Banned Books Week Is Worth Thinking About [OPINION]

This week marks “Banned Books Week” and we should all think about what it directly and indirectly means for society.

The communists are great at using words like “freedom” and “equality” to dupe people into following a totalitarian movement that is the bloody opposite. The late British writer George Orwell wrote two important novels to explain to the world the truth about communist authoritarianism as he saw it. Orwell, a mild socialist, saw the communists up close when he was traveling the world and he saw the various fascist movements reacting to the communists. His books 1984 and Animal Farm have both been banned at various times around the world for the truth they tell.

I was blessed with having great literature teachers as a kid and I was assigned both of those books, along with others that had been banned in places like Russia, Cuba, and Iran.

The government in the United States doesn’t ban books, but our culture does and it does a better job than the government ever could. Once a book is banned by the government, it is instantly craved by the reading population of a nation. I have purposely bought books because they were informally but completely banned by the school library when I was a child and because one book was being considered to be banned when I was an adult.

There are calls to ban books by Mark Twain because the language is irritating to the folks today who can’t understand the era in which the book was written. There are books that are never discussed because the message is too much in contrast with the culture of most people assigning books to students. The works of Ayn Rand are completely ignored in the schools today because she advocates individualism.

Consider reading some of the banned books, but also reflect on the mentality of people who advocate the banning of books and personally execute their agenda in the classroom.

Chris McCarthy is the host of The Chris McCarthy Show on 1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon. Contact him at chris.mccarthy@townsquaremedia.com and follow him on Twitter @Chris_topher_Mc. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.