The American Library Association has designated the last full week of September as Banned Books Week for the past 35 years. This is when when libraries celebrate the right to freedom of the press by highlighting books that have been challenged, banned, or burned around the world.
Books that have been banned ironically include *Fahrenheit 451," an anti-censorship and anti-authoritarian novel if ever there was one. Ernest Hemingway has had several books banned over the years, and along with the likes of Sinclair Lewis and Jack London, was censored in Nazi Germany. Louisa May Alcott's Little Women was deemed "too feminist" when it was first published, yet has more recently been accused of being "too traditionalist." Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn has recently been attacked for using "the n-word" despite its portrayal of Jim the runaway slave as a noble character, but the book has never been a stranger to conflict judging by this New York Times letter from 1902.
Along with works of classic literature that helped advance the art form and explore new ideas, many of the "challenged" books are arguably of little literary merit. However, censorship efforts demonstrate the Streisand Effect perfectly. Literature with little merit usually causes a stir upon release, especially if it is scandalous or otherwise provocative, but it usually is just a flash in the pan. Public interest vanishes quickly, and people forget about it. However, if some censorship-minded individual gets their knickers in a twist and tries to ban something, it brings the item to the front of public consciousness every September.
Serves you right, you busybody control freak, even if it means annually advertising Twilight. I can handle that burden more readily than I can handle your Puritanical power trip.
Even if "objectionable" books don't peacefully fade into obscurity, it's absurd to demand control over what other people are allowed to read. To claim such authority is to claim ownership over others, and there is no virtue in attempting to usurp another person's mind. Such authoritarianism is far more dangerous than any trashy novel, scandalous essay, or provocative character.
