Censorious Right Has It All Wrong

I heard a news item on the radio the other day reporting that some group had insisted that Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary be withdrawn from public library shelves because it contained some dirty words.

This is the ultimate nonsense of the censorious right, which routinely scrutinizes books in search of what they consider material that ought not to be in print.

Only one thing can be said of these righteous prudes. At least they have to be able to read in order to look up the words they wish to censor. Indeed, my copy of the American Heritage Dictionary contains every dirty word I can think of, and I doubt that I am unaware of many, at least not those in the English language.

In each case the word is labeled vulgar or obscene , so that those who wish to speak with propriety may be warned against its use. A dictionary’s function is to record the language as it is spoken, whether suitable for polite society or not.

In the first place, to look up a dirty word, the would-be censor must know the word he is looking up. Even desk dictionaries may have 200,000 words in them (the American Heritage has 350,000), and a reader is not likely to discover a dirty word in a random search.

So, if a person hears what sounds like a dirty word at the office or in the locker room, for example, he should be able to look it up in a dictionary to find out what it means. If it is obscene, the dictionary will say so. I myself am impatient with dictionaries that omit obscenities.

According to Judith F. Krug, director of the American Library Assn.’s Office of Intellectual Freedom, the office monitors more than 600 censorship attempts per year. Fortunately, she says, “only 20% see the light of day.”

I have not mentioned the recent celebration of Banned Books Week, sponsored by the Library Assn. and other groups supporting the freedom to read, but I have their list of books that were either banned or challenged by censorious groups or individuals in 1992-93.

Among the books targeted by the book burners are several classics, some of which we grew up with. Believe it or not, one of them is the Bible. It was challenged “by an atheist seeking to turn the tables on the religious right.” He alleged that “the lewd, indecent and violent contents of that book are hardly suitable for young students.” His appeal to a Minnesota school district was rejected.

While this critic’s appraisal of the Bible as containing lewd and violent passages is true enough, I am surprised that an atheist would seek to ban it on those grounds. Surely we have a right to read even “The X-Rated Bible.” (There is such a book.)

The Bible is replete with vivid descriptions of incest, rape, adultery, murder and what today we call “ethnic cleansing,” but few would dare to suggest that it be banned on that account.

Almost as hard to believe is that Ray Bradbury’s novel about book burning, “Fahrenheit 451” (the temperature at which books burn), was expurgated by an Irvine school. Students received copies with certain words blacked out--mostly relatively innocuous hells and damns .

The Grimm brothers fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel,” which all of us read as children, was challenged in the Mount Diablo (California) school district because it teaches children that it is acceptable to kill witches and paints witches as child-eating monsters.

“Catcher in the Rye,” J.D. Salinger’s 1951 novel about a rebellious teen-ager, was challenged in various school districts because of profanity and candid treatment of sex. (“Catcher” was virtually a teen-age bible in the 1950s.)

John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” was challenged in various school districts because of “profanity, lurid passages about sex, and statements offensive to minorities, God, women and the disabled.” (How do we know what’s offensive to God?)

Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” and “Tom Sawyer” were challenged or withdrawn in various districts, mostly because they use a demeaning word for blacks. In the time frame and context of the books, however, the use of that word is legitimate.

Madonna’s succinctly named picture book “Sex” was challenged or banned all over the map for obvious reasons--because it contained photographs of its author in erotic poses. I imagine the censors studied it thoroughly before banning it from library shelves.

I don’t care to read books that are full of profanity, mostly because such books are usually bores. Neither do I like the company of people who use profanity to excess. They usually lack imagination and humor.

But I am against censoring any written work, even rubbish. If Steinbeck, Bradbury, Salinger and even Mark Twain are silenced, who might be next?

Me?