It has come to my attention that as of late, patrons of our local public library are complaining that the staff allows minors to check out “unacceptable” books from their shelves. Specifically, a high school senior checked out James Joyce’s Ulysses. The parents of this student found the novel to be distasteful and complained to the town council. Due to this absurd grievance, the council is removing all “inappropriate” books from the library. I hope the people of this town will realize the suppression of ideas going on here and speak out against it. Banning books happens every day in small towns across the country. It is a hobby of the feeble-minded. Books are banned by those who cannot accept even an IDEA contrary to their personal beliefs and by those who cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality. I BEG the people of America to drop their backward thinking and accept knowledge and deep, introspective thought into their lives rather than ban anything that skirts the fringes of discomfort.
Ulysses was written on Joyce’s love of the Grecian ballad “The Odyssey” (though he uses the Roman translation of the name Odysseus, Ulysses). Joyce calls Ulysses his favourite hero and the only all-rounded character in literature. Expanding on this thought, I would go as far to say that the Greeks as a people were as whole, perhaps the most wholly human of all societies. From them, humanity has gained invaluable knowledge medically, politically, and artistically. These categories are all descendants of Grecian thought, but for all the knowledge we have retained, we have salvaged very little wisdom. “The Odyssey” describes the long dangerous journey home of an all-rounded Greek hero after the fall of Troy. In fact, the title of this ballad as become synonymous with the description of any journey in literature, so famed is Homer’s work. One of the most notable elements of Homer’s epic is the dependency of events not only on the actions of warrior men, but women and serfs as well. James Joyce in Ulysses parallel’s Homer’s epic novel in many instances, references other major works as well and yet is its own work, ground-breaking in the literary world. This daunting new-age-epic of 265, 000 words (from a vocabulary of 30, 030) is highly regarded as the forefather of the modernist period and the first to effectively apply the “stream of consciousness” technique. It was ranked #1 on the Modern Library’s list of 100 Best English Language Novels of the 20th Century. It describes a man’s day-to-day journey through life in Dublin, Ireland with all its commonplace trials, tribulations, and troubles.
At this point, any sane person would ask, “Why is such a valuable piece of literature being banned?” To you, my sweet peers, I reply, HUMAN HONESTY. Joyce took Homer’s ballad and married it with honest, human stream-of-consciousness, which any HONEST human will recognize involves sexual innuendo, masturbation, and various other references to physical and sensual pleasures. However, the narrow-minded of our country would call these ideas “obscene” and suppress these very human characteristics in the masses. In America, we are granted in the bill of rights that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” which means that though Christianity is prevalent in our country, it is not recognized as a NATIONAL religion meaning just because Christians may suppress their humanity, they have no right to suppress it in others, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Constitutionally then, book-banning is illegal. However, there is an obscure law in Title 19 of the U.S. Code that has NOT been repealed, stating “any obscene book, pamphlet, paper, writing, advertisement, circular, print, picture, drawing, or other representation, figure, or image on or of paper of other material, or any cast, instrument, or other article which is obscene or immoral… shall be subject to seizure and forfeiture.” Under this “jurisdiction”, if it may be called such as unconstitutional as it is, between 1918 and 1930, Ulysses was banned by the United States and the Postal Service actually seized a significant number of copies. The legal definition of “obscene” is “indecency calculated to promote the violation of the law and the general corruption of morals.” Furthermore, “for something to be ‘obscene’ it must be shown that the average person, applying contemporary community standards and viewing the material as a whole would find 1) that the work appeals predominantly to a ‘prurient’ interest,” prurient meaning “an appeal to a morbid, degrading, and unhealthy interest in sex, as distinguished from a mere candid interest in sex.” I would like to pause on this and think on the vague contingencies of these definitions. Firstly, what defines an average person? What distinguishes “contemporary community standards”, and once defined what if these contemporary community standards are wrong? Furthermore, what is “wrong”? It is IMPOSSIBLE for a human to define right and wrong for another human being, and we push our authority to declare what is “right” and “wrong” for ourselves. Secondly, who and what define a DEGRADING and UNHEALTHY interest in sex? What is a “candid” interest in sex? For instance, some people consider the act of oral sex degrading and others embrace it as sensual. Technically, homosexuality is unhealthy due to the vast number of venereal diseases contracted by the homosexual population, but it is politically incorrect to shun homosexuals in today’s society, despite Christian attempts to smother the embers of the gay-pride fire.
In further expansion of my fervent belief in the wholeness of ancient Grecian society, they were open and embracing of all forms of sexuality, recognizing this as a natural human expression. Most Greeks were “bisexual”, but that term was for the most part irrelevant. Greeks viewed sexuality and sensuality not in male and female terms, but in dominant and submissive, active and passive. These were distinguished by the active role being associated with masculinity, higher social status, and adulthood while the passive role was communicated with femininity, lower social status, and youth. Homosexual love in men (and in a few cases women) was acceptable in the institution of pederasty. An older male, often married but always secure in his trade or occupation would take in a young boy as apprentice and lover. This was not viewed as pedophilia in Grecian society (and I am in no was advocating pedophilia in any form), but as a rite of passage. The older man was a teacher and this youth his student, master and apprentice, fulfilling the consecutive roles of active and passive. It was a deeply spiritual bond that helped the boy become a man. When he came of age, he took a wife and with that, the mantle of the dominant role over his submissive wife and eventually was expected to nurture a youth in the institution of pederasty. Adult homosexuality however was frowned upon as it upheaved the balance of passive and active and served no practicality as no children could be borne from homosexual relations, though there were a few documented relationships such as Alexander the Great and his childhood friend who grew into his lover.
Now that I have sufficiently gone off on a tangent, I beg your attention back to the definition of “obscene.” The next qualification that the “average person” must distinguish is that the work “2) depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way.” This BEGS the question what does the “average person” find offensive? Obviously, any small mention of sex could offend a fragile, feeble temperament, but it seems to me that the average American is no stranger to the easily accessible plethora of pornography on the internet. Finally, “3) that lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Now we are in a pickle my friends, for when the average person dictates what is art, the world is in collapse. I hope you, my readers realize that which is classified as “classical art” was all created by men (and women) who were by no means “average” (many of which had “unhealthy” interests in EVERYTHING, i.e. daVinci’s illegal exhumation of numerous corpses in the name of art and science).
In any case, in this instance, the rights being infringed upon are likely those of a minor. The constitution “applies to everyone”, regardless of age, colour, race, religion, or any other factor. However, public schools are granted the rights of in loco parentis which means that while a student is in school custody, the school can and “often should” act as a parent. According to law, minors are an exception to all rights, reasoning that until a child transcends into adulthood, that person cannot be responsible for their actions and thusly does not have rights or valid opinions. After many court cases however, the Supreme Court recognized the importance of the FREE FLOW OF IDEAS IN SCHOOLS, calling the classroom a ‘marketplace of ideas.’ I see no room for book-banning or violation of self-expressive freedoms.
In the instance at hand, a PUBLIC library is in question, NOT a public school library, so there is absolutely NO reason to remove/ban ANY books from the library, let alone a valuable literary work such as Ulysses. Furthermore, America should rethink their hypocrisy in preaching freedom of speech while suffocating TRULY free-thinkers under their “socially acceptable” pulpit.
