Banning Books 101

The first step to becoming a good journalist (or scholar, critic, average citizen, etc.) is the ability to comprehend what you are reading or hearing. The second step is understanding which direction causation runs and how it can sometimes differ from a simple correlation. No one expects students to intuitively understand the difference between correlation and causation, it is something that needs to be taught and then honed as a critical thinking skill. So please do not read the following as an attack, the intent is to clarify and assist.

During research on banned books week in the news, I came across a story from LA VOZ WEEKLY,
"The voice of De Anza College since 1967." This appears to be a student newspaper for the college, written by students most likely preparing for a career in journalism. At least, this is what I hope La Voz is, a training and practice center and not a serious publication. Otherwise, the headline:

Banning books threatens First Amendment rights

Has some real problems. The writer is certainly correct that the idea of banning books is contrary to the spirit of the First Amendment. And it is anathema for a "free" society. Where the writer stumbles on comprehension is in this passage:

Despite opposition from free-speech organizations, the American Library Association’s website has a form that anyone can fill out in order to challenge or ban a book.

In the first place there is no link to this form in the story, making further investigation more difficult. But from this assertion the writer moves on to state:

Forms submitted to the ALA website are reviewed by the Office for Intellectual Freedom, which then decides if a book should be banned or not.

 From here, the rest of the article makes it sound like ALA and the OIF are the bad guys here, arbitrarily removing books on a whim. This is of course not the case. There is a form individuals can fill out on the OIF's website, but it is meant to report a challenge made by someone else to a book or other materials in a library. Because, while the possibility of stopping a book from being published is extremely difficult, anyone can challenge the inclusion of a book in a specific library's collection. And this happens quite often, which is why Banned Books Week is an important event that brings attention to censorship. Challenging a book in the library is common enough that policies and procedures exist to regularize the process.

For whatever reason, there are many people in the United States who are just not hip to the idea that others should have access to materials that they don't happen to approve of. Defending the rights of those others to read what they want is what the Office for Intellectual Freedom does. See how this misunderstanding can color the perception of someone reading La Voz's article? The way it is written, the line of causation goes: Concerned parent fills out form at ALA; ALA decides on the worthiness of a book and; swoops in with a powerful, bureaucratic hand to remove the book.

The actual line of causation is that a concerned parent challenges a book at their local library. Then the policies and procedures at that local library kicks in to hear the objections, which vary from community to community. Then the library or local government decides whether to remove or retain the book. Where ALA and OIF step in is the teacher or librarian involved fills out the "reporting a
challenge" form to let the professional organization know that there is censorship going on. Then OIF writes letters to the parties involved to support the library, librarians and teachers, and lobby to retain the materials. Sometimes it is local politicians, library boards, or school principals within a library system that remove materials. In that case OIF will urge them to restore those materials and take reasonable steps to defend the rights of patrons and their freedom to read.

Either way, the ALA is not the cause of censorship. There is a correlation between book challenges and bannings, and the ALA but it is not the way the writer of the article implies. Stronger reading comprehension could have made this an accurate report and active critical thinking could have built a stronger understanding of how an organization called "The Office for Intellectual Freedom" would be related to banning books.

Historically Informed Discourse and the Problem with “Isms”

This blog spends a lot of time analyzing and comparing ideologies. So I could not pass up the chance to publish my colleague's excellent essay on redefining terms that have outlived their usefulness in contemporary politics. Dr. Miller recommends these two titles for further reading and I for one will be ordering my own copies shortly. -The Kraken

I love socialism.  Not that I am a socialist, or that I want others to be socialist.  Rather, I love it as an object of study.  There is something unique about its origins and its history that allows one to observe the internal dynamics of modernity.  It forces one to think about collective human potential, human nature, and the limitations of reason.  The critical conversation about democracy, justice, and equality that the early socialists began continues to this day.  For some, socialism was an extension of religion.  For others, it was its surrogate.  In either case, the alleviation of misery was its raison d’être.

Having said this, one might be surprised to find out that I believe socialism to be essentially a nineteenth-century phenomenon.   By this I mean that what had developed during this formative century as the defining feature of socialism—that is, widespread public ownership of the means of production—would eventually prove either undesirable or unworkable in the twentieth century for many countries.  The result is that most contemporary manifestations of nineteenth-century socialism no longer hold this traditional feature as definitive, leaving the original form behind.   The phenomenon that some today see as European socialism, often referred to as Social Democracy, has fundamentally made peace with this type of private ownership.  Social Democracy is not your grandfather’s socialism. [1] 

If I am going to be this strict with my definitions and analysis, it seems that I have to view capitalism in the same way—that is, as a nineteenth-century phenomenon.  Did not capitalism have a similar historical trajectory as socialism?  In other words, after the Progressive era, the New Deal, anti-trust laws, environmental regulation, the institution of the Federal Reserve, and labor regulation, do we really see the capitalism of the nineteenth century as desirable or workable?   This is not a perfect analogy, but there is a practical reason for considering it.

In my Socialism: The History of An Idea course, the students and I found it difficult to talk in a complex way about the twentieth-century part of the course if we hung on to nineteenth-century definitions of capitalism and socialism.  The reason was that the features that had distinguished the two historically had compromised.  The human need that came out of depression and war had forced both ideologies into more pragmatic manifestations: both lassiez-faire capitalism and historic socialism had been defeated by the real world.  We found that instead of talking about capitalism vs. social democracy, we were really talking about different approaches to a market economy—different enough to be significant, but similar enough to leave the nineteenth century behind and search for new terminology.

This experience made me think about American political discourse and the problem with politicians and pundits using terms like “socialism” or some form of “capitalism” in their economic talk.  As was made clear to me, these terms and concepts belong to a different time and were part of a different debate.  As a result, we can’t use them to meaningfully conceptualize our present problems and their solutions.  If you hear these terms being used, reject them as obfuscation and manipulation.   Worse is an electorate that rejects pragmatism in economic matters because they have adopted the socialism vs. capitalism narrative, which has become part and parcel of the right.  Not only is this narrative violently anachronistic, but when shaping the convictions of politicians it ensures more economic disasters in the future. 

Our economic problems are not world-historical, and the options before us are not capitalism vs. socialism.  Discourse must be historically informed.  Let’s update our language and terminology to reflect our present reality.   We have a market economy.  How well it works is up to us.

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[1] This is a very complex history.  For clarification or more detail, I would recommend Sheri Berman’s The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century.  And Donald Sassoon’s One Hundred years of Socialism.

Censoring Anti-Censorship Part 2

But it is mathophobic! This poster is
obviously anti-subtraction!

I may have overestimated the impact this intra-librarian skirmish had in the right wing media. In my last post I really worried that Elizabeth McKinstry really opened a wound where the social conservative culture warriors could rush in like a virus and destroy the American Library Association over a poster for banned books week. Just for contrast, this is what that poster looks like without a person in it and I don't think there is enough LSD on the planet to make someone think that it is islamophobic. I wanted to get my initial thoughts down in that post before diving into what others had to say on the subject.

To summarize, it is counterproductive to downright destructive when the far-left attacks a mainstream (i.e. non-conservative) organization. Outside the right wing echo chamber of media and foundations, money and resources are finite. So wasting them on a frivolous squabble subtracts from efforts to hold the line against fundamentalists and fascists, to say nothing of making progress. Sometimes the culture warriors are able to simply destroy a progressive organization, see ACORN. People supposedly on the same side should not be helping the enemy, but it happens all the time; see Glen Greenwald et. al. That is another story for another time though.

The point is, do you know how many times in any given year some rural school principal or "concerned parents" try to get books and other materials banned? State legislators, town council members, conservative churches, and right wing pressure groups are also constantly attacking the very concept of tolerance, diversity, and equality in what we can see and read. The ALA and especially the Office for Intellectual Freedom have their hands full defending your right to read, and having to take time to address some overly sensitive concerns to a poster means that some fundamentalists out there will succeed in getting books off the shelves. So back to my mistake.

Google's algorithms are very complex but con artists and "legitimate" businesspeople are constantly trying to game the system through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). One way to mess with the rankings is through news aggregators, also called content farms. I had a problem with this a while back, I still don't know the depth of what they were up to but as I wrote on that post I did not want to be associated with porn sites, and above all they did not have my permission to use my content. I suppose there is something in the blogger terms and conditions that makes my wishes irrelevant but I digress.

So you can hopefully cut me some slack that what I thought was a slew of stories from right wing media actually turned out to be a single story from The Daily Caller repeated over and over. To it's credit, the story is basically a straight news report with the only questionable segment was in profiling McKinstry's LinkedIn page. I guess it is public knowledge and we all need to be careful what we post online, but is it responsible journalism to post her place of employment and her self-description as a “wildly progressive, feminist killjoy”? I don't know if this detail rises to the level of lone wolf bait but it did not seem necessary to report.

Even more interesting were the comments. There was plenty of islamophobia and rationalizations for hatred toward Muslims, plus the usual character attacks of "liberal this" and "liberal that." But not a word about ALA or the Office for Intellectual Freedom. Perhaps the librarian organization as a whole dodged a bullet.

Censoring Anti-Censorship

What is the first thing that pops into your mind when you look at this poster? The second? The third? If you answered that it looks like a somewhat corny play on a Do Not Enter sign, or actually read the text and discerned the intent, good for you. If you looked at this poster and the first, second, or third thing to cross your mind was how islamophobic it is to put a woman's eyes in the middle of a book that is clearly meant to symbolize a niqab, then congratulations you are part of the problem.

Thankfully no more than a handful of the audience for this poster, the official graphic for the American Library Association's banned books week event that highlights the ongoing attempts by regressive people to censor books and other information, made the decision to declare this image islamophobic. Nor did those overly sensitive and easily outraged people seem to grasp the irony of demanding the censorship of an anti-censorship image. But what is interesting is that a few busybodies had so little else to do with their time that they went out looking for easy targets to be offended by and pour precious time and energy into demanding that which inspired such outrage be deleted from their sight. Because there are so few real problems in the world and no bigger villains than the professional organization for our librarians. Right? Right?

After more than a week the petition started on Change.org generated fewer than 500 signatures and I consciously waited to write about this issue in order to not draw attention to this pointless and counterproductive undertaking. The petition has since closed and it is unlikely that any pitchforks will appear outside the ALA's offices. However, it is important to make note of a few aspects this non-issue raised for the direness of the situation in America. I recently posted this image to my Facebook page that summarizes that direness.

Any one of the issues here seems like a more worthy target for activism than the supposed islamophobia of a library poster. And there is the crux of the problem, these things are real but so many "activists" concentrate on fringe pet projects that have no real significance. What would be gained on the whole by getting ALA to remove the poster? And by what means? Here is the melodramatic language used by Elizabeth McKinstry in her petition:

This poster uses undeniably Islamophobic imagery of a woman in a niqab, appears to equate Islam with censorship, and muslim women as victims.  It directly contradicts ALA values of inclusivity and equal access by targeting a particular group.
Whether the poster was intentionally or accidentally a racist design, it is still racist and alienating. It should be removed immediately from the ALA Graphics store, and the ALA Graphics Store and Office of Intellectual Freedom should apologize and explain how they will prevent using discriminatory imagery in the future.
Let the ALA leadership and Graphics Store know that this poster violates the ALA Code of Ethics, represents libraries and librarians as discriminatory and non-inclusive, and must be removed immediately.

"Undeniably?" There are quite a few logical fallacies here but the biggest problem with the language is the directness, this is an attempt at domination. 'Remove this thing that offends me, apologize, and swear that you will never publish anything that could possibly be construed as offensive to anyone anywhere.' Not exactly leaving any wiggle room for saving face are you Ma'am? So any acknowledgement of this petition put ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) in a bad situation, either they are insensitive and unresponsive to public concern, or they are appear weak and easily manipulated by anyone with an imagined grievance. By forcing a confrontation over a manufactured "controversy" McKinstry has opened a new front in America's culture wars. Because if a simple Google search is any indication, her tantrum has drawn attention to ALA by all sorts of bad guys and the organization will be spending more of their time (and budget) fending off attacks than assisting the librarians battling censorship at your local library.

That is, after all, OIF's job. To combat the restrictions that all sorts of fundamentalists want to put on your freedom to access information. The self righteous people in churches and board rooms who want to ban all sorts of books really don't need any help from those who should know better and they should concentrate their energies on real problems.

Then again, if you can turn this:

Into this:

Maybe you need to reevaluate your life instead of searching out monsters to destroy.

Their Biggest Fear

Republican orthodoxy for the last four decades has been primarily about ruining government for the average citizen while simultaneously strengthening it for big business. Every crazy utterance, every insane action taken by prominent Republicans in and out of office is meant to further this goal. What happens after they decide the process is complete is anyone's guess, fascism, theocracy, some combination? Who knows, but where the balancing act has taken place is in demonizing the alternative. Democrats and the existence of an opposition party serve a great function in Republican ideology as the scapegoat for every ill and the cleanup crew for each catastrophe. And the Democratic Party serves this function well, especially at the Presidential level. The evil minds coordinating this strategy have one problem however; and that is that ordinary citizens will shake off their cynicism and remember that honest government that can solve problems; and is actually possible despite 100% propaganda to the contrary. Thus, the potential for some citizen(s) to campaign and lobby for actual democracy and good, old-fashioned American pragmatism is their biggest fear.

The name of this blog not withstanding, I keep looking for signs of this renaissance. It is a thin reed for sure, weak tea to settle the anxiety of big money ruining everything. But the alternative is utter despair for our republic. A running theme here as well is the largely futile attempt to repair ideological definitions, i.e. what conservatism and liberalism are supposed to mean. And the distinction between party and ideology, public good and private interests, or simply how to make society work better for lack of more precise terms. To put it bluntly, the GOP is the party of business but a regressive kind of big business that sees profit over everything and relentless class warfare to be the only path. Sometimes this path is guided by a kind of liberalism where business is running away from government and tradition; i.e. the 19th Century formative period for capitalism when medieval vestiges of guilds and royal regulation of industry had to be crushed. Sometimes the path is conservative, such as business' attempts to slow down New Deal reforms. And sometimes it is parasitic towards government, where successful businesses today have lodged themselves in government through lobbyists and the like. It is always about private or special interests though, and how to make those special interests seem like the public interest. Hence the aphorism that what is good for GM is good for America. Once upon a time there could be some truth to that assertion, today however it should be seen as a sick joke.

Then there is health care, or more specifically health insurance. And the heart of the matter, Obamacare and its ramifications. The United States does have excellent health care available, largely due to the New Deal and its legacy, the problem is one of access as we all know because the gates are guarded by for profit insurance companies. Again, once upon a time most Americans had their insurance through the company they worked for, and their families enjoyed that coverage as well. As part of the negotiations between workers, business, and government a system emerged where big companies provided health insurance for employees with some government regulation and tax subsidies. Universal, single-payer health insurance was always an unspoken assumption as the other half of the New Deal but fixing capitalism and winning World War II put it on the back burner until the reform energy was all but spent. Then the American Medical Association was able to tar the idea as "socialized medicine" during the Truman years, thus derailing the United States actually developing the kind of health care system that Europeans already enjoyed. Medicare and Medicaid was as close as we got during the second burst of reform in the 1960s but the slapped together system of group insurance functioned more or less adequately for more than a generation.

After the Cold War there was less pressure on business elites to keep the peace in the eternal struggle for American hearts and minds, no propaganda battles to wage, no alternative to capitalism that radicals or reformers could look to. Therefore, profits and class warfare reemerged as business' primary goal and to hell with the public good. Reagan put a nice veneer on selfishness and greed while dismantling the system and simultaneously looking the other way while business wrecked havoc on civil society. Many of our lifetimes have been marked by the Reaganesque misdirection that government is bad, incompetent, and a barrier to prosperity. The Democrats all but abdicated their role as conservative defenders of the New Deal status quo, especially after Bill Clinton declared the era of big government was over. Thus, there was really no one to defend the role of government as referee between business and society, and as a positive force in our lives. We played right into the hands of oligarchs and libertarian villains.

So when Raw Story posted the You Tube video of a big tea partier from Texas who took a break from prattling on about guns and gays to record his extinction burst about the goodness of his tribe, I was shocked. Here was a guy openly stating that he was questioning everything he thought he knew about politics and who the good guys really are. Never mind that he looks, sounds, and speaks like everything that is wrong with our country, he actually reflected on the true state of affairs, accepted new information, and (possibly) changed his mind. Never mind that most of Obamacare is based on the "conservative" Heritage Foundation's plan, or that it is barely functioning in half of the country because of Republican intransigence. This bubba openly told his audience of like-minded dumkopfs that maybe, just maybe, they have been wrong all this time.

This is the kind of guy who believes the lies, who marches in lockstep behind the authoritarian wrecking crew, who spreads the gospel of fascism and the "true American" way everywhere he goes. If a guy who cares so much about getting his message out can pause for a moment and let in some doubt, it is possible that seed of doubt can be planted in some of his audience. And despite all the money, all of the media they control to spread fear and hate, and all of the power to control elections; the oligarchy does not have a plurality of votes. This is their biggest fear, that some of the brainwashed market fundamentalists out there who click their heels and vote time and again against their best interests will take a moment and really ask "who has done more for me?" Government at all levels is potentially democratic and can put the basic needs of people ahead of greed and destruction if not controlled by the corporate elite.

I have read several comments from liberals who saw this video of James Webb dismiss him because "it's all about him, his healthcare, his needs." While true, that is irrelevant. Expecting the average citizen to act and think beyond his/her own self-interest is one reason why people like Mr. Webb hate liberals so much. Indeed, thinkers like Reinhold Niebuhr understood that you cannot rally people around the public good and solve problems if you cannot explain how the program or platform or idea is primarily in their own self-interest. Much as the racist who realizes that far more white people have wronged him than any minority, Mr. Webb realized that it was a Democratic President who made it possible for him to live out his dream of retiring early. And that he will have the healthcare that made it possible taken away if his party wins the White House. This kind of doubt is the key to unlocking the stranglehold of authoritarian thinking in your average Fox robot. The 24 hour fearfest aired by right wing media requires true believers for its control, if even one member of Mr. Webb's audience experiences a measure of doubt the next time some fantastic lie reaches his ears then spending time analyzing Webb's video will be worth it. The billionaire oligarchs can spend themselves to the poorhouse on scary campaign ads in the next election but if their followers have even slight doubt about their claims it will be for nothing.

This is the oligarch's biggest fear, that the elaborate network of lies built up over multiple decades will come crashing down because the sheep experience some doubt and start questioning the awfulness being sold to them like so many McDonald's hamburgers.