Defeat of book ban a ‘fragile’ victory

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/06/2023 (568 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There is cause for celebration by Brandonites who put a stop to a malignant, ill-informed effort to ban books written to educate students on sexuality and gender identity.

However, as Deveryn Ross suggests, it is naive to believe that the issue of banning these books has been laid to rest.

As a society we are distancing ourselves from defining or accepting universal morals. Morals such as love, respect, generosity begin to have no universal standing and universal application amongst a significant portion of our society. In the name of ‘liberty’, ‘freedom’, we feel free to chose and define the morals which will guide our behaviour and define the boundaries of these morals.

Boundaries such as gender identity, race, colour, creed, language, friend, community, group. Anyone outside of those boundaries, it is rationalized, can be and should be shunned, excluded, even vilified.

Defining morals and defining and setting their respective boundaries is not accidental. We learn them. We learn them from parents, family, friends, peers, teachers, pastors, politicians in institutionalized forms including family, schools, churches, political parties, organizations of any and all descriptions and purposes. We learn them through our experiences, our exposure to the thoughts and experiences of others.

Our respective morals and boundaries may become concretized, static, uncompromising. We then close ourselves to any thought, idea, person which challenges our morals and moral boundaries. We then restrict ourselves to associating with those who have similar beliefs, to exposing ourselves to thoughts, ideas which confirm and conform to our beliefs.

At worst, we become programmed to believe, accept, and promote falsehoods which support our beliefs and be motivated to convince others of the rightness, righteousness of our beliefs. We become programmed to close our minds to and our association with any ideas, thoughts, experiences, and persons which do not conform to our moral standards.

To do otherwise is to jeopardize our sense of identity, the validity of one’s beliefs and to fear what is not understood or different or challenges our being. Which makes it unlikely that evidence (studies, research, personal accounts) which refutes and falsifies one’s claims can form the basis for challenging, changing one’s beliefs.

Other societal members, as a product of the process of learning, internalize the universal morals, principles such as love, respect, responsibility, generosity. They are open, receptive, attentive, responsive to the needs, thoughts, ideas, beliefs of others. The changes in thought, perspective, beliefs that they undergo and undertake are accepted on the basis of their evidentiary, logical, truthful consistency and harmony with universal morals and principles. In the absence of knowledge, of knowing and in being fearful of change, they turn to seeking, learning, experiencing.

These two groups were in evidence at the school board meeting discussing book bans. Also in evidence was the impossibility of these two groups finding common ground, understanding. Their respective moral understandings are not arguable, certainly from the perspective of a group that is rigid, firm in their beliefs. There is no common foundation for discussion.

One group resorts to falsehoods, misunderstandings, ignorance, fear to substantiate their position. The other uses their and that of others, evidence, experience, to inform their position.

Also evidenced at the meeting, resolution was based on arithmetic. In attendance at the meeting, one group had more followers, believers than the other.

No matter how grateful, optimistic we are for this ‘win’, it is a small ‘win’, if we can call it that. It is not likely that the persons who support the book ban were convinced to change their mind. They were out-numbered. A very fragile and temporary victory which will have to be repeated again and again, until …

ROSEMARIE AND CHESTER LETKEMAN

Brandon