Just off the top of my head, I can think of several reasons why school administrators might decide to ban a book:
- The book is perceived as having some potential corrupting element or subject matter.
This could be as concrete as R-rated language or sexual content (I suspect most school administrators or concerned parents naďve enough to think that banning books will save their children from bad words or sexual suggestions would be shocked to learn what the kids really know) or as abstract as ideas and concepts which are labeled bad or dangerous or even heretical (paging Salmon Rushdie). I think there are certainly cases where people of good conscience, however misguided we may think their actions, are operating out of genuine desire to protect their children.
- The book is deemed to be offensive in some way to some group.
An especially prescient aspect of Bradbury’s 451 is that it, in Bradbury’s words, “described how the books were burned first by minorities, each ripping a page or a paragraph from this book, then that, until the day came when the books were empty and the minds shut and the libraries closed forever.” I should hasten to add here that by “minorities”, Bradbury means any special interest group, be it racial, political, regional, cultural, ethical, or what have you, which seeks to suppress any work which it considers to be offensive. His point is that just about everybody is a “minority” in some way, and the end result of trying to please everyone is literature which says nothing. This is where “political correctness” is leading us. “Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.”
- In this age of Columbine, there is a genuine concern about exposing kids to work which might in some way lead to violence.
This concern might range from concerns about legal liability – “He didn’t get that book (videogame, movie, website) from us!” – through the whole spectrum to a very real desire to protect the lives of children and reduce the chances that some unstable mind might be set off or inspired by something that it got at school. A notable example is a story by Stephen King entitled “Rage”. The story is about a disgruntled student who shoots his teacher and some of his fellow students, then holds the classroom hostage for a while before (if memory serves) turning the gun on himself. The author, who is otherwise a vocal advocate of First Amendment rights and cheerfully unapologetic about the rest of his work, has expressed his wish that he had never published the story, and has even sought to acquire existing copies of it and destroy them, in effect banning his own book.
- I can imagine cases where the popularity of a particular work might be disrupting school business. So, if an inordinate amount of students are reading about the Battle of Helm’s Deep when they should be paying attention to quadratic equations, gerunds, and Soviet political history, frustrated administrators might just opt to ban the books altogether. A related objection might be that a work inspires particularly compulsive or obsessive behavior in students, to the extent that it disrupts schoolwork. So if Johnny is up late at night browsing the Barrow-Downs, researching his HoME to back up his Balrog wing theory, and memorizing the descendants of the House of Bëor instead of writing his “What I Did This Summer” composition, parents might become concerned.
- Some people and institutions seem to feel threatened by sheer imagination and feel it has no place in preparing youngsters for life in the “real world”. Thinking about things like Elves and Hobbits is seen by these sorts as, at a minimum, a massive waste of time. Ironically, the Gaffer is probably just such a person. There’s a recent thread kicking around on this topic.
These are all valid (from certain points of view) reasons why reasonable people might ban books. So how does Tolkien stack up against these reasons (which, I might add, are by no means exhaustive)?
Clearly, the first point seems to be the one most cited in banning the prof’s work. I won’t belabor the already noted religious objections or the curious divide between author and work which apparently exempts the prof in some cases.
Point two seems hardly to apply. LotR is as chaste as Mother Theresa, as circumspect in its language as Nathaniel Hawthorne, and not ideologically radical. Half-hearted claims of misogyny or racism have been leveled, but I don’t think many people are buying them.
LotR is occasionally graphically violent, but this factor is far outweighed by the book’s moral component and its strong “violence is not the answer” themes. On the other hand, as Cúdae hinted at, some are so sensitive to this issue nowadays that a sky metaphorically “stained with blood” is apt to trigger alarms.
What can you say about the fifth point? This website alone is evidence that Tolkien can (and does) inspire obsessive behavior in some.
I don’t think I’ve reached any real conclusions here, but perhaps identifying some of the reasons why well-meaning people might ban books will help further Kalessin’s inquiry.
As a postscript, if you think schools banning
Fahrenheit 451 is ironic, just consider that Bradbury’s own
publisher censored the book: “Only six weeks ago, I discovered that, over the years, some cubbyhole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from the novel.”
[ November 29, 2002: Message edited by: Mister Underhill ]