KENNEY: Did Spotsylvania Burn the Books?
249 missing books from 37 different authors -- and zero paper trail.
by Shaun Kenney
COLUMNIST (and Book Aficionado)
First and foremost, allow me to present a solution to our present woes in Spotsylvania beyond a system that will notify parents when library books are checked out — which is great if only to avoid late fees and the like.
Immediately in January, one of the first things on new business should be the creation of a resource for the purchase and donation of new — not gently used, but new — books to Spotsylvania County Public Schools. I am certain there will be objectional titles — Huckleberry Finn and the Holy Bible and The Complete Works of Milton Friedman among them — yet to have the community rally around such an idea would be a marvelous step forward and entirely voluntary.
Which brings us to the present conundrum where 249 books from 37 different authors have disappeared from Spotsylvania’s school libraries.
The Mortal Storm Has Arrived
One worries that my admiration from left-of-center friends is built upon a particular form of utility. Namely, when conservatives go out of their way to condemn “book burning” then we are most assuredly useful. Yet when we state our reasons why, and when those reasons are far different than the reasons put forward by progressives, then we are quickly reminded that we are most assuredly the enemy.
Not just friends who disagree.
Not just a temporary opposition.
…but an enemy fit to be destroyed.
When it comes from a particular set of human beings known for their intolerance, such sentiments can be expected. When it comes from the voices who claim to extoll tolerance and diversity as their highest virtues? Perhaps there is no greater reminder that the false god of progress is every bit the failure of the old pagan gods. They claim a sunny optimism until someone dares to question the direction of the progress, the penalty for which is the acidity of contempt, condescension, and ostracization from what progressives ultimately term society.
If you had to summarize my opposition to Trump, it is in this critique specifically. For too long, it has been acceptable for Democrats to behave like Democrats, so long as Republicans do not behave like Democrats. Yet when Republicans do behave like Democrats, what are they called? Fascists? Bigots? Haters?
Of course, this is the nationalist — and they do call themselves nationalists — critique of conservatives, namely that if “the good, beautiful, and the true” were so damn appealing, then how does one explain the last 50 years? The political left have no qualms about imposing their values through law and regulation, they claim. Heck, they can’t even see that they are doing it in the name of progress. Why then should the political right have any qualms doing likewise? If the political left can riot, why can’t the political right? If the political left can destroy, weaponize speech, impose their values through coercion and shaming, then why are these tools forbidden to the political right?
The temptation to surrender to equivocation is a terribly strong one. For every abuse on the left, there is most assuredly an abuse on the right. Yet the war — if there is one — is not in the whom but the that. The war is against abuse, coercion and violence in the public square.
In the 1940 film The Mortal Storm there is a tipping point in the film where intolerance overwhelms the good guys. The election of a new chancellor doesn’t do it. The restriction of thought in public spaces doesn’t do it. The accusations during a science experiment that the scientist who developed the proof did not have either the correct religion or ethnic background doesn’t do it.
What breaks the back of civil society? The day when the books are piled into the courtyard and ceremoniously burned. Where the spirit of intolerance finally culminates into what can and cannot be thought, taught, learned and talked about.
The Good Guys Don’t Ban Books
Unfortunately, we are living at a time where two unthinking and unfeeling camps are pushing America to the brink. Set your phasers to mock, ladies and gentlemen — it’s what they openly deserve.
The solution to bad speech (or bad books) is not correct speech but more speech.
A literate society would be buying and donating books in droves to Spotsylvania County Public Schools. There would be read-ins of James Joyce’s Ulysses — the students of the University of Virginia still pull an all-nighter each year doing precisely this to highlight the problem of banned books — and talks with authors and mentoring with students. A literate society, we would open the widest possible investigation into who took on the duties of a public censor and prosecute that person to the fullest extent of the law.
But there is going to be a hiccup in this, for this precise reason alone. There are other voices — other public censors — who view society as something belonging to themselves and themselves alone. Who still view the world in the false dichotomy of us and them, left and right, friends and enemies who must be destroyed and run down at all costs.
I want the books back. I may never read them, and probably deeply and profoundly disagree with most of what is inside of those books as having any literary value. Yet the only public censor any free people should ever tolerate is our own intellectual curiosity and capacity for education. As a Virginian and a committed liberal in the classical sense of the term, my response to any would-be censor will be and remain Jeffersonian: error may be tolerated so long as reason is left free to correct it.
Yet in this supreme command, let there be a warning implied. Banned books are not merely a phenomenon of the right. Not terribly long ago, pressure was applied to edit the works of Dr. Seuss by the political left. Not terribly long ago, Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird was the target of ire. Even Charlie and the Chocolate Factory got a rewrite. Best not to mention Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling’s opinions on transgenderism.
Even here, there is a deeper problem. As Ray Bradbury mentions in Fahrenheit 451, there is more than one way to burn a book. To be a literate person, one must read literature. One book a week is sufficient — and how many of us do this? When was the last time your children or grandchildren caught you reading a book — a real book?
The enemy is illiteracy, and the self-appointed public censors do the rest of us no favors by mimicking the worst behaviors of their opposition. Put the books back and find out who removed them in the first place. Who ordered it? Who gathered them? Surely there are witnesses. Where did they go?
Then make sure this never happens again.
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I was very hopeful when I read the title of this article because I really hope that all sides of the book banning versus book retention issue can work together to find a workable solution - and do it quickly and productively. I did not expect to read a litany of how each side is wrong. Nor did I expect to be told as facts what I see as Mr. Kenney’s opinions.
My basic opinion is that before we the people of Spotsy start donating books to school libraries, I want to know what happened to the banned books and then see if there is any appropriate action that can be taken if they were disposed of contrary to written policies. By appropriate action I mean requiring the offender(s) to reimburse the SCSD for the cost of replacing the books.
As for Mr. Kenney’s opinions, perhaps he Is not totally aware of the fact that those of us on the “left“ were totally ignored and belittled by the school board majority of four for the last two years. For example, every challenged book was reviewed by a committee which included private citizens as well as educators. Every single book that was recommended for retention was removed at Mr. Taylor’s instruction. Perhaps he is also not totally aware that Mr. Taylor improperly included school library books in his definition of “instructional materials” so he could remove them and then tried to incorporate that definition into a newly drafted SCPS policy which was presented to the school board by the young, inexperenced man who now sits in Mr. Russell’s office.
I hope to see the refreshed School Board be more transparent, more open to communication, more courteous, more appreciative of school employees, and much more respectful of each other and everyone who contacts them by phone or email or at public meetings.
Sigh.
Poor little Shaun. Would someone give him his participation trophy already? Geez.
Seems like every other week, he's searching for praise because he is not either participating nor endorsing this particular affront to decency from members of his party. Well done, SK. well done.
For the record, I too am against book burning, and other forms of suppression of free thought. More so than many liberals. Not just safe things like Dr. Seuss, but likewise Macauliffe's arbitrary insistence of removing the Confederate flag from SCV's license plates - or Stoney's destruction of Confederate monuments. Who are they to interpret art for others?
I see the benefit of a more nuanced ground. Just watched comedy specials from Trevor Noah and Ricky Gervais the other day - and found value in both of them. Along with plenty to criticize.
I liked Trevor's take on how German's handle the history of Nazism as compared to America "conservatives" head in the sand approach.
But I found his casual racism toward the French, and white people in general a little tedious. Not enough to quit watching, but it was predictable. A bit mailed in.
And wondered what other demographic could be mocked in such a way without the left condemning them. Plus, from an art standpoint, for me, he's really not all that funny. A good chuckle, but few horse laughs at an original idea. Then again, I don't care much for Will Farell's humor, so to each, his own.
Still, I'd pass on censorship. Humor, like other forms of art, are in the eye of the beholder.
And the idea he applied toward German history, is the one I wished Stoney would have applied toward Lee's statue. Context, not destruction. Leave the statue, leave the graffiti. It too had become part of the story. That what is valued by one generation, is sometimes despised by the next. And that both those building statues and those destroying them should use caution. That would have been truly valuable.
Funny though, that upon seeing us, I suspect he would have seen myself and Mr Kenney as two sides of the same coin, rather than two individuals with our own perspective. So yes, certainly, the left is equally capable of racism, hypocrisy, etc. As are black people, young people, people with birthdays, etc. I suspect it is a human condition. Can we move on, or do we all get trophies?
Then again, RG did evoke laughs.
Generally because his ideas were so outrageous and shocking. That is more to my taste. As was Richard Pryor, back in the day - though looking at his work now seems a bit more dated than a Marx Brothers or Abbot and Costello routine.
When Gervais did his bit about those who would destroy a statue because it was of someone later found to be a pedophile, or slave holder (or in TJ's case, both!), instead add context, I agreed.
And he noted the irony of those woke folk who would tear down the statue, but keep the stuff they value. IE, UVA fans happily wanting Lee destroyed, but certainly not the school that Jefferson built.
Again, it's nuanced. I too would not want UVA, except by VT in football on the last weekend in November, destroyed. But I don't feel anyone owes me a trophy for feeling that way.
Still, as much as we are in solid agreement regarding the need to avoid censorship, that the "conservative" Puritans destruction or loss of those valuable books are worth investigating - with the chips falling where they may, I do remain astonished at the equivocation that always seems to be part of Shaun's columns. Again, he may state how much he hate's Trump's ways, yet he sure does imitate him.
No, there is no equivalency between a spontaneous outburst of emotion from common citizens at systemic injustices that lead to their continual deaths, and someone who is entrusted (though Shaun, myself, and the majority of Americans agreed he shouldn't have been) with the most sacred and important position in the land - using scheme of lies and violence to hold onto power.
It devalues those who have honored that trust to so lightly ignore Trump's failure to do so. No Shaun, 140 cops did not get beat half to death and the Insurrection Act invocation of martial law to impede a lawful election get considered because someone merely forgot to lock the doors on the Capitol that day. No matter how much you try to trivialize or normalize it.
And when Shaun complains of those who disagree with him as saying that he is "an enemy to be destroyed." How many times has he whined when criticized, plaintively responding to challenges to his falsehoods and subjectivities by asking Why do you hate (us/me) so much?
Denigrating any challenges to his statements by casting them as emotional rather than based upon his actions and statements. That's not a defense, that's a dodge.
Again, like Trump.
So again, congratulations on not being okay with burning books. Way to go?!?
Please advise us if you are also expecting praise for not reverting to cannibalism, restarting the Inquisition, or pasteurizing milk.
Cause until you can manage to take a position without always feeling the need to minimize the wrong doing by those you otherwise choose to support, or to pretend that everyone does it, it's just a bit hard to take it too seriously.
Still, keep your chins up. Maybe next year.