That long-time leftist journal, The New Republic, published an article on the current controversy over pornography in children’s books. It is a masterpiece of confusion. Its author, Melissa Gira Grant, must have little grasp of how the debate developed, or she is deliberately trying to sow irrational chaos in her wake.
Flawed Arguments Lead to Flawed Conclusions
The title of the article is evocative. “Conservatives Are Trying to Ban Books in Your Town. Librarians are Fighting Back.” The message is plain enough. One can argue about the nature of the “ban,” but the rest is relatively straightforward. The actual confusion is contained in the subtitle: “How a right-wing mania is destroying the social fabric of communities across America.”
The leftist argument is simple. The first point is that libraries exist to educate and enlighten the public. Next, communities nationwide established and now maintain public libraries to encourage literacy and knowledge for the general population. Thus, these libraries constitute an essential part of “the social fabric of our nation,” and any attack upon them threatens society.
The Role of Children’s Librarians
The library movement gained public support in the United States during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. By the mid-twentieth century, virtually every community in the nation had some sort of public library. In rural areas, these might be simple rooms in the attic of the county courthouse. In large cities, massive and complex systems with highly trained staff developed. “Library Science” became a course of study in universities nationwide.
It soon became apparent that children had different needs than their elders. They required easily-read books with simpler storylines. Children often went to the public library to complete school assignments. Exciting the children’s imaginations was essential.
The “children’s librarian” became a fixture in such spaces. They often had specialized training. The hero of The New Republic’s article is a children’s librarian named Mary Grahame Hunter, who works in Ferndale, Michigan. She explains her career choice. “The reason I wanted to be a children’s librarian, specifically, is because it’s one of the few places where a child is treated as their own entity.”
The “Wokefication” of Libraries
By using the word entity, she seems to assert that children should have a separate existence outside that of the other influences, like the family. Such claims are confirmed in a subsequent paragraph, where she explains that her children’s room is a place where children are not treated “like people with lesser amounts of rights.”
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As the rest of the article makes very plain, the “right” is the ability to gain access to information that many consider pornographic.
A Right to Pornography?
That is where this article goes so painfully wrong. Until recently, no one—other than those who espoused the most extreme perversions—argued that children had the “right” to explicit material on human sexuality. Indeed, the overwhelming consensus was that children had the right to be protected from such material. One aspect of being a child was the protection of one’s innocence from such material.
The American Library Association echoed the contrary view in a document called “State of America’s Libraries,” published in April 2022. It contained this observation by ALA President Patricia Wong. “Libraries remain ready to do what we always have: make knowledge and ideas available, so people are free to choose what to read.”
All Libraries “Ban” Books
However, libraries have never made such knowledge and ideas available without filters. All libraries ban books if the word “ban” is interpreted as the refusal to put certain books on the shelves. Librarians have always made choices. Some choices were made based on cost, interest or lack of shelf space.
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However, there is—and always was—another criterion. Some books contain indecent ideas and images with no educational value. So, a library might have a biography of Adolf Hitler but would shun a book published by neo-Nazis. The same library might have a book about a famous murder case but exclude a book with explicit directions on killing others and escaping detection. Likewise, that same library might have a whole shelf of books about human anatomy and physiology and yet exclude pornography.
The need to make such decisions is the reason that librarians are hired. It does not take great ability to check out a book to a customer. Putting books on the shelves in their proper places can be taught in an afternoon. The fundamental training librarians need is to judge what books should be placed on the shelves.
These insights are especially important in the children’s room.
Disparaging Legitimate Concerns
However, in the past decade or so, many librarians have come to see themselves as missionaries of leftist “social justice.” That attitude erodes public trust in the librarians’ decisions.
The New Republic trivializes parents’ legitimate concerns. It offers this brief history lesson.
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“The Catholic cold warriors of Citizens for Decent Literature in the 1960s sought to spare young minds from the lure of ‘pornography’ and a seduction into ‘communism.’ The 1970s-era family values voters of Save Our Children crusaded to protect students from the lavender menace of gay and lesbian teachers “recruiting” in classrooms, posing a ‘peril to the nation.’ Right-wing groups periodically reorganizing themselves as a new kind of concerned parent is not new.”
Since The New Republic’s usual contributors and readers are far to the left, the author says that parents feared these situations in decades past. The present concerns are mere reincarnations of foolish fears.
Conservative Fears Came True
However, there is a response to such accusations. The fears of the parents of the sixties and seventies fear have come to pass. Pornography is rampant in today’s “oversexed” society. This process did not happen overnight. Indeed, the liberals themselves complain about increasing rates of sexual violence. Millions of pseudo-intellectual college and high school students were seduced by the lure of communist ideology. Teachers promoting the LGBT ideology now confuse thousands of students, some to the point that they are willing to mutilate themselves.
Indeed, the question is not, “Why are so many parents concerned?” The real wonder is, “Why aren’t more parents screaming for decency?” These librarians are the ones helping to destroy America’s social fiber.
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