Adam Gerstenfeld The Art of Making a Forbidden Fruit and Why Adam and Eve Will Eat It Anyway

Censorship is dead. The arrival of the new millennium ushered in a multiplicity of technological marvels: yet none have revolutionized the world, or reinforced globalization, as much as the birth of the Internet. Gone are the days of CD albums, classified ads, yellow pages, and most importantly, the information bowdlerization that has ensnared American culture since its creation. The Puritans are rolling in their graves. Because the availability of knowledge has been transformed from a privilege held by a few, to a right obtained by the masses, the actions of the Missouri school district at first glance seem quite antiquated. The banning of books absolutely matters to our society because American citizens are given the constitutional prerogative to read and write any content they choose, with few exceptions; and as history has shown time and time again, Americans are very protective of their rights. Furthermore, it is not up to the public and school library systems to provide a normative explanation for denying a certain group access to literature under the guise of protecting minorseven if todays culture is slowly gearing toward a more lenient interpretation of profanity. Parents should be the predominant moral force when concerning the content their children view. Yet, the removal of Slaughterhouse-Five is not inconsequential, nor is it unheard of. Websites containing lewd content and explicit language require, by law, that users must be 18 and older when viewing. This rule is known as the age of majority and it demarcates the threshold of adulthood in many countries around the world. Slaughterhouse-Five absolutely fits within these parameters. The injustice in taking books like Slaughterhouse-Five out of libraries does not come from the actual absence of the novels from the shelves (the internet provides too many alternatives and loopholes to make these sanctions effective anyhow)

but from the implication it gives to children: if the school doesnt like the books children are reading, it can simply take them away. Interestingly, this same mentality can be applied to the passing of the 18th amendment the banning of alcohol in America. Banned books have a history not unlike that of alcohol during the Prohibition movement. Both were ardently protested, openly denigrated, and finally disallowed; by the same token, both were unmistakably available and increasingly desirable. Taking something away from the public eye does not take it out of existence. In the case of banned books, the internet appears to offer an appealing alternativeat the price of ignorance and a possible misunderstanding of the literatures credence. Huckleberry Finn was (and still is) a controversial school book because of the heavy use of a historically accurate term, used to relegate African-Americans. The major argument for its banning centered about the belief that teaching children a book fraught with racially offensive terms would corrupt their minds, and make it acceptable to use such terms in public. This is not the case: Mark Twain fought his publisher tooth and nail for the right to use these terms because he wanted American society to be educated about its countys past, its dark spots highlighted just as much as its achievements. Ultimately, the tendency to block certain parts of history or language is what frequently drives the complaints to ban books. Instead, a better alternative has proven that teaching teenagers and children the exact meaning of these words and why they were used and how they influence the story helps create a fuller understanding of history and culture. We cant expect the next generation to create todays solutions without looking at yesterdays problems, as shown in the likes of Huckleberry Finn and Slaughterhouse-Five. Perhaps the best book to convey this concept is the notorious memoir written by Adolf Hitler. Mein Kampf is an incredibly exposing text, giving readers the ability to have an

introspective look into the mindset and justification for Hitlers actions. This is a crucial narrative in understanding the chronicles of history, international relations and power politics. A recent Wall Street article depicting a global perspective on banned books states Officials in the German state of Bavaria never wanted to publish Mein Kampfthe Internet has now made them do it. So many people now have unlimited access to this book, that in order to preserve historical integrity against the footnotes of internet haranguers, actions must be taken to introduce unabridged knowledge into the realm of information. Of course, this new wave of knowledge must be placed into context: the so-called banning of books is not a crisis. In only 10% of the 186 cases on the [American Library Association] map was a book permanently removed from a library wrote Mitchell Muncy in 2009. The article goes on to state that 80% of challenges took place at schools, not even a public library setting. Generally, the classics and popular childrens books often get the most heat for being readily availablewhich is an oxymoron in and of itself. By the same token, just as parents should be entitled to dictating exactly what content is available to their children, they should not have the right to determine what other children read. Between 1990 and 2010 parents comprised 87% of challenges initiated by an individual; this is an absurd number especially considering petitioners lose six out of seven cases (the Missouri case is a rare breed). While often ineffective, book challenges are a constant reminder that there are those who want to deny others the right to information- this both infuriates people and enforces their belief in their Godgiven liberties. Ultimately, this is why the ALA fights so strongly against, quite frankly, an innocuous annoyance. The refinement of art is captured not by its painters brushstrokes, but by the eyes of its audience. So it goes with literature: a book is meant to be read and digested, not observed for the

quality of its language. If we acknowledge diction as a backdrop, we can teach a fuller and deeper understanding of a novels literary significance.