Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, the title referring to the “average” temperature required to burn paper, was supposedly initially inspired by the Nazis’ book burning of "non-Aryan" material, although he later claimed it was also partially influenced by the “red scare” debates in the U.S. concerning “subversive” literature. Near the end of his life he then suggested that the novel could also be seen as an attack against “political correctness” and its assault on “freedom of speech.”
Of course Bradbury was talking about commentary that offended racial and gender activists, and the fact that books like To Kill a Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn were being banned for words and attitudes that defined a certain place and time. It is useful to recall something Mark Twain once said that can be applied to this highly sensitized era where many people have a knee-jerk reaction to anything they can exploit for their own vindictive purposes: "Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it."
And yet in today’s environment, while boys are punished for their natural tendencies, girls are encouraged to adopt those same supposedly “negative” traits, and as we see are seldom being "punished" when they apply those traits to negatively affect others--in fact "applauded" for it as a measure of "correcting wrongs" and "equality."
Of course it depends on when and where you are at. When John Lennon made his infamous “Beatles are bigger than Jesus” comment, in the UK it didn’t raise much ire because even religious leaders in the country realized that there was a “crisis” in religion to stay “relevant,” and it needed to “update” its philosophy to fall in line with changing times; this happened to be the purpose of the Second Vatican Council being held around that time, although on the other hand Islam continues its medieval pace.
Religious leaders in the UK would take Lennon’s assertion that “Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me” as a critique they needed to take seriously if they wanted to stop losing younger people. But not that was not the case in the U.S. I don’t know if Bradbury had anything to say about scenes like this in the southern U.S….
…but these were the kind of people Lennon could be talking about.
Bradbury died a decade before another round of Southern-fried “book burning” whose fascist inspiration is obvious. Ironically, the Florida-led drive to ban books includes titles that were deemed “inappropriate” for the opposite reason they were banned by the “politically correct” crowd: they made white kids feel “bad” too. For example, a book like To Kill a Mockingbird is banned in some schools because it portrays blacks in a “demeaning” manner, and uses the “N” word which is offensive to black people even though they themselves may use it on a regular basis both in speech and in the “music” they listen to.
On the other
hand, it may be deemed “offensive” to some white parent in a Florida school
district because it makes their kid feel “guilty” about something he or she
didn’t do—although they may be “thinking” it. The book, of course, describes a
particular place and time that where the racial attitudes portrayed were
commonplace and lynchings actually occurred, so why choose to be ignorant about
it just because it makes you feel “bad” about it? You know what they say about repeating history, and some people think that is happening in Florida today.
Ron DeSantis has come under fire for some of the books that have come threat of expulsion from school libraries, with the biography of the late Pittsburgh Pirates great Roberto Clemente making the media rounds because it talked about discrimination he faced. The Florida law concerning books that are “inappropriate” for “children”—meaning books that talk about racism, gender identity and other topics offensive to the tender sensitivities of bigots need to be taken off the shelf, or at least out of the classroom. According to NBC News
Roberto Clemente: Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates” by Jonah Winter and illustrated by Raúl Colón was among the more than 1.5 million titles that had to be “covered or stored and paused for student use" at the Duval County Public Schools District while it was determined whether such books complied with state laws, according to Chief Academic Officer Paula Renfro.
Books must align with state standards such as not teaching K-3 students about gender identity and sexual orientation, not teaching critical race theory — which examines systemic racism in American society — in public schools and not including references to pornography and discrimination as defined by the state, according to the school district.
In January, more than 50 certified media specialists for Duval started reviewing over 1.5 million book titles. Approximately 7,000 books have been reviewed and approved for student use as of Monday, according to the school district.
In order comply with the law, schools were “directed to empty libraries and cover classroom bookshelves” and each book was to be “reviewed” before it was allowed back on the shelf.
The Tampa Bay Times recently editorialized that just two people, Bruce Friedman and teacher Vicki Baggett “submitted more than 600 book complaints over the last year, accounting for more than half the statewide total.”
Baggett, a high school teacher in Escambia, filed 178 complaints, or about 80% of those submitted in the conservative panhandle county. On each form she said she had read the material in its entirety, but the Times found the language in many of the complaints appear to be pulled from a website launched by a member of Moms for Liberty, a group at the forefront of the movement to ban books.
The two culture warriors submitted about 600 of the 1,100 book challenges made since July 2022, according to a recent Tampa Bay Times investigation, wasting untold hours of school employee time and the taxpayer dollars that pay for it. They are part of a small group of Republican-backed scolds who are making Florida school officials afraid to do their job, which is to educate students, not placate zealots.
The Times investigation shows it is not at all clear if the people making the complaints actually read the books they said should be tossed out.
The "silent majority" has become the ear-splitting fringe. Groups like "Moms For Liberty"-- meaning their own -- are apparently not finished yet, as Business Insider notes they have successfully banned five "new" books. The “irony” of all of this is that it in Florida it is the “right” that is responsible for this latest round of “political correctness” and their own sinister version of “wokeness” that the Nazis and the "red scare" engaged in.
Apparently for DeSantis this is all for short-term political “gain” to attract the attention of MAGA voters in the primaries. It remains to be seen if that “works” or is just seen as a “stunt.” A few months ago, billionaire Republican donor Thomas Peterffy told the Financial Times he was holding his “powder dry” before supporting DeSantis because he isn’t sure his “stance on abortion and book burning” is working. Peterffy says he and his friends are waiting for the primaries to shake out before going locked and loaded for the eventual Republican candidate.
The cynicism behind this is obvious, just as Donald Trump’s is, given the fact that he believes in nothing save himself, his idea of “helping” his supporters is throwing his bombs at other targets in the hope that some of the shrapnel doesn’t cause collateral damage, as if his insensible supporters would notice it anyways.
