On the Right, Book Banning is Bad, Except When it’s Not

We try to parse the deep thoughts of a man who has read Farenheit 451. He is definitely totally against banning books, but also thinks that sometimes banning books is good.

by Evan Urquhart

A burning question in the right wing press is “How do we say we’re against banning books, while also pushing policies that unequivocally ban LGBTQ+ books from schools?” In Massachusetts, in the pages of the local mainstream Newburyport Daily News, one local man thinks he has found the way to square this circle. In an “As I See It” column, where members of the local community share their views, guest columnist Joe D’Amore from Groveland, MA sounds off.

The column starts with a much-needed refresher on the plot of Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451.

D’Amore wants to be clear that he does not promote book burning. Perish the thought! Buuuuuut he does have a few concerns, relating to some of the books that children are freely allowed to read, if they ask for them, in their school libraries.

It is vitally important to D’Amore that we remain a free society where all ideas are allowed to be aired, but also, he thinks that some things shouldn’t be explained to children. For example, children, some of whom have two mommies, shouldn’t be allowed to know that lesbians sometimes raise kids without men.

This Daily News column is poorly written, largely because it’s by an amateur. But even in more polished right wing columns the sense of wanting to it both ways is much the same. The ideal seems to be for children to be indoctrinated into conservative values by a state which censors every word and idea they come across, and then, once their values have been molded by conservatism, it’s fine to let them read whatever they want to as adults.

The main problem with this, apart from the hypocrisy, is that children simply aren’t the blank slates conservatives imagine and wish them to be. Whether or not they’re taught about gender dysphoria, some children will experience it, and if they’re lucky those children will grow up to be trans. Across time and space there have always been humans who transgress gender, and there always will. The same is true for children who, whenever they begin to feel romantic attraction, will find that attraction is towards people of their own gender, or many genders. While it’s often possible to inculcate feelings of fear and shame in children with these experiences, it’s not possible to stamp them out the way conservatives seem to want. Since it’s not possible, that means the kids who have these experiences need healthy resources to contextualize them, if for no other reason than to help keep them safe from predators, who might otherwise be their only source of the forbidden self-knowledge, but also to reassure them they’re okay.

Right wingers like D’Amore want book banning, but they still want the credit for being against book banning. It’s a conservative position we’re seeing a lot of from the right, who as little as 5 years ago were styling themselves free-speech absolutists who would stand on principle, especially if that meant getting to say pro-Nazi stuff.