Can Book Banning Be Justified?
This text serves to discuss
Book banning has a long history (you can read further about this here: link) and has mostly had the purpose of sorting reading materials into categories or into so-called labels that describe the “problematic” content, such as discussing religion or politics offensively. However, the Oxford English Dictionary defines offensive content as ‘anything that may cause offence to a reader, particularly in relation to religion, race, gender, politics, sexuality, disability, or with regard to language that is considered obscene, vulgar, or taboo’, but this also creates further problems in the discussion of book banning with Benjamin Franklin describing this phenomenon:
'If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed'.
Perhaps this is where we meet a grey zone, ‘[...] anything that may cause offence [..]’, every human has their own thoughts and ideas of anything such as what is defined as offensive; reading a novel raising awareness of a sensitive subject loses its audience as it primarily desires to contain sensitive stories or situations to draw people and to make people understand the problem which is faced. Yet, this also increases the likelihood of getting banned. Does this save a certain group of people from offensive content or limit the possibility of exploring certain topics?
As with most discourses, it is difficult to answer yes or no merely. Although, especially in the Western world, a majority would agree that there is no justified ban, it is not that simple. Perhaps the banning of The Anarchist Cookbook (1971) by William Powell in Australia could be justifiable as it does contain instructions on how to manufacture, for instance, explosives, and I do believe that most people are fine with this ban as it could lead to chaos in some hands. It would be hard to imagine what would happen if anyone could have this book at home, creating explosives that could easily kill people. Then, this could be shifted the other way around: how many people would consider creating explosives? not to mention the materials required to create these, some are illegal and difficult to come by, the question, then, becomes what are the chances?
Further, you may look at a larger perspective, in which the book is banned only in one country, yet the number of explosives has not increased in those countries where it is accessible. Although there must be said that the chances of police raiding a suspect’s home for explosives probably do not search for this book but more likely look at their search history on their phones or computers; therefore, there is no data that show a correlation between these, which comes into another problem in trying to control people’s reading materials: the Internet.
In the modern world, it is almost impossible to fully control what people consume because of the Internet, causing book banning to have a decreased dominance over people. It is easier than ever before to consume information, and what kind of data people are exposed to is more tricky due to the ease of searching on the internet and gaining access to data, for instance, children downloading +18 restricted books or the amount of young people reading romance novels written for adults. Although a book becomes banned in a school, state or country, people could use the internet to gain access to it, not to mention that, in countries which have blocked users in that particular country from getting the specific novel, users can use, for example, a VPN. Even totalitarian countries, where Big Brother (a reference to the novel 1984 by George Orwell meaning that the political party in power is always watching one and people have no privacy) is watching, have problems with controlling their people as the Internet gives indefinite opportunities to gain information and data anyway.
Book banning was more efficient in history as books would have needed to be smuggled into a country meanwhile, today, it might take some minutes to download it on the computer. Unfortunately, this makes it nearly impossible to control anyone and to so-called “save” a certain group from harmful or inappropriate content. Furthermore, book bans in school districts are even further in a lost fight to “save” children as they will be able to access and read the novels during their leisure time, for example A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas is banned in some school district yet the is a high number of younger people still accessing and reading this book. This begs a question for you, the reader of this text, but also society, how can we save certain people from inappropriate and harmful content, if it is even possible; to fully monitor a person’s activity on the Internet and reading materials would be exhausting not to mention, could we still say that we have freedom and privacy?
However, the biggest question about book banning is simply, are we allowed to control and limit people’s reading materials? Again, as Benjamin Franklin said (as quoted earlier in the text), it is almost impossible to write a book that would not offend anyone, and most of the classic texts would be banned, which has once changed or profoundly impacted society, we lose a major part of our history and understanding. A major part of history is the ability to gain knowledge from the past to create a better future, especially not to make the same mistakes. However, banning books does that we earse a part of history and wisdom written on the pages, perhaps book banning, then, becomes a symbol of the burning of the library in Alexandria, in which people loses the access to the books and a part of history disappear in some aspects. Although, the banning of Hitler's novel Mein Kampf might have been a justifiable ban as it served to limit Hitler's influence during World War II and to this day may influence particularly children reading it, perhaps we are saving younger people from harmful content or are we hindering children but also every person from gaining a part of history and information from the content. This creates the question, is there any exception when it comes to book banning or is book banning inherently wrong?
This is not to answer if book banning is okay or not but rather to open a conversation and widen a comprehension of the complex practice that is living alongside books, both in reading and in the process of writing. Authors have to ask themselves how to formulate words and sentences in their texts to still express the same message without risking being banned. There have been attempts throughout history in which the imagination of writers has saved them from banning and still expressing their message, for instance, by using allegory. However, at some point, one may ask if this is freedom, which one may counter with, what is freedom?
In the end, the root of the endless discussions of book banning is the people in society; every person thinks differently and many believe that they have the right opinion in this matter. However, as this text has discussed, it becomes difficult. What may cause offence in a text is mostly personal; in the same way, Svenska Pen (‘Swedish Pen’) writes, ‘A banned book can be a book that someone else does not think anyone should read’ (this is translated from Swedish to English). Throughout this, there is only one conclusion that we can draw which is that this is subjective; there will always be people who disagree or agree with book banning, and there will be valid reasons on both sides.
In the end, the root of the endless discussions of book banning is the people in society; every person thinks differently and many believe that they have the right opinion in this matter. However, as this text has discussed, it becomes difficult. What may cause offence in a text is mostly personal; in the same way, Svenska Pen (‘Swedish Pen’) writes, ‘A banned book can be a book that someone else does not think anyone should read’ (this is translated from Swedish to English). Throughout this, there is only one conclusion that we can draw which is that this is subjective; there will always be people who disagree or agree with book banning, and there will be valid reasons on both sides.
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