{"id":1985,"date":"2021-11-04T11:12:52","date_gmt":"2021-11-04T16:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1985"},"modified":"2021-11-04T11:12:52","modified_gmt":"2021-11-04T16:12:52","slug":"hear-no-evil-see-no-evil-read-no-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1985","title":{"rendered":"Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Read No Evil"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Censorship: \u201cthe suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is so attractive about shutting down the ability of another to read, see, or hear what may be offensive to you but not to others?<\/p>\n

I feel like we\u2019re back in the 1980s when government attempted to shut down rap music, performance artists, photography by Robert Mapplethorpe<\/a>, and books that had been banned in earlier decades.<\/p>\n

President Reagan\u2019s Attorney General, Edwin Meese, established the Attorney General\u2019s Commission on Pornography in 1986.\u00a0 It was commonly known as The Meese Commission. \u201cAt the end, the commission issued a bulky two-volume report, much of it consisting of detailed narrations of the plots of pornographic movies dutifully set down by FBI agents who\u2019d been assigned to view them \u2013 at taxpayers\u2019 expense, of course.\u201d\u00a0 Not one of those FBI agents turned into a sexual predator.\u00a0 However, the commissioners believed dysfunctional predators who had testified to the commission that \u201cPorn made me do it.<\/a>\u201d\u00a0 It was laughable.\u00a0 More laughable was the fact that former Attorney General John Ashcroft had blue drapes<\/a> made to cover the bare breasts of Lady Justice.<\/p>\n

Recently, Toni Morrison\u2019s book, Beloved<\/a>, was the focus of a political advertisement in the campaign for governor in Virginia.\u00a0 The novel, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is an \u201cunflinchingly look into the abyss of slavery.\u201d\u00a0 A woman in the advertisement \u201cdescribes how her 17-year-old [white] son was traumatized\u201d by reading the book as it was assigned in a high school class.\u00a0 The boy\u2019s mother wants the book banned<\/a> from the Fairfax, VA, schools.\u00a0 Well, slavery wasn\u2019t exactly as honorable as you might think.\u00a0 It goes to show that not all books are banned because of sexual innuendo or content.\u00a0 But most books are banned because of embarrassing sexual information.<\/p>\n

Waukee, Iowa, parents are upset that books found in a school\u2019s library are inappropriate for students of all ages [Des Moines Register<\/em>, Friday, Oct. 29, 2021. Section C, Metro & Iowa].\u00a0 Librarians choose books for a variety of reasons.\u00a0 The Register article did not indicate where the questionable books were found.\u00a0 It is very possible that the books were in the reference section.\u00a0 And if you remember from high school, or even notice at public libraries, reference books are not available for check out.\u00a0 Books that depict graphic images, explicit sexual content, and violent passages should be considered for viewing with assistance from an adult that can intellectually serve as a guide to the adolescent.<\/p>\n

There are many ways to deal with printed material, movies, and music that may raise an eyebrow.\u00a0 Adults are responsible for talking to their children about sex, their bodies, respect, and boundaries.\u00a0 It\u2019s not an easy task, but whoever said being a parent was a breeze?\u00a0 In my day, we had to learn everything on the street.\u00a0 And it wasn\u2019t always pretty, nor was it explained in terms that were educational, respectful, and honest.\u00a0 This matter is not like telling a kid there\u2019s no such thing as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.\u00a0 No, snickering was an essential cog of the street learning process.<\/p>\n

Curiosity has been around since cats evolved.\u00a0 Adolescents should be able to bring questions to their parents without worrying about consequences.\u00a0 In the Register<\/em> article mentioned above, a parent found a book in his son\u2019s backpack \u201cabout a boy who lives with his grandparents and is searching to discover the truth about his family.\u201d\u00a0 The parent said: \u201cI cannot write what I saw but found 33 different pages that contained sexual and or slanderous\/vulgar content that if spoken in my<\/strong> house would be grounds for immediate discipline.\u201d\u00a0 [Emphasis added.]\u00a0 I pity that young man who lives in his father\u2019s house and not his parents\u2019 home.<\/p>\n

When I was a young boy, a group of us (boys and girls) sat around a HiFi set and listened to a couple of LP albums found in a stack of a girl\u2019s mother\u2019s records.\u00a0 One was recorded by Redd Foxx.\u00a0 If you grew up in the 1960s you know how dirty Foxx could be, but funny.\u00a0 Another album we listened to was \u201cBanned in Boston.\u201d\u00a0 Funny as hell.\u00a0 None of us had adverse reactions to the material in those LPs.<\/p>\n

Supreme Court Associate Justice Potter Stewart is credited with saying: \u201cI know pornography when I see it, but I cannot define it.\u201d\u00a0 He didn\u2019t say that.\u00a0 It has been paraphrased to mean that, however.\u00a0 What he did say was \u201cI shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [“hard-core pornography”], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But\u00a0I know it when I see it<\/em>, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.\u201d\u00a0 [If you\u2019re interested, the movie was The Lovers<\/a>, a 1958 French film by director Louis Malle<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

When books, music, and films are censored, they go underground.\u00a0 When anything goes underground, it\u2019s impossible to control.\u00a0 That\u2019s where the devil lives, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

I read Catcher in the Rye<\/a> when I was young.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t think it was that great of a book.\u00a0 I read it again later in life to see what I missed because it had been banned so many times.\u00a0 I still didn\u2019t get it.\u00a0 Not only that, but once again, I didn\u2019t think it was that great a piece of literature.\u00a0 I\u2019m surprised no adult stopped me from reading Wild in the Streets<\/a> around the same time.\u00a0 I loved that book, and it had more anti-authoritarian passages than Catcher in the Rye.<\/p>\n

Decades ago, if a book, play, movie, or music was banned in Boston it was an indication that the material was on its way to being a best seller.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sending my first book to Boston in hope that the Watch and Ward Society<\/a> will recommend that it be banned.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Related blog:\u00a0 Censorship Sucks!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Censorship: \u201cthe suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.\u201d What is so attractive about shutting down the ability of another to read, see, or hear … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,281],"tags":[910,247,905,908,831,906,424,912,909,903,911,904,914,907,913],"class_list":["post-1985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-privacy","category-youth","tag-associate-justice-potter-stewart","tag-banned-in-boston","tag-beloved","tag-catcher-in-the-rye","tag-censorship","tag-edwin-meese","tag-ia","tag-louis-malle","tag-redd-foxx","tag-robert-mapplethorpe","tag-the-lovers","tag-toni-morrison","tag-watch-and-ward-society","tag-waukee","tag-wild-in-the-streets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1985"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1986,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985\/revisions\/1986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}