What to Do With Books That Are Insensitive to Social Norms

/ John W. Howell

 

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

Hi SEers, John here with you today. The last time we were together, I talked about sensibilities in writing. I made the point that authors should be careful when writing characters of a specific race, gender, age, nationality, and sexual orientation because of changing social norms. I also stated that I didn’t believe writers should not exclude themselves from writing about these groups because they are not part of them. If you would like to read that post, you can go HERE.

Today I would like to take it one step further and discuss books written in a different time of our societal development. I intend to explore the idea of what should happen to books or stories that reflected older periods and older thoughts about race, gender, age, nationality, and sexual orientation.

We have heard that Gone with the Wind has come under criticism recently due to offensive slurs, typecasting, glorification of the Antebellum plantation-style of life, and gentle treatment of the KKK. The book was first published in 1936 when our society was not as enlightened as today. So, what should the current reaction be to the book Gone with the Wind? Should it be banned because of its representations?

We know the movie is out of circulation in some places for the exact representations. We also know the Seuess foundation discontinued six Dr. Seuss books because they don’t fit how we think of minorities today. Laura Ingles Wilder’s name is now off the Lifetime Achievement Award given out by the American Library Association because of her portrayals of Native Americans in her Little House on the Prairie book published in 1938. Barbar’s Travels is off the shelves of a British library since 2012 because of its apparent stereotypes of Africans. Critics also have faulted the Curious George books for the premise of a white man bringing home a monkey from Africa.

There are plenty of opportunities to ban a book like Gone with the Wind, yet one wonders if it wouldn’t be better to use the book’s offensive parts to teach what is precisely wrong with stereotypical descriptions of characters in the book. Also, wouldn’t it be better to use the book to discuss how fictional characters’ stereotypical depictions can hurt and affect real-life people? Even talking about the changing social norms would be better than simply declaring a book unfit to read because of some content.

Maybe because I’m an author, I hate to see a book be declared undesirable, but it does seem that we should embrace a discussion of any book that is outside our social norms. Include in the discussion why a text no longer reflects current attitudes. If we were to discuss why certain depictions in a book are wrong, we all would better understand each other. Maybe, more importantly, we could learn more about what actions and depictions are especially hurtful.

My vote is for more discussion around the issues pertaining to race, gender, age, nationality, and sexual orientation and less censorship of literature. I would love to hear your ideas. Use the comment section, and thanks for reading.

 

158 thoughts on “What to Do With Books That Are Insensitive to Social Norms”

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  3. I couldn’t agree with you more, John, What’s happening today is very much like the book burning under the Nazis. Our country is unwilling to discuss or read anything from the past that might inform them, for fear of being traumatized. Oh, the horror of actually discussing the past. Better to erase it. Whenever I hear of a book being being ‘banned’, I immediately go out and buy it for my children and grandchild, so they will have the opportunity to decide for themselves. What is happening to the First Amendment?

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  6. ‘First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a Socialist.
    Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a Jew.
    Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
    … Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
    Different time, same fight.

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  7. I don’t believe that banning anything is the answer. Books, statues, portraits–the list goes on. We need to learn from the past to allow for a better future. If we keep going down this path, it will may become something we cannot recover from at some point. All things can be teaching moments. Nice post, John.

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  10. Pingback: What to Do With Books That Are Insensitive to Social Norms – Guam Christian Blog

  11. Cancel culture at its most disgusting. Laura Ingalls Wilder writing in the prevalent attitudes of her times? Dr. Seuss books banned? My brother learned to read from those books. He is dyslexic. I will read whatever I want,when I want. I dont need a stupid warning label. I can read. I can check copyright dates and read up on prevailing attitudes of the time. This makes me roll my eyes.

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  12. I’m going to come at this at a slightly different angle, John. I think most people realize that banning books is not the best way to approach this issue. The best education comes from discussion instead of prohibition. If we tell kids that we’re going to ban selective books, what’s likely to happen is that many of them will be so curious why they will find ways to get their hands on them.

    I’m not trying to create a political firestorm with my comment, but an associated issue is monuments. I realize that for many, that is no different than banning a book. I have mixed feelings about that issue, but I see monuments in a different light as they are often constructed to celebrate and recognize heroes. It’s a slippery slope when we start to go down that path, as it’s hard to know where this starts and ends. For example, I don’t think most people will want monuments of Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, or Jack the Ripper in their community. The important part for any of this is the discussion and hopefully education that comes with it.

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    • Thank you for your comments, Pete. As an educator you know the value of books in the learning process. Regarding monuments unless there was one built to honor a war criminal I don’t see the purpose in destroying them. I would rather have the monument raise questions about the time period and the person which would inspire research and learning. To simply say the civil war was just about slavery is a gross simplification of the attitudes to the time. Of all the young men that died supporting the Confederacy, very few were slaveholders and I don’t think most people have asked why would they do that?. I think it is important to get to some of the root causes of that conflict and if all vestages of it are wiped away there is no hope in doing so. Thanks fo your comment.

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  13. “There are plenty of opportunities to ban a book like Gone with the Wind, yet one wonders if it wouldn’t be better to use the book’s offensive parts to teach what is precisely wrong with stereotypical descriptions of characters in the book. Also, wouldn’t it be better to use the book to discuss how fictional characters’ stereotypical depictions can hurt and affect real-life people? Even talking about the changing social norms would be better than simply declaring a book unfit to read because of some content.”

    ^^^This! All day, every day, John! Books are an authentic look at a time that has passed. It holds beliefs, culture, ideas, etc. from that time period. Can you imagine Holocaust novels being banned because they treated Jews horrifically? How much history would be lost with that? I teach Holocaust stories to show the atrocities tat can happen when people focus on hate and fear. Books from a different time should be used to study the mindset of that time and LEARN from it.

    Great post, John! 🙂

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    • Thank you, Yvette. Of course, I agree with you. Many years ago I was friendly with two Holocost survivors and their message was to spread the word of the horror so it does not happen again. They were avid readers and embraced books as a method of education. I would hate to see that method of communication disappear. Thank you for sharing.

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  14. John, perhaps I’m thinking extra hard on this because I’m a Black Canadian woman who values inclusion and has no time for racism, sexism and other forms of bigotry. I’ve seen firsthand the harm we can do to others when we act out of – or write- bigotry. Right now, my thought is that people are free to write whatever they wish and adults are free to buy and read what they wish. But using such books in schools? That’s where I draw the line. No matter how high-minded we want to get about it, we know that using a book to teach students gives it legitimacy – and that would surely send a harmful message about some of the books of past times – and current, actually.

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    • I appreciate your comments, Cynthia. I can’t speak to the student situation as my comments were all directed to adults. I will certainly take your word on students but would hope guided discussions could be held where minority students could share their feelings about discrimination. Of course such a discussion would need expert guidance which in all probability is not available under current school organizations. Thank you for sharing.

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  18. I’m not in favor of redacting, editing, or banning of any form of expression. This includes the emasculation of ancient statuary to sanitize them for public display, or any other thing we can come up with. I’m also not in favor of warning labels. I am in favor of better education on the topics at hand. This has to start in the schools and will be a harder path. People (adults) should be able to spot the sensitive bits on their own and make their own minds up on the subject. We have warning labels on products to keep us from washing our eyes with bleach and such, but the spirit behind them is lawsuit protection, not any desire to protect anyone. All artistic endeavors face this problem at one time or another. I remember when song lyrics drew the ire of certain individuals, and even when people wanted to ban certain video games. I think this one is best left in the hands of the consumer, with proper education of the next generation.

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    • I agree with your conclusion, Craig. I just have some fear that those who subscribe to the idea of systemic racism will eventually build up enough steam to want to clean up anything that is deemed racist. Who will be the judge of the material before the cleanse. Thereby is the problem. What is racist to one my not be to another so it will come down to words and subject matter deemed unacceptable. A very slippery slope. Thanks for your comments.

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  19. I wholeheartedly agree with all your readers who said that if we ban books how can we ever learn? I have often said that we should not judge people (or books) by our morality, but by the morality of their own times. There will be things today that we believe that will be perceived as wrong by future generations. One thing that I would pinpoint, that I think will be changed in future is our attitude to animals–thinking that we are something other, and somehow much ‘better’ and above them.
    During much of humanity’s existence, slavery has been thought of as acceptable. We now consider it wrong and evil, but should we castigate those people who were only reflecting society as a whole?
    The same goes with books. As someone said earlier, that way leads to dictatorship (although I think many countries are going that way anyway).
    If we start banning books we don’t like, will we start banning books that are not written in the way we do today? Jane Austin, for example. She uses passive voice and ‘tells’ a lot. Charles Dickens has a lot of description. I could go on, but will run out of time and space, but you get my point.
    And as far as children’s books are concerned, Enid Blyton was banned in libraries in the UK for her way of writing, (it was said she didn’t stretch children’s vocabulary), but I loved her books and that got me into reading so I’d read anything and everything, even street signs and notices. Perhaps we would consider her Golly character in Noddy a racist portrayal of a black person, but golliwogs were common when she was writing, and when I was a child I never thought of them as caricatures of a black people. They were just a kind of doll.
    No, banning of books is dangerous.

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  20. The banning of books is the first step on the path to a dictatorial society. Next comes the murder of intellectuals and writers. I can understand the removal of children’s books in a way, because children are to young to understand history and its path, but adults should be able to appreciate a book and its setting in history and accept that it cannot be changed. We need to learn from the past not bury it. I have just ordered Gone with the Wind as a paperback before some crazy person decides to ban it.

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  22. I agree with you and all your readers, John. Banning books does not solve the problem. It tries to cover it up. Just like statues, books should not be destroyed because they no longer share the beliefs of today. They should be used as learning tools and opportunities for discussion. Sure, put a warning label stating the views and opinions shared within must be taken in context and do not represent today’s values, etc….

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  24. Because of the current state of our world society and hypersensitivity, this is such a relevant subject, John. I DO NOT believe any book should ever be banned because of its content. To me, it is a disgrace to see classics like “Gone With The Wind” taken off the shelves. It is a work of fiction. I recently sat in on a live book review podcast where a reviewer attacked an author because their work of fiction (The Demonic Queen) didn’t portray God correctly. Really??? I am appalled by what is happening to literature, and as an author, it makes me all the more determined to write whatever the Universe gives me. After all, I am a nobody in the literary world, so who is going to even notice? 🙂 Those are my thoughts. NO book should be banned – EVER! Thanks, John, for touching on this sensitive subject!

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    • Jan, you are NOT a nobody in the literary world, and I would defend your right to publish a book on any subject. All of us should be free to use our imaginations, though the best books do carry a subtle message. Mine is a protest about cruelty to animals. If I argued FOR hunting and dumping helpless pets I would expect to be despised but not to have my books banned.

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    • Thank you, Jan. I think discussing this subject is very beneficial. I also heard a live reviews where the reviewer called an author raciest because she didn’t agree with the characterizations in the book. I was appalled. To pull a race card simply because you don’t like the characters is a travesty. Let’s hop that kind of license is used very infrequently.

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  25. Totally agree with your points, John. I’m dead set against banning books just because times have changed and we’ve learned a few (and I use the word “few” deliberately) lessons along the way. We cannot alter history by going all Fahrenheit 451 on books written in the past. And as others have said, if we do not learn from history, we run the very real risk of repeating it. I just refuse to go down that road, and I don’t want others deciding for me which books need to be “erased” and which are acceptable. I find the very idea of thatoffensive and dangerous.

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  26. As an author, I don’t agree with banning books or excluding an author from a Lifetime Achievement Award. At the time the author wrote said books she probably didn’t realize how her portrayal of Native Americans would harm them. Should she have? Perhaps, but that’s a different discussion. I’d rather see communities give an author a chance to right the wrong rather than simply dismiss their body of work. Banning books never works. If anything, they become more valuable. I do think we have a responsibility to get it right, but we’re fallible. And human.

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    • Thank you, Sue. I agree. When it becomes apparent that a book does hurt groups of people them maybe it is time to discuss how that book impacts those people. I can’t help but believe all who enter that discussion will benefit. We also should remember Little House was written in 1932 and Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in 1867. Those were completely different times and her book was a reflection of her life. She wrote it when she was 65 years old. I wonder how many who made the decision to remove Laras name from the award had actually read the book. I appreciate your comments.

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  27. Seamless continuation of a thorny topic, John. Thank you. I would be against banning books. The current trend to sanitise our history does nothing to help us learn how to make different choices. I feel our freedom of speech is under threat and we need patience and empathy with different viewpoints to discuss everything that is being raised. Your post is a good way forward. Xx

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  28. It’s all there in your final paragraph, John. We can’t, nor should we, rewrite history. Ban something or burn it and you drive it underground to fester or you martyr it and give it a status based on publicity. I read something a couple of years ago about the banning of To Kill a Mockingbird in schools because of its racial content, and even more surprisingly, the banning in Kansas of Charlotte’s Web because talking animals is blasphemous. That last one sounds so extreme I’m not sure I can believe it – but it’s not a million miles away from the topic in question. If a view doesn’t agree with mine but doesn’t harm others then I’m happy to tolerate it. If it does potentially harm others, I’d rather someone spoke it and gave me a chance to put the other side than it thrive in its own circle of prejudice.

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  29. I remember reading and being read parts of books and being told “we don’t use words (or expressions) like this anymore, but they were common in the past. Those were great points for my father to explain something, and I think, if we ban the books and pretend it never happened, we lose the opportunity to have the discussion. My biggest fear is that we will keep coming up with reasons to ban even more books. What if we suddenly agree that burning fossil fuels are ruining the earth, and decide to ban books featuring, oh, say, Oldsmobiles… 😉 Far fetched today, but you never know.

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  31. This is a tough one. My all time favorite book is To Kill A Mockingbird. I have read it at three points in my life, in high school, as a young parent, and as a parent having a child in my mid 40s and I gleaned a different message from it each time. Does it have offensive racial language, yes. I feel, however, that it is presented in such a way that you see it’s offensiveness and how it was used to hold black Americans down during that period in history. The voice of the novel and the moral of the story, however, are against this kind of behavior and it was pretty progressive for the time. Thanks for bringing this up, John.

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  32. It’s such a loaded topic. I don’t want to see books banned either. We can’t change the past, but we can learn from our mistakes. Hiding them away does absolutely no good. I’m all for discussing the issues, and if necessary, warnings can be placed on books and films of other eras. Someday, literature we deem acceptable now, may have a topic or issue that is no longer the acceptable norm decades or centuries in the future.

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    • You raise a good point, Mae. If we start eliminating literature today what makes us believe what is acceptable today might be offensive later. If we eliminate literature today it will be a precedent for more elimination later. I agree it is a slippery slope. Thank you for the comment.

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  33. If we erase our history because it’s offensive to us, we run the risk of repeating those mistakes at a later time. I think the only way to make sure we move forward toward a peaceful, harmonious society is to leave the reminders as they stand—the literature, the films, whatever. It doesn’t mean we’re REVERING things as they were then. It just means that’s HOW things were then. And we can then use these masterpieces as tools to teach the younger generations what happened, why it was wrong (like it wouldn’t be blatantly obvious), and how we eventually corrected the problem. Nice continuation of the topic, John.

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  34. I have on my bookshelves a selection of Kipling’s verse. One of the poems is entitled “The White Man’s Burden”. This poem would be considered to be offensive by many people today. However it remains a product of it’s time. Kipling was expressing a widely held view and his work should, quite obviously not be banned. Kevin

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  35. Gone With the Wind was an excellent historical novel and should be always accepted as such. The book was written when the stereotypes were not considered offensive about a time when those stereotypes were real – plus, the storyline was contagious.

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  36. As everybody has said, we need to learn from past mistakes and put things into a historical context and perspective. If we censure the past and only allow for certain “approved” versions or narratives of it, new generations will grow with a false view of what life was like and won’t appreciate how far we’ve come (and the risks of repeating past mistakes). Thanks, John. Great post.

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  37. Interesting. I’ve certainly been to see ‘classic’ movies that carry a notice ta the start, saying that some of the language within was of its time and has not been changed, so please be aware. This seems to follow along with what many of the commenters are saying could also be true for books. Where do we draw the line?

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  38. I’m against banning books. Others have stated using a warning label in some instances, and I think that is a good idea. If we don’t learn from history, we’re doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

    It’s funny (not really funny) but people want to ban books based on THEIR preferences and beliefs. Years ago, a group wanted to ban certain books from our local high school because they didn’t fit with a “Christian worldview.” Those same people are likely against the banning of many books like Dr. Suess. Where do we draw the line? Don’t take away our free speech.

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  40. I share the thoughts of other writers on this post. This is akin to book burning and is deeply disturbing. Your two sentences sum it up, John. “If we were to discuss why certain depictions in a book are wrong, we all would better understand each other. Maybe, more importantly, we could learn more about what actions and depictions are especially hurtful.” Thank you for this much-needed post!

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  41. The thin edge of a worrying wedge. Informed discussion beats social engineering, and how can the next generation be informed of what the current one is banning without the vicarious experience that reading (and film) offers? Describing the past in only the ‘accepted’ manner with no insight into how things were, explains nothing. It might be uncomfortable to read (or watch) but is that a bad thing?
    I’m thinking now of college and university campuses where students have vociferously insisted on banning certain speakers because they (the aggressive ones) don’t agree with them. Closed minds are no basis for future harmony.

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  42. As others have said here, I believe a warning similar to those used on TV and film is sufficient. This is not one isolated deviant but many books written by people of their time. We are all people of our time, and one day, folks will no doubt call us out for our current ways of being.
    Excellent post, John, and some great points. Thanks for sharing.

    Reblogged on: https://harmonykent.co.uk/what-to-do-with-books-that-are-insensitive-to-social-norms-story-empire/

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  43. Pingback: What to Do With Books That Are Insensitive to Social Norms | Story Empire | Welcome to Harmony Kent Online

  44. I’m against banning books. Libraries and bookstores could put a label on a book that says something like “Contains sensitive material that may upset some readers” — that would be preferable to outright banning the book. Readers can make the choice to read the book or not. And if they do, they could learn about how public opinion was in the past. It’s a learning tool to see how far culture has progressed. And those readers could think of how much we still need to progress.

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  47. Many TV dramas are preceded by a warning that attitudes and language are “appropriate to time” and some people may find them offensive. I think that is sufficient.

    I believe books should be the same. Warnings and discussion are fine, but not banning old ones because attitudes are changing. . There is no place for censorship in a free society.

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  49. I will never understand why people condemn the way things used to be. It was never just one book or one man’s idea, it was how it was at the time.
    It should be enough, to understand how much we have changed since then…

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  50. I don’t like to see books banned either, John. If we don’t see how things were, how can we ever learn anything? It may be uncomfortable but having the discussion is so important. We can’t change history but we can change how we look at things now. We need to learn from our mistakes to really move forward. Great post and subject.

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