New examples of what I talk about in this ramble have popped up since I recorded it. When you read about them, think about the behind-the-scenes picture I talk about here.

Link to the ALA's Freedom to Read statement, mentioned in the ramble: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/freedomreadstatement

Transcript below.

Hi, all. Welcome to this episode of The Jaguar’s Heart.

Today, I’m here to stand for Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catch in the Rye… and Dr. Seuss. Because every author—and every person—should be against the burning of books.

I feel it would be a good idea to start this one out by meeting on common ground. Something I think we can all safely agree on is that monopolies are bad. Yes, even capitalists can agree on that one. As Hayek said, “Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on the fact that, if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another. But if we face a monopolist we are at his mercy.”

Many of you know where I’m going with this, because you’ve been with me long enough to hear me talk about the dangers of Amazon’s control of the book market. I’m not sure about the numbers being bandied about right now because I think they’re inclusive only of publishers’ catalogs/Bookscan results, which would leave out Amazon’s imprints and indie sales. But the current statistic is that Amazon sells 50% of all print books in the US, and around 73% of the ebooks…

Books that Amazon disappears, then, are torched.

The argument most likely to come up when I say that is “but you can still buy them at other retailers,” which takes the point of view of the consumer (and misses the basic economic argument that the more friction you insert into the sales process, the more likely you are to lose the sale). But let’s accept that Amazon refusing to sell a book does not remove it from sale from the consumer viewpoint. Instead, let’s talk about what that removal does from the publisher’s perspective. If half to three quarters of your sales are coming from a single platform, and that platform bans your book, then your income for that title has cratered. For the publisher who paid for that book’s publication, your investment is toast.

Imagine yourself in the shoes of that publisher who has just lost their investment. What do you think you’re going to do in the future when someone proposes a book you think might run afoul of Amazon’s guidelines?

The most powerful—and frightening—effect of Amazon failing to carry a book doesn’t start—or end—with the consumer’s ability to purchase that title. It’s what happens during the processes you don’t see, the ones where people decide which books are published at all, that matters. To rustle up another quote from a smarter person than me, from 1945: “If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. […] The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary.”

George Orwell. Unavoidably.

...and now maybe you see where I’m going with Dr. Seuss, and the estate’s pre-emptive self-banning of titles, not for economic reasons, but because of public opinion. The prevailing argument is that “publishers decide not to publish books all the time!” and that this is not an example of cancel culture. But if you’re looking with me at the bigger picture, you’ll see this is a symptom of the disease Orwell identified over 75 years ago… where the censorship begins before the books even reach the consumer. If the Seuss estate had made this decision for some other reason, they wouldn’t have announced it so conspicuously, and at a time when other books are being taken down from retailers because of loud minority opinions. The estate wouldn’t have chosen books mentioned in an academic paper from two years ago (written, I might add, by two people involved in an organization that pushes neoracist children’s books; one would think conflict of interest should have invalidated the results).

But if that’s not sufficient proof that this is a symptom and not a single publisher’s enlightened choice, then I will point out that eBay almost immediately stopped allowing auctions of those “no longer published” books because they violated eBay’s “offensive material policy: listings that promote or glorify hatred, violence, or discrimination.” If this isn’t about cancellation, then the publisher’s choice should not have been reflected, immediately, by a completely different retailer… which isn’t even applying its own standards consistently, because it leaves up auctions of Mein Kampf and other offensive items.

It doesn’t stop there, either. Libraries are now having fights about whether they should keep these books on the shelves. Some number are standing by the American Library Association’s Freedom to Read statement, which is a powerful one, and I recommend reading it. Others—more than I wish—are removing those books from circulation.

Strange how all these “separate” entities are making the same choice, at the same time, about the same books.

If this were the only example… but it’s not. Josh Hawley’s publisher canceling his contract is another symptom of Orwell’s voluntary censorship. A much smaller conservative publisher picked the book up, but it remains to be seen if retailers will carry it. Books written by sexual behavior researchers like Dr. Soh keep vanishing from major retailers: Amazon, Target, Walmart. On Amazon you can buy a “social justice planner” that says ‘screw TERFs’ (except in stronger language), and of course, the hit song in the US is about the sexual exploitation of men, also using language I won’t repeat. To say these rules are asymmetrical in their application is an understatement.

Completely aside from the fact that a free society should not ban books, and that bad ideas should be fought with good ideas, not censorship, there are other reasons not to ban books. To return to Dr. Seuss, one of the titles being ‘de-listed’ (and now being culled from retailers, many libraries, and resale sites) was the first he published. Historians and scholars of children’s books will no longer have ready access to that title in order to study and put into context the books important to the 20th century… and you can’t talk about children’s books without addressing the influence of Dr. Seuss. Over 600 million copies of his books are in circulation, and he’s had multiple movies and TV specials, and has been translated into over 20 languages… it’s impossible. People will be standing on the shoulders of this giant for generations.

So that’s a scholarly reason. Another reason not to ban books is because without access to books from earlier periods in history we can’t understand the cultural context of the eras in which they were published. It’s a bizarre new trend, one I can only attribute to how poorly modern generations are educated, to assume that the past should be judged as if the people in it adhered to the standards of the present, a view that robs the past of its context, its lessons, and its alienness. Every period in history is defined by its particular perspective, and without primary sources, any conclusions you draw about it and its people are flawed.

Without that context, you can’t properly understand your own period in history, either: not the warnings and mistakes, nor the changes, or the progress. How can you see how far you’ve come if you’ve deleted all references to where you were? The extent to which we are doomed to repeat the past is linked to our decision to erase the evidence… so strongly that I have to wonder if that’s not the point. If what we really want is to recreate the atrocities of the past for those who believe they might reap the benefits, and escape the consequences. I have sad news for those people: they will be the first against the wall. They always are.

Book burning, then, isn’t always literal. And it’s never something to be proud of. People who insist that what we’re seeing is the march of history toward enlightenment are failing to notice the more sinister things going on in the backdrop. To return to older and wiser voices, I bring you this quote from a classic written in 1953: “It didn’t come from the government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God.”

What else? Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451.

Anyway, that’s all I got. Thanks for listening to this rebel heart. Jaguar out.