was happening in the rest of the country. It is all the better if, like David McCullough or the late William Manchester, they can tell it as a very good story.
Even then, equally brilliant people will raise the question “Yes, but what about …?”
I was reminded of that in mid-January when I attended a meeting of the Sons of the American Revolution and the fellow doing the program spoke at length about the Stamp Act. Most of us assumed it was a repressive move to keep the colonists in line. He said the reason was more complex.
After the French and Indian Wars of the 1760s, the British built forts along the Appalachian and Alleghany mountains to create a border between the European colonists and Native Americans, and since it then it benefited Americans that the British government thought they should pay for it.
This was very different from my research while working on my doctorate in American church-state relations prior in colonial Virginia.
The work I did made it clear that the Anglican (now Episcopalian) Church did not want the colonists moving into the frontier because they did not have enough clergy to organize new parishes and maintain control. In short, I learned something new.
It reminded me that whomever controls the narrative — be it history, sexuality, race or anything else — can easily take control of the entire society. Their method has long been to oversimplify the topic and tell the story in black and white and absolutes. In time, it becomes doctrine, which is dangerous.
The one acceptable place for censorship is when it involves violence (physical or otherwise) against children, animals and those who cannot defend themselves. That sort of thing is so far beyond the pale of civilization there is no place for it.
Almost everything else, I believe, is eligible for study, debate, and discussion. The last thing we need is someone to tell us a specific subject is too dangerous and it must not be considered. Rather, they would have us follow the direction and dictates of those who claim to know what is best for us.
Behind all censorship is fear — of the unknown, not being in control, not having all the answers so we can hold absolute power over the story.
Hard on its tail comes the biggest fear of all: we might have to change our way of thinking, our words and actions.
