It is no wonder that books are on the front lines of America’s culture wars. They are arguably the most dangerous thing in our national life, notwithstanding that an estimated 16 million Americans own at least one AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.
Dangerous because reading — especially the reading of books — can be a radically subversive activity. Books, and the ideas they convey, are often the sworn enemy of moral, cultural and political orthodoxies, and are thus hated and feared by ayatollahs from Tehran to Tallahassee.
If you doubt the potentially disruptive power of reading, consider the outsized role the Gutenberg Bible and its movable-type successors played in the Protestant Reformation, which held that salvation depended on the individual’s study of the word of God. Widespread availability of cheap Bibles printed in the vernacular was central to spreading that idea and consequently undermining traditional papal authority.
In American history, it was no accident that the slave-holding aristocracy of the antebellum South strictly prohibited the people they held in bondage from learning to read and write. They knew that literacy conferred the aspiration to freedom.
In that context, it is hardly surprising that book banning is resurgent in an America bitterly divided over cultural issues. The American Library Association reported in March that it had documented 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, by far the highest number since it began tracking censorship in libraries 20 years ago. Of those challenges, 58% involved school districts; 41% targeted materials in public libraries. (The actual numbers are assuredly much higher: Many challenges to library materials are not reported to the ALA or covered by the press.)
Also not surprising is that of the 2,571 unique titles targeted for proscription, the vast majority were written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community or people of color, whose voices and experiences some conservatives are anxious to suppress. What is perhaps different from past efforts to abridge the public’s constitutional right to read what it wishes, the current push originates not so much with individuals offended by a single book as it does with organized groups such as the ironically named Moms for Liberty, who tend to challenge large numbers of books at one time. Apparently the Moms’ concept of liberty consists of freedom to dictate what books other people can read and what ideas they can explore.
The fear factor is certainly at work here, too. A school board member in a Florida county that banned a disputed title summed it up nicely: “I wondered why so many students had mental health issues and disciplinary problems, bad disciplinary problems. I believe they’re being poisoned by what they hear and what they read.” If so, it seems to us far more likely that the poison was imbibed from social media than from the school library.
Dispiriting as this all is, it is important to remember that the book police, though highly vocal, represent a distinct minority of American citizens. ALA polling data from March 2022 of a representative sample of Americans indicates that seven in 10 voters oppose efforts to remove books from public libraries, including solid majorities of Democrats, independents and Republicans.
Lawsuits bringing important constitutional challenges to censorship efforts in Florida and Arkansas have been filed and are working their way through the courts, with what we think is a fair chance of success. Illinois, for its part, has enacted a ban on book bans.
And keep in mind that books remain pretty darn popular. Our colleague John Lippman reported this spring that Barnes & Noble plans to open a new store on the busy Route 12A commercial strip in West Lebanon this summer, complementing several distinguished Upper Valley independent bookstores. Nationwide, both Barnes & Noble and independent shops are holding their ground despite the formidable challenge posed by Amazon. More recently, Valley News staff writer Alex Hanson documented the dispersal of a former Strafford resident’s 17,000 volume collection over a single weekend. The books were free and gratefully received, according to their owner, Bruce MacPhail. “Do books still matter?” MacPhail asked. “They did these few days in June 2023.”
Indeed, books do still matter. We urge you to prove it this summer, both for your pleasure and instruction and to strike a symbolic blow for freedom of expression. The instinct to ban that with which one disagrees is pernicious but also entirely human, so choose something off the library or bookshop shelves that just might rock your own world.