The Tolerance of Texts
By Joseph Pearce|March 9th, 2023|Categories: Books, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors
In the final analysis, freedom is not possible without freedom of speech, and tolerance is not possible without the tolerance of texts with which we disapprove. The lack of such tolerance leads to the banning of books and the banning of people. Ultimately, so history proves, it leads to the burning of books and the mass execution of people.
We live in an age of censorship. Books are being banned, if not outright then at least from the school curriculum. They are not being burned, at least not officially, but that will be their fate when they are no longer tolerated on library shelves. For those of us who have read George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, this is all a little creepy. In that book, the Ministry of Truth is responsible for removing all traces of the ideas of the past from the public’s perception. Even the language is manipulated and altered into something called “newspeak” in which antiquated ideas and words are banished. And then there is the widespread use of “doublethink”, in which self-contradictory thought processes are used as a means of self-indoctrination.
Orwell was inspired to write Nineteen Eighty-Four as a cautionary satire on the totalitarian regimes that were rampant in the last century: Nazism, fascism and communism. In each of these secular fundamentalist tyrannies, “newspeak” was employed to keep all public discourse within the limits imposed by ideological constraints, whereas “doublethink” was the means by which the logical absurdities inherent in ideological precepts could be kept in place. This was achieved by government coercion, the ministries or departments of “Truth” being the agents and agencies of propaganda.
Let’s fast forward to our own time.
Newspeak is everywhere. When, for instance, was the last time words such as “vice” or “virtue”, or “sin” and “sanctity”, were part of the acceptable vocabulary in public schools? If children never hear these words, they will have no notion of how these antiquated ideas shaped the culture of the past, nor will they understand the reason for the culture of death and decadence in which they find themselves. They will believe that it’s not about sin but about systems. And as for the past, it is either not taught at all, or else it is taught in the light of the “truth” that the past was wicked and lacked the “enlightened” ideas of our own time.
As for doublethink, it is to be seen most brazenly in the complete lack of tolerance in the name of “tolerance”. And this brings us back to censorship and the banning of books. Books which contain examples of intolerable intolerance are not tolerated. The popular children’s books of Roald Dahl are being censored to remove offensive words, such as “fat”, whereas classic novels, such as Huckleberry Finn, are being banned or censored because of the use of the n-word.
What are we to make of this?
There’s no doubt that the n-word is unpleasant, even making allowances for context. But should books be banned because they contain offensive words? Wouldn’t it be better to “edit” these words out of the text to make the works more acceptable? Why not simply remove the bad words and replace them with less offensive alternatives?
The problem with such a line of reasoning is that censorship and “judicious” editing know no bounds. Once we allow for the rewriting of classic texts, they will be butchered in multifarious ways so that they contain nothing that is deemed offensive to any faddish ideological perspective which happens to hold sway. Everything will be subject to the demands and commands of the Zeitgeist, removing the power of literature to act as a corrective to the spirit of the age, or at least a way of seeing any particular age from the perspective of that which transcends it.
Should anyone be naïve enough to believe that censorship would remain the exception and not become the rule, we need only see what’s happened with the use and abuse of laws designed to counter “hatred”. Such laws were introduced to counter racism but have since been used to counter those who speak publicly on matters of sexual morality. It is now illegal in some countries to teach that homosexual practices are immoral, punishable with imprisonment should anyone be reckless or courageous enough to defy the law. We can see where this is leading. Might the public discussion of life issues be banned on the grounds that arguments against abortion are offensive to those who have had an abortion?
In the midst of this confusion, there is a deep irony in the fact that the sexually promiscuous have become the new puritans. It is they who demand the censorship of texts. All must conform to their own particular and peculiar form of morality or else face being banned or banished. And yet this is not surprising because the new puritans share the same secular fundamentalist perspective as the communists and Nazis. The international socialists (communists) and the national socialists (Nazis) share more in common than their big government socialism. Both forms of secularism sought to control their people through censorship, propaganda, the butchering of the language and the intolerance of dissident opinion.
What the Nazis and communists have in common with the new generation of puritans is the overarching sin of Pride. As Chesterton reminds us, angels can fly because they take themselves lightly whereas the devil falls through the force of his own gravity. Those who spurn humility and follow the creeds of Pride take themselves far too seriously. Theirs is the only perspective permissible. Other perspectives are offensive and must not be tolerated.
Against such Pride, we can counter with the words attributed (erroneously) to Voltaire: “I may disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
In the final analysis, freedom is not possible without freedom of speech, and tolerance is not possible without the tolerance of texts with which we disapprove. The lack of such tolerance leads to the banning of books and the banning of people. Ultimately, so history proves, it leads to the burning of books and the mass execution of people.
