"Do you ever read any of the books you burn?"
He laughed. "That's against the law!"
"Oh. Of course." Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
We’ve all had those books, those photographs, recordings and poems that flashed a reflection of the world around us blindingly into view, like a sunbeam catching the corner of your eye, momentarily dazzling, then revelatory.
Bradbury’s masterpiece was one of those books for me. I loved books and albums. They helped me to travel to places beyond my little ranch house in my little Midwestern suburban town. To think that they could be burned, removing the possibility of new discoveries, new eyes through which to view the world, upset me greatly. I’ve worried my whole life over reports of censorship, of books and vinyl and canvas thrown onto the pyre.
Art, science, history, philosophy … the entire width and breadth of enlightened culture have served to help us to see the world, and each other, through fresh eyes. Sometimes those representations have been distorted, child-like clay representations of something more sublime, but the endeavor over time has helped people to learn more about themselves and each other. Chasms between people that lead to dehumanization, exploitation and wars have been broken down by poems, songs and histories.
This process is often very frightening, unsettling to those comfortable in their current understanding of their little corner of the world. Every culture has philosophers, scientists, artists and poets who are confronted by clergy, officials and angry mobs. Sometimes they pay for their explorations with their lives, but each generation brings new explorers, fashioning new mirrors with which we can reflect on who we are, and who we want to become.
Movements to censor art and culture ebb and flow, but we are in the midst of a time where a dangerous confluence of would-be “firemen” seek to determine for us what we can and can’t see. The danger is no longer just Comstock and his lists of rules, or the Preacher and torch, but they’ve been joined by MBAs with actuarial tables and ratings. Let the mirrors be shattered, all the better for the fragments to be scooped up, framed and offered to smaller, targeted populations, only to be shattered and reframed, again and again.
We need open, vigorous and unbound culture so that we can keep moving along, engaging in our universe, cooperating in the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth, but maintaining an unbroken tapestry along the journey. Whether censors are cutting those threads with laws, sermons or business plans, they endanger the possibility of new connections, new beauty, new understanding and new possibility.
Fight them whenever you can. Fight for your children and neighbors to have great and challenging books to read; in store, library or classroom. It is important for them to see what has come before, both so they don’t feel so damned alone but also for them to avoid mistakes that have been repeated so many times. Go see the paintings of an artist that you may not understand, and stand up to anyone who says they shouldn’t be displayed. Check out those samples of a song online, but support the artist who recorded it. Remember, not just your memories but the memories of others on page, canvas, magnetic tape or digital file, so that you can help to better create a better future.
Finally, demand that the political party that is supposed to represent the progressive principles that this country was founded on stop cooperating with the cultural and corporate right. Culture is not a just a commodity, science not just an empty opinion to be twisted to support narrow financial interests. I will work against any politician who calls for the censorship of movie, book, television program, scientific report or even video game.
Yes, this means you Senators Clinton and Lieberman.
"There was a silly damn bird called a Phoenix back before Christ: every few hundred years he built a pyre and burned himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we're doing the same thing, over and over, but we've got one damn thing the Phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we've done for a thousand years, and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, some day we'll stop making the goddam funeral pyres and jumping into the middle of them. We pick up a few more people that remember, every generation." Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
crossposted from
Liberal Street Fighter