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 title: Maybe We Should Stop Banning Books?
 date: 2025-10-20 21:47:00
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Banned Books Week was like... a week and a half ago, but I missed
it because I don't pay enough attention to arbitrary days of
observance.

My bad.

I have some thoughts, though, and thought I'd take the opportunity
to share them, despite their fashionably late arrival.

For absolutely no reason—none whatsoever—I've been thinking a lot
about censorship and freedom of expression in the United States
lately.

> *"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress
of grievances."*
>
> — First Amendment to the United States Constitution

Because I'm a fully formed human being with an over-developed sense
of empathy, I think that free speech can be a complicated issue.

On one hand, it's important to protect the right to express diverse
opinions and ideas, even if they are controversial or unpopular. On
the other hand, I agree that some forms of speech—such as
incitement to violence—don't deserve those protections due to the
extreme harm they can cause.

One thing to be clear on, though, is that incitement to violence is
*not the same* as offensive speech. The two are often conflated,
but they are very different concepts. Incitement to violence refers
to speech that is intended to provoke or encourage others to
*commit acts of violence*.

**Jokes** do not count as incitement to violence.<br />
**Satire** does not count as incitement to violence.<br />
**Parody** does not count as incitement to violence.<br />
**Art** does not count as incitement to violence.<br />
**Criticism** does not count as incitement to violence.<br />
**Dissent** does not count as incitement to violence.<br />
**Protest** does not count as incitement to violence.

Unfortunately, even hate speech does not count as incitement to
violence; I do hate that.

I hate the othering of already marginalized groups, and conspiracy
theories that spread dangerous misinformation, and outright lies
meant to manipulate and mislead, and hateful rhetoric that seeks to
divide us. I hate that some people use their words to hurt other
people, and I hate how much hate there is in the world.

But I also hate the idea that it is okay silence people just
because we disagree with them—even if what we disagree with is
disgusting on its face—because that means *someone* gets to decide
what is acceptable speech and what is not, and who the hell could
we possibly trust to draw that line?

If we're being *completely* honest with ourselves: nobody.

If you don't like what someone is saying, the answer is not to
silence them. The answer is to engage with their ideas, to
respectfully challenge them, and to present your own perspective.

Or just fucking ignore them, because our attention is free
expression too (we may have to *allow* speech we disagree with, but
we don't have to personally *tolerate* it).

Book banning is a great example of this.

When books are banned, it's because they contain ideas or
perspectives that some people find offensive or uncomfortable, and
they want to prevent others from being exposed to those same ideas.
But exposure is not the same as endorsement, or agreement, or (the
word of the decade) *indoctrination*.

Instead of banning books, we should be encouraging critical
thinking and open dialogue about the ideas they contain. We should
be teaching people how to evaluate information, how to recognize
bias and misinformation, and how to engage in respectful debate.

The last thing we should be doing is trying to silence voices we
don't like, even if those voices are loud and obnoxious and
downright hateful (which, let's be clear, books advocating for
equal rights, justice, and human dignity are absolutely none of
those things, regardless of how uncomfortable they make someone in
their world view).

Because the reason we have to allow the speech we *don't* agree
with is so we can continue to share the speech we *do* agree with.
It's not about *them* vs. *us*; it's about *all of us*, and when we
lose sight of that (like how things often feel today), then we all
lose.

I don't read enough banned books [0], and I definitely don't read
enough books that challenge my worldview (can anyone?), but I do
read some, and would like to read more.

I encourage you to do the same.

<!--
  Not sure where to start? Here's a list of some of the most
frequently banned books in the United States, most of which are on
my "to read" list:
  - "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
  - "Carrie" by Stephen King
  - "The Catchers in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger
  - "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess
  - "The Diary of Anne Frank" by Anne Frank
  - "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card
  - "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury
  - "The Giver" by Lois Lowry
  - "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
  - "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou
  - "James and the Giant Peach" by Roald Dahl
  - "Julie of the Wolves" by Jean Craighead George
  - "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
  - "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding
  - "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell
  - "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck
  - "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey
  - "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky
  - "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" by Alvin Schwartz
  - "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
  - "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
  - "The Witches" by Roald Dahl
  - "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle
-->

Because the more we read, the more we can understand each other's
pain and frustration and fear and troubles, and the more we
understand that, the more we can find a way through the garbage
fire we are all experiencing at the moment.

---
[0]: http://flower.codes/library.html
---


EOF