I had never paid much attention to the roles literature could play in the public sphere until I realized that it has the potential to challenge the status quo. Is it not this subversive potential why many literary works have been banned?
Some examples of literary works that were banned for this reason:
- Brave New World was banned for its comments against religion and traditional family in Ireland.
- Animal Farm was banned in the USSR, and is still banned in Cuba and North Korea, for its satire of the communist brutalities. It is also banned in Kenya for its criticism of corruption and in the United Arabic Emirates for its depiction of talking pigs, which is considered contra-Islamic values.
- Alice in Wonderland was banned in China for portraying animals as if they were human beings.
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn had been originally banned for showing too great a friendship between a white boy and a slave in the United States.
The banning of literary works is no feature of our modern age. Plato had for example already banned poets in his Republic.
Banning poetry in Plato’s ideal state
In Plato’s Republic, poets were dismissed for arousing thoughtless emotions that cloud the citizens’ judgments. According to Plato, poets did merely interpret and represent things of this world and not the Forms (or ideas) that make up the most fundamental or essential kind of reality. In Plato’s eyes, the world exists of an ‘eternal world’ and a ‘material world’. The ‘eternal world’ is the realm of ideals and perfect forms. It possesses all objects of knowledge and is more real than the material world. The ‘material world’, on the other hand, is a reflection of the eternal world. They are the shadows in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”.
In case you are unfamiliar with Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, you should watch this small introductory video. It is Plato’s most famous philosophical idea.
In short, Plato believed that poets did not represent reality and with their words and phrases they could corrupt the youth and incite passions instead of the faculties of reason. Hence they should not be permitted into the polis (city) as they could not speak philosophically.
Is Plato right in this regard, and should we ban poets if they do not represent reality or truths as it is? I think Plato is unjustly dismissing the social value of poetry (and other literary works).
Literature incites public imagination
A feature of literary works is that they have a great capacity to give pleasure while being morally critical. They can portray social agents and their emotional and practical relations to the problems of their world better than non-fiction. They give color to reason and portray human beings within lively human settings – something that cold science cannot do. The most important attribute of literature is that it allows fictional characters that resemble us to approach social choices with imagination.
Literature is therefore subversive
Reading into fictional lives will lead us to wonder. It sparks our imagination of political possibilities, and it could eventually disrupt the status quo and improve the human condition.
Another insightful and intelligent post. I love the articles you have put out on Steemit so far. You have found one more follower in me.
Thank you very much for your sweet words, @nicku! I appreciate it. :)
I totally agree with nicku. Great job again, Chhaylin
People ban influences they don't like, like how Christian parents did with metal, rock and roll, etc. Literature has always fallen in the same traps, don't read Camus or Sartre because they're communist, you can't read Machiavelli because he's a pragmatist and that's evil, you can't read Nietzsche because it's just the raving of a man with syphilis, don't you dare read Ovid because he is a lecherous traitor to our glorious Augustus and defiles the sanctity of love, and so forth until most great authors are on the list.
Censorship is what everyone in power wants. It has something to do with the subversive power of literature, but also if a work doesn't fall in line with the contemporary thinking, even in terms of something as straight forward as Sidereus Nuncius, those on top will try their hardest to eradicate and suppress it, but rarely with lasting success. Great books are humanity's property, and can never really be withheld from us. They will find their way to our eyes.
Good post, it brings up some of the most important questions of writing.
:) I love our comment and totally agree. Thank you for taking your time to write such a nice comment.
I myself am not for banning anyone's creation, but I usually check out what it's about before I subject myself to someone else's weirdness or perversity, some is worth checking out, others frightful or aweful, but how would you learn anything if all the transformational stuff is stolen away from you?
Hi, @funkywanderer :). That's an important attitude we all should have.
Wonderful post!
I feel that literature is one of the most powerful weapons that we have, and I love sharing powerful literature that has helped shape me, like the works ofRobert A. Heinlein, Michael Moorcock and Ursula K. Le Guin.
I've been working with the idea of #solutionsoriented literature for some time, trying to spread that phrase to people. Right now, I'm almost done re-writing, and markdown formatting, the introduction/proposal for a big project based around this idea. Give me a follow or just keep your eye on the newly-posted "writing" content, I'll probably be publishing it tomorrow, I'd love your feedback and/or involvement :-)
Hi, @kennyskitchen. I look forward to read your article. I will follow you. And thank you for calling my post wonderful! :)
Hi @chhaylin, just wanted to let you know that I posted the first article about my project :-) Would love input, and it's got a contest involved!
I have been well invigorated by this exceptionally well written piece. Thank you @chhlayin!
Thank you for your kind words @robert.stone! You may be interested in my past (and future) articles as well if you like philosophical topics. :)
Good post!
They were subversive before TV came, IMHO
Thank you, @andrew0!
Please join the Steemit book club. It can be found here: #bookclub
Hi @capitalism, thank you for the invitation! I will join :) and I am following you now.
Awesome idea
Thanks for sharing your observations in a concise and powerful manner. Literature is a powerful ways for individuals to share thoughts and ideas, especially when the the ideas may not be the accepted thought of the time.
Thank you for your nice comment clilliston. :) It makes me happy to read that you like my post. Your comment means a lot to me.
Mind-blowing post. I talked about the importance of reading before: https://steemit.com/steemit/@corina/the-magic-you-re-missing-out-on , although with a much more basic idea in mind. Your article is pretty thought-provoking so thank you for sharing.
That's very kind of you! I just went to your article and left a comment. :)
Nice posting, but I will read your posting later, I have to go out, any way keep going on ;)
I hope you have been able to read it by now. If you have any comments, they are welcome. :D And thank you very much for your nice comment, @happyphoenix!
Very informative. One new follower here.
Yay! Am very happy that you have started to follow me. I'll do my best to write more high quality content. :)
Yep, it will subvert mainstream thought every time. When I was seven (1978) our tv gave a puff of smoke and quit, we didn't have another until I was in tenth grade. Over that time I read more than two thousand books. I'd go to the library every two weeks and check out my limit of eight and usually be looking for something else to read by middle of the second week.
I blame that period for my never adopting hero worship, or being a pop culture maven. I like what I like, because it speaks to me, I think literature taught me that. Nice post! Thanks!
Wow, @markrmorrisjr! two thousand books?! That's impressive. I have found that television is not a very good way to develop your imagination and critical thinking. It's too one-sided, whereas books allow you to swallow the information slowly to ingest the information properly.
Well, I was a kid, had to have something to do and the internet didn't go public for another 20 years!
Hi @chhaylin, I wholeheartedly agree. Have you noticed that if you actually turn off the TV and the internet, you go away and read literature or books more often? Sparking the imagination of the future political possibilities is absolutely necessary to be able to incite love for other human beings. From my understanding, the political layer is a construct that is reactionary to the underlying moral, philosophical, emotional and actual base layers of any human society. If the base layers are messed up, with less free thought, less critical thinking, then naturally the political layers themselves evolve to become more violent, centralized, authoritarian and volatile...If you read some of the works by Nassim Taleb and his ideas of anti-fragile, these are important for humans to start building the base for the next evolutions of civilization. There is actually a battle raging, and it is very deep to find it. That is centralization vs. decentralization. More poets, literature writers and critics could explore this battle. It has taken me 4 years of research nearly everyday to uncover a lot of this. The battle isn't even a physical battle anymore, it is a battle to occupy the thoughts of the human mind so that people start to believe in their conscious levels that their free will is actually influenced and controled to a certain extent. Only with the decentralized internet and uncensored comments do we start to realize this. Allegory of the cave is actually very important, because Plato understood that he couldn't explain everything, and 2000 years later we still can't but at least he could express it in the context of the material world being a sub-set reflection of the perfect external world.
Wow! That's some deep thoughts you have put out, @lpninja. I entirely agree with you that in order to incite love for our fellow human beings we need imagination. You have explained very well, what I think as well. I would be very interested to read an article you could put out on the centralization vs. decentralization battle. :)
Hi @chhaylin, Thanks! Yes that one is still getting refined and I haven't written it yet. I am so happy to find steemit, because it is a game changer in this scenario.
Creativity and endeavor is always seen as a threat... and is a "vital point" in life. Just as nature constantly creates and renews, so must our views and it is no one's priviledge to ban something that adds to the benefit and experience of others.
:) I love your comment!
Truth is so interesting, it amazes me that few seek it's pleasures.... thanks, I upvoted.
"The value of reading Literature",
It's true, reading is one of my favorite things to do with Literature
Very..very good ;)
Thank you @foxkoit :)
Maybe you should also mention,
that since George Orwells 1984 is becoming popular in Egypt,
the military-based government has arrested some people for reading that book!
Here is a little article linked: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/10/egyptian-student-arrested-1984-orwell
Hi, @maxfuchs! Very interesting article. I cannot edit my post anymore, otherwise I would have added it. Thank you for sharing :)
Wow what have this world come to. Our first amendment rights are gone.
https://steemit.com/art/@romanskv/4dn758-hi-steemit-i-present-to-you-my-outsider-works
Interesting take. But it can also be challenged that such books as animal farm and Brave New World were banned because it challenged the morality of certain institutional and political figures actions. Moreover you will notice I am sure that Thoreau's Walden was not banned from France or Britain during the eighteenth century and it is pretty much a work that advocates the individual to stand up for their rights and seeks to undermine totalitarianism.
Thank you, @a11at :)