On Philip Pullman and censorship

[annwfyn]

This is a bit of an offshoot of a discussion that is currently happening on The Community That Shall not Be Named, where I had this feeling I may soon be dogpiled* and cast out from liberal heaven. And I think it's probably my own fault as I think I'm explaining my point very badly.

I'm trying to say two things.

1) I don't think His Dark Materials are quite as good as many people seem to think. I am very fond of them, but parts of their theology and general view leaves me cold and isn't nearly as progressive and most people seem to think.

2) I think that nearly all of us are being hypocritical if we start saying 'rar! Censorship! And it's bad' when we find out that some religious school has banned (or chosen not to stock) His Dark Materials/Harry Potter/Debbie Does Dallas.

We all have ideas about we think is

a) Age appropriate reading material.

b) The kind of matieral we want in circulation anyway.

So, to a certain extent, we all believe in censorship. Well, unless you happen to be OK with your theoretical child reading 'Lesbian Nazi Holocaust: the illustrated version, with real sex and real death' in which case I'm concerned, but accept I'm not addresing this argument at you.

I know there are loads of books I wouldn't want a school library to stock, with some variation depending on whether we're talking primary or secondary school.

I think Jilly Cooper is a bit much for an 8 yr old, and am not convinced she's someone I'd want to be taking up limited shelf space in a secondary school, although I started reading her sex & shopping extravaganzas in my teens and survived.

I wouldn't want my kids to read too much 'colonial' literature - Little House on the Prairie, for example - without me about to explain that some of the depictions of non-white people that book aren't very nice or very fair.

I accept Mills & Boon is out there, but I'd really wonder why any school library was spending money on feeding any kids that exciting diet of coerced sex and messed up gender relations.

I'm kinda concerned that my school library stocked almost the complete works of Virginia Andrews, and even more worried that I dimly remember writing my own creepy incestuous fic at the age of 12, feauturing a half brother and sister (is it better that I had no real life brothers? It is for me).

So - yeah - I already clearly do believe that some books don't belong in a school library - maybe because of the content or just quality. And so if I say "damnit, that Catholic school should have Philip Pullman on their shleves" I'm not really making a stand of principle. I'm just objecting to the fact that their subjective call about which books are right for their school library is different to mine. And that's a very different thing.

And once I've established that I'm objecting to a subjective judgment call, I do have mixed feelings, about whether I can make that stand. I think schools and parents can make some bad judgment calls. I think school libraries should have some interesting and challenging books on display. But I also think that people, and groups, and communities should be able to make their own judgments about what is right and wrong as much as is possible without breaking the law of the land and hurting people, especially when it comes to bringing up their own children. I don't like the idea of there being one state mandated way to raise kids, in any way. And that includes in education. There should be different schools, with different standards and different ideas about what is right and wrong for those kids. I support Gordonstoun and Bedales existing in this world, and just wish there was slightly more range for parents who can't afford private education.

Still, I do think kids shouldn't be cloistered totally until they are 18. And it's good to have access to different points of view.

And then again, is Pullman worth fighting for?

And now we come back to my first point.

His Dark Materials.

To be precise, how reactionary and unforgiving a chunk of his world is.

OK. So. A daemon is fixed at puberty. Say, around 13. And that, then, is your soul. On display. For ever. It seems to be common knowledge that your daemon shows you 'who you really are', so people do get to judge you on that. And that's it.

No chance for late bloomers, no second chances, not redemption, or personal growth.

If you're a happy fluffy bunny at 13, then you're a happy fluffy bunny for life. If, however, like I was, you're a pricky, uncomfortable, rather stiff, frozen little girl who liked books and disliked people, then you get stuck with a daemon that reflects that and that's how you stay. No opening your mind to the idea of travel at 19, and changing from a stay-at-home book worm to someone who has visited every continent save Antarctica. No sexual awakening in your late teens to find out that boys are shiny and fun, and then no long arc from being pretty close to incapable of staying faithful to settling on a long term monogamous relationship in your twenties.

No change in interests and discovering a surprisingly competent chemical brain in your twenties when you'd thought of yourself as an artsy butterfly before. Either that side of you was always there, snapping at your ears through your daemon, or it isn't. I guess it makes chosing A levels easier, anyway.

Pullman says that identity, on a fundemental level, is fixed and unchanging from adolescence onwards.

I find that approach WAY more depressing than any of the Narnian books which Pullman claim contain 'no Christian love or charity'. In Pullman's world, would Edmond have entered Narnia with a nasty little viper coiled around his wrist, unable to shift? What about Eustace? No St Paul at Damascus style change for him! His whiny little chihuahua daemon would be glued into place.

And worse than that - look at the adults in literature who have undergone journeys of redemption. Jean Valjean stays a theif. Javert is right. Mary Magdalene gets to stay a whore** and their pasts stay branded on their daemons for all to see.

Now, that shows a sad lack of Christian charity.

I also loathe the class implications of Pullman's work. One of the lines in the first book is that 'servants' daemons were nearly always dogs'. Well. That's lovely, isn't it? That's what they are born to be? Clearly. And in general, Pullman does write about a very class ratified society in which one's souls reflect one's class.

And that all bugs me. For all their flaws, Lewis and Tolkien write about worlds where one is defined by one's actions, over time. Where people chose their own destinies, for better or worse, and can change. Pullman has always seemed to me to be a world in which you're set up as a member of the elect, or not, when your daemon settles as you turn 15. And that depresses me.

And this is what I spent my hour and a half on the front desk at the museum writing in my notepad, in biro, and my lunch hour typing up. I've got another two back dated rambles on assorted issues lingering on other pages too. Must write them up some time!


* It seems I am wrong! I've had no nasty comments and so far several people have just said interesting and clever things that have made me think. Especially biascut who said some interesting things about Pullman's theology which has made me re-evaluate them.

** As a note, I know that in the bible there is no actual reference to Mary Magdalane being a whore, and she might as well have been a nice old lady with a fondness for bedraggled young men, but she's somehow gone into popular religious culture as a reformed whore. So I'm using her as an example. So shoot me!

Comments

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

The original debate was over whether a school library should stock the books in question. It was, however, framed as a 'school bans atheist books' and it was only when writing this up that I vaguely began considering the issue as not entirely a 'ban'. No one has said the kids can't read it. It was mostly a debate on whether a catholic school should say "I don't want these books in our school library".

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Ah, right. I officially Don't Care That Much, then.

[pmp.livejournal.com]

One question if I may, do you believe the school has the right to ban the books?

Whilst the idea that we should pick and choose what our children think seems "wrong" at first, it's the very nature of being a parent to do that.

I can't help but think that yes, a catholic school can choose to ban fantasy books they feel challenge or upset their beliefs, but by the same token they shouldn't complain when a secular school chooses not to keep the Bible in stock.

In one way, it's the biggest danger of my belief system, if you enshrine the right to chose, you have to accept that people can choose just about any way they want, even if it's against your personal morals.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I think every school has the right to chose which schools they wish to stock. Essentially, no school has a copyright library. That means, by definition, there will be books that they are not stocking. Every school will be making value judgments about which books they chose to invest money and time in.

Re: banning - I was pretty much brain washed by going to the school I went to, which banned all kinds of ridiculous things from school premises. Never books, but their anti-jewellery policy was draconian in the extreme. Ditto hair. I tend to think schools can enforce a lot of things. I think that banning a series of kids books is entirely ridiculous, and utterly counter productive to what they are trying to achieve, but if they desperately want to, they can. They can't, obviously, stop kids reading whatever they want in their own time.

Generally, I want the rest of the world to respect my freedom to believe as I do, wear what I want, and generally get on with my life. That means I need to do the same.

If you want my subjective opinion on what books I reckon school libraries should stock I can probably ramble at length about that, but that would be a different issue.

[pmp.livejournal.com]

Don't you find it hard to reconcile "respect your freedom" with "schools have the right to choose what they stock"?

Or is it a case that adults can have the freedom when they're no longer children?

I think that you can call the entire parenting process "brainwashing", because the alternative letting kids do whatever they want is far more harmful in that they probably wont' make it to adults.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Children have to have limited freedom. I've worked with kids. The idea of 'respect their right to make their own choices at the age of 8' leads to Lord of the Flies.

[pmp.livejournal.com]

Wow, I think we actually might agree on something!