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Snippets

The article reported on the weightlifting prowess of women in their 60s, 70s, and even 80s. It concluded that the weightlifters showed that “age is nothing but a number.” Another cliché that is hooey. I have been four and now many multiples of that, and age has never been nothing but a number. I couldn’t drive when I was four and I have trouble cutting my toenails now. If anything, age has my number.

I have a friend whose memory is so good that he can remember sex.

I have thought it possible that Trump was a Russian asset, but now I have my doubts. I have wondered what Putin thinks about Trump proclaiming the United States won World War II, which Trump, disregarding the brutal killing that went on for months longer in the Pacific, maintains ended on May 8, 1945. Of course, one of the turning points of WWII, perhaps the turning point was Stalingrad. Trump should ask Putin how many Russians died during that war. And I am guessing that Trump never heard John and Paul’s song A Day in the Life with its line, “The English army had just won the war.”

Viewpoint is everything. What did one lab rat say to the other? “I’ve got my scientist so well trained that every time I push the buzzer, he brings me a snack.”

For the third straight year, Utah was named the nation’s top state, based on 71 metrics, including education, economy, and crime. The next four states were New Hampshire, Idaho, Minnesota, and Nebraska. The bottom five: Louisiana, Alaska, Mississippi, New Mexico, and West Virginia. I note that four of the bottom five are solidly red states.

I remember when conservatives railed against big government. However, our present administration is trying to take over Harvard. That sounds to me like big government. Where are those conservatives when you need ‘em?

How many Harvard graduates does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Just one. He grabs the bulb and waits for the world to revolve around him.

As a result of Defense Secretary’s war on DEI, West Point, according to a news article, is ordered “to remove any readings that focused on race, gender or the darker moments of American history.” The Defense Department told the Naval Academy to remove 381 books from the library. Hegseth’s order does not just prohibit the teaching of aspects of our history and society; it also commands that the service academies teach that “America and its founding documents remain the most powerful force for good in human history.” And I thought that Pete Hegseth thought of himself as a Christian.

A lot of people these days tell us that this country was founded on Christian principles or, sometimes, being more inclusive, Judeo-Christian principles. I assume that they do not know that North Carolina’s original constitution banned Jews from public office and that in other states only members of specified Protestant denominations could hold office.

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

How is “alack” different from “alas”?

The CVS anniversary card section had five “To My Wife” cards for every “To My Husband” ones. What does that signify?

Trump’s assault on diversity, equity, and inclusion seems to be based on the notion that whites have been discriminated against in hiring and that more whites should be hired in the future. To help accomplish this, grants and contracts have been suspended or canceled at universities and other institutions. In response, universities and other institutions have let people go or suspended hiring. In other words, the war on diversity, equity, and inclusion means that fewer people will have jobs, and therefore fewer whites will have jobs. Who thinks up these policies?

Is the arresting, non-human character in Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby van Pelt right? He says, “Humans. For the most part, you are dull and blundering. But occasionally, you can be remarkably bright creatures.”

I picked up Trillin on Texas at a flea market. The book depressed me a little. Calvin Trillin is the writer I would like to be and never will be. The stories are dated, but I still loved them.

I gave up on another of my purchases from the flea market, Amish Front Porch Stories. I take a certain perverse pride in being the only person I know who has read several Amish romances. Who knew they even existed? Nevertheless, I learned something about the Amish from them, but perhaps most amazing to me is that there are many Amish romances, and they have sold millions. However, they are written at a sixth-grade level, and this time with Stories, I could not get past that and set the book aside. We have a weekly Amish greenmarket in the country. I was going to give the Amish cashier Annie some of the Amish romances, but I learned that the Amish don’t read them. But if you want to read Amish Front Porch Stories, it’s all yours.

I don’t think our current president ever sang along on the car radio with Buddy Holly, the Rascals, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, the Stones, or any other performers from his youth. If so, isn’t that sad?

“In that moment, silently, we agreed that we were indeed in the presence of an exceptionally delusional white man—which is, of course, one of the most dangerous things in the world.” Mat Jonson, Pym.

Nearly 90% of American students attend public secondary schools. Only three of the present nine Supreme Court justices did. None of the justices attended a public college, university, or law school.

“Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.” George Bernard Shaw.

I am not proud that in scanning the obituaries I feel some satisfaction when I find that a vegan has died of cancer.

In a pseudonymous essay written as the American colonies moved towards independence, John Adams wrote that a republic is a “government of laws, not of men.” He was contrasting a system with a despotic emperor who is “bound by no law or limitation but his own will.” In contrast, Adams wrote, a republic “is bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making.”

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Hopes and Expectations—Judicial Edition

In my last post, I indicated that I had hopes for the courts to dampen the Trumpian madness, but my hopes are tempered by the understanding that the courts, including the Supreme Court, have only infrequently been a bulwark for freedom or civil liberties, especially in times of national crises.

Take the 1857 Dred Scott case.  In this critical period of American history, the Supreme Court held that Blacks could not become American citizens. It also held that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional because it violated the Fifth Amendment property rights of slave owners. The author of the opinion, Chief Justice Roger Taney, and other justices hoped that the decision would put to rest the country’s slavery problem. Instead, Dred Scott, which has been denounced for its racism, judicial activism, bad history, and awful legal reasoning, helped precipitate the Civil War. Many rank this as the worst decision in Supreme Court history, although its competitors are legion.

Consider “You can’t shout fire in a crowded theater.” This is often seen as a forceful defense of the First Amendment holding that the government can prohibit speech only when the words present a “clear and present danger.” However, in the 1919 case in which Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the memorable phrase (Schenck v. United States), the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the convictions and jail sentences of Schenck and others for distributing fliers advocating resistance to the World War I draft. In that case free speech took a back seat to wartime fears. Only fifty years later was Schenck overruled.

The Supreme Court in Korematsu v. United States (1944) upheld the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II, another decision that makes the list for most atrocious. Forty years later, Korematsu’s conviction was overturned because evidence had been suppressed. In fact, intelligence agencies had shown no evidence that Japanese Americans were acting as Japanese spies. Reparations were granted internees under the 1988 Civil Liberties Act. However, it took until 2018 before the Supreme Court indicated that Korematsu was no longer good law (Trump v. Hawaii). In 2023, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard definitively stated that the wartime decision had been overruled. But that case had other ramifications (see below).

Today’s times bear resemblances to what is often now called the McCarthy era, which actually began before Senator Joe McCarthy came to national prominence. During the initial stages of the destructive anti-communism movement, the Supreme Court had encouraged it by upholding convictions for membership in disfavored groups. Only after McCarthyism had been discredited, did the Supreme Court hold that people could not be imprisoned for beliefs but only for actions.

In short, the Supreme Court has an imperfect record at best for protecting freedoms, especially in the midst of crises. Even when we may think that the Court has protected us — and it has on occasion — it often has done so only after a crisis is over, and the protection matters little.

There are reasons to hope that this time the courts will be protective of the constitution and civil liberties. The current legal cases mostly remain in the lowest federal courts, and those courts seem to be performing well, seemingly attempting to come to grips with the many issues presented by the administration and holding back administrative actions that bend towards authoritarianism. There is hope, too, as cases move up to the Supreme Court. In one case that has already come before the Court, the justices refused to set aside a restraining order as Trump wanted. Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts joined the majority. Moreover, Roberts spoke out against the cries from Trump and Trumpistas for the impeachment of judges who have dared to cross the president. (Perhaps in spite of life tenure, some judges are intimidated by impeachment threats, and Roberts reassured such nervous Nelsons. But, since a removal from office requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate, which ain’t gonna happen, Roberts’s words can be seen as grandstanding.)

Nevertheless, there are reasons for Trump to see the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice as supportive of his agenda. So, for example, the attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts (DEI) together with the attempt to remove American racism from the national consciousness has its support in the case striking down affirmative action at Harvard. Notably, Chief Justice Roberts wrote the Court’s opinion in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023). Without that Supreme Court decision, we would not have the obsessive anti-DEI movement

Moreover, Roberts wrote the presidential immunity decision, which surely emboldens Trump. The Court has suggested that the president can fire anyone in the executive branch, which surely emboldens Trump. The Court has also taken steps and is expected to take more towards gutting the powers of independent agencies, which surely has emboldened Trump. Roberts wrote a decision that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, which emboldened conservatives to suppress voting. Roberts wrote a disturbing decision about partisan gerrymandering which acknowledged that partisan gerrymandering is really, really bad and a threat to democracy but that we shouldn’t expect the Court to offer a remedy. Just as that gerrymandering is beyond the Court’s authority according Roberts’s opinion, Trump contends that his actions affecting foreign affairs are beyond the Justices’ bailiwick.

I do have hopes that the courts will be a bulwark against the move to authoritarianism. But my hopes are tempered.

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Finally, They Give Us Their Meritocracy

I see it gushing down the street overflowing the curbs and flooding sidewalks and yards. I look out the back window and see it successfully paddling upstream. I look up and see it reflected in the clouds. It is less than a fortnight, but meritocracy is on the move. Of course, that had to be because Trump signed an executive order against DEI and the always-right conservatives have proclaimed that DEI—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (or DEIA, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility)—is the enemy of merit.

I, too, have been a critic of the term DEI. Like related concepts—affirmative action, political correctness, critical race theory, LGBTQ rights, and “feeling safe”– DEI gained traction in higher education before it did in the general population. I was not only in academics, I was also the chair of our faculty hiring committee for two decades. In that position, I heard often that we needed a “diverse” faculty. I bristled at such comments in a law school. I thought that a goal of a law school education was to teach precision in the use of language, but our use of the term “diversity” undercut this goal. We were not looking for faculty with differing political or religious views, or with different kinds of legal training, or even differing legal theories. Diversity did not mean diversity in general. It meant differing shades of skin color and perhaps different genitals or alternative sexual preference. A colleague hit the trifecta when he said that he hoped we would hire a black lesbian. “Diversity” was (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) a code word, and, while supporting many of the goals of this “diversity,” I was offended that we who taught law did not use well-defined words.

In his executive order of January 20, “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” Trump decided to deal a death blow to DEI. I was curious to see how he defined this identified enemy of meritocracy. The president did require “the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI . . . mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear.” (Putting on my retired lawyer’s hat, I might say that if “illegal DEI” programs are banned, that must mean there are legal DEI programs that are not banned. But I am pretty sure that is not what is meant.) All federal employment is covered, and while the executive order is not completely clear on this, a Fact Sheet issued two days later (“President Donald J. Trump Protects Civil Rights and Merit-Based Opportunity by Ending Illegal DEI”) makes clear that those in the private sphere that get federal money must also eliminate DEI. The Fact Sheet states that the executive order“terminates diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) discrimination in the federal workforce, and in federal contracting and spending.”

 However, neither the executive order nor its follow-up contained a precise definition of DEI. They did not contain a murky definition. They contained no definition at all.

Hints to the meaning are given. The order states: “Federal employment practices, including Federal employee performance reviews, shall reward individual initiative, skills, performance, and hard work and shall not under any circumstances consider DEI or DEIA factors, goals, policies, mandates, or requirements.” It does not state, however, what those DEI factors are. I take the statement as ordering the end of affirmative action, but then why make me guess? Call it what it is. Say something along the line of “there shall be no racial, ethnic, gender, or disability preferences in hiring and performance reviews.” Query: Many institutions, including the federal government, give hiring preferences to veterans. Those practices conflict with the soaring rhetoric of rewarding individual skills and hard work. Are veteran preferences now illegal? By offering no definitions, these executive orders give no guidance.

However, the target seems larger than affirmative action. The order eliminates not only DEI offices and positions but also “environmental justice” jobs. The order uses those quotation marks but again lacks a definition. I don’t know what “environmental justice” means, but I assume that it is something different from affirmative action. But what is it? One needs to guess whether a given position falls into the category. For example, the job is to find sites for the storage or disposal of waste, and you seek to find a dumping ground that is NOT in poor neighborhoods. Are you on the chopping block for seeking “environmental justice”?

The executive order also prohibits “DEI training.” What does this mean? I can guess, but I have to guess. That is part of the danger in the lack of a definition. If I, as a manager, want to stay out of trouble and there is a clear boundary line for the forbidden, I know what I can and can’t do. If the zoning law forbids the construction of buildings over sixty feet, I know precisely how high I can build, and I plan accordingly. If, however, the law prohibits building to an “unreasonable height,” how high can I build? Some will push the vague injunction and build too tall. Many others, however, fearful about having to tear a building down, will err on the low side. Lawful activity is deterred by vague laws.

Assume you run a company or a non-profit that receives federal funding. You believe your institution runs most efficiently, most profitably, when the workforce is trained in racial, ethnic, and gender sensitivity. Fewer workplace conflicts mean more efficiency. Can you continue such programs? You have been ordered to end all DEI policies and programs. You have been told to end all DEI training programs. Can you now include in the employment manual that employees cannot use derogatory terms about race or gender? Do you need to seek preapproval from some government bureaucrat? Who decides what is best for your business or organization, you or the government?

The vaguer the legal mandate, the more likely different people will interpret it differently. A vague legal prohibition leads to arbitrary enforcement, something, I would have thought, conservatives would not want. And arbitrary enforcement is always an invitation to corruption. Is that what conservatives want? Is that what Trump wants?

And I thought conservatives were against government interference and regulation. Silly me.

When Trump tells private institutions how they should operate in their own workplace, conservatism is being twisted out of shape. It is one thing for the federal government to set rules for itself. It is another when it issues edicts for corporations and non-profits. If a federal contractor or grantee is fulfilling its contract or grant, why should free-enterprise-loving conservatives tell a business how to train its employees? Why aren’t these considered intrusive regulations?

On the other hand, perhaps we just have to bend principles so that good ol’ meritocracy can keep on flowing along. Surely Trump and those immediately around him consider themselves the meritorious. In recent days we have been given a good look at their notion of meritocracy. These meritorious ones have already issued and rescinded a “pause” in the operations of government. Good work, guys. I guess “meritocracy” and amateur hour can go together, at least in certain government circles.

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Define It

This country’s stark divisions are exacerbated when we don’t share the meanings of words. Conversation is useless when you and I use the same terms, but they mean different things to each of us. For example, what does “merit” and “meritocracy” mean? I have looked up definitions, and they seem understandable, but those meanings have become vague and carry unshared connotations when applied. Conservatives want institutions peopled by those with merit. So do I. However, their current measure of merit for appointments in the current administration is suspect. So, e.g., you can be appointed to office only if you believe, or at least don’t question, that Trump won the 2020 election. For me a sign of merit for a government employee is the ability to recognize and expose falsehoods. For others, merit requires mouthing and spreading them. Trump often seems unique in his insistence on loyalty, but, unfortunately, this is not the case. We have had something like this before: If “inexperienced” or “lack of expertise” replaces or perhaps is added onto “stupidity,” what Michael Dobbs wrote about Nixon’s presidency in King Richard: Nixon and Watergate: An American Tragedy (2021) applies: “Stupidity was not necessarily a disqualification for high office if combined with unthinking fealty to the commander in chief.” And how did that turn out?

We can’t agree on “merit” in our jobs and institutions unless we agree on what it means to perform well. At a track meet, it is those who run the fastest. For a corporate executive, it means higher profits. But what, for example, makes a good police officer? The one who best knows the law? The one who can shoot most accurately? The one who can best talk to a mentally ill person who is potentially violent? One characteristic I believe a good officer should have is a lack of racism. How do you measure that in a hiring or promotion process?

There is yet another factor in espousing diversity, equity, and inclusion, the DEI that is such anathema to the Right. It is not just that police performance matters. There should also be public confidence in the police. However, when the police force does not look like the community it serves, the community can become suspicious of police goodwill, and respect for the rule of law can suffer. Thus, racial, ethnic, and gender diversity and inclusion in law enforcement furthers the public good. There can be merit in diversity.

Something similar can be said of the military. Just assume for a moment that all the officers were white, and all the enlisted personnel were Black. Morale among the troops would probably be lower than if the officer corps were more racially mixed. In other words, diversity among the ranks leads to greater camaraderie in the military and is a desirable national security goal.

Let’s stick with the military for a moment. Our new Secretary of Defense finds merit in and plans to stress lethality and a “warrior culture” in our armed services. (Hegseth seems to subscribe to what Bertolt Brecht wrote in The Caucasian Chalk Circle: “A good soldier has his heart and soul in it. When he receives an order, he gets a hard-on, and when he sends his lance into the enemy’s guts, he comes.” Is this also an explanation for why Hegseth does not want women in combat?) I am unaware that an improper regard for lethality and warrioring characterizes our current soldiers. Nevertheless, those slogans are misleading, and such merit has its limits. Even when there is a war, only a minority of soldiers are in combat. Moreover, today’s armed services do many things that require qualities different from those identified by the Defense Secretary. For example, Trump has sent soldiers to the border to assist in immigration control. It is my hope that lethality and a warrior culture are not the salient qualities for this assignment.

It is easy to agree that we want a meritocracy. It is another thing to define what that is or to recognize whether it exists. While it is clear that a band of conservatives feel that DEI is its enemy, they have not told us how they define meritocracy. It seems too often to require fealty to a person and to imply exclusion of those groups who have often been excluded in the past.

But perhaps more on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion another day.

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Meritocracy and Hypocrisy

It is not a new word, but the frequency of “meritocracy” coming from the mouths and pens of conservatives has made it a trendy one. The richest of them has made it a catchphrase. Elon Musk: “It’s not like America’s been purely a meritocracy, but it has been more of a meritocracy than any other place. Which I regard as good.” Musk again: “America rose to a greatness over the past 150 years because it was a meritocracy more than anywhere else on Earth. I will fight to my last drop of blood to ensure that it remains that land of freedom and opportunity.”

Musk, who is not averse to hyperbole (Isn’t your ability to fight gone long before your last drop of blood oozes onto the Tesla leather?), surprisingly qualified his meritocratic statement about America. He concedes that this country has not been a pure meritocracy, only that it has rewarded merit more than any other place.

The United States has always had limits on meritocracy. In the first place, let us not confuse merit with opportunity and advantage. The rich have always had more opportunities than others. (If you got it, you get it.) Those born into rich families have always had more opportunities. (It is easier to score if you are born on third base.)  And, of course, opportunities have always been limited in this country by race, ethnicity, religion, locality, gender, and other factors. Perhaps there has been a meritocracy in a certain pool of Americans, but that pool has been restricted. At times, it has not included Irish, Swedes, Italians, Hispanics, Asians, Catholics, Jews, women, and, of course, Blacks. Put another way, meritocracy has often been confined in this country to white male Protestants.

Even when attempts at expanding that pool have been made, they have often been circumscribed. In the 1940s, for example, some department stores started for the first time hiring Black women for sales, but there were quotas. An executive of Lord & Taylor, which was a pioneer in hiring Blacks, told The Afro-American: “It seems to me that it is only fair that the person with the best qualifications should be hired, regardless of color . . . with limitations of course. [Emphasis added] It is only natural that we don’t want to flood our place with colored people, even if they all had the best qualifications.” (Quoted from Julie Satow, When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion, 2024.)

A foundational American myth has been about meritocracy and the ability to get ahead through one’s own ability. As Dara Horn says in People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present (2021), the legend “is that it doesn’t matter who your parents are, or who their parents were, or where you came from—that what matters is what you do now with the opportunities this country presents to you, and this is what we call the American dream. The fact that this legend is largely untrue does not detract from its power; legends are not reports on reality but expressions of a culture’s value and aspirations.” How many qualified women for how many years were rejected by medical schools and law schools because, well, they were women?

In spite of our history of the limitations on opportunities, many conservatives are furthering the legend by pretending that our meritocracy has been undermined. And what has undermined it? DEI. Yep, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. As though seeking the meritorious from a diverse pool, or equalizing advantages and opportunities, or seeking to include an overlooked source of qualified people is the most egregious thing that a democratic country could do even though it would seem obvious that the larger the pool from which we seek to draw talent, the more likely we are to get the best.

Another enemy, they say, is “wokeness.” I guess it’s also egregious in a “meritocracy” to want to make sure that all types of people feel as though they are equal and welcome participants in the pool.

Let Elon Musk speak again, “DEI is just another word for racism. Shame on anyone who uses it.” To say that DEI is racist implies two things: 1) You don’t believe that the previously excluded races, ethnic groups, women, or religious groups require special attention in order to join the meritocracy pool, or 2) You think that anything that undermines the hegemony of white males is threatening.  Although the opposition to DEI may have many roots, most charitably it is based on the belief that diversity is the enemy of meritocracy. It assumes that the only way diversity is achieved is by allowing less qualified people of color or women (or other groups) to leapfrog over what are assumed to be more qualified white males. Even if that is sincerely believed, those with that belief should still want to expand the pool from which the meritorious are drawn. Doubt the sincerity of those who cry out for meritocracy unless they also seek broadly for the meritorious.

At another time, Musk maintained, “The point was not to replace DEI,…but rather to be a meritocratic society.” How are you to have a meritocracy if you do not actively encourage participation by all?

Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, says Trump has told him to “clean house of the woke crap. All that stuff. Climate stuff, the (Critical Race Theory), the DEI and genderism. Get rid of it.” Not clear how “Climate stuff” got in there, but it’s clear that Trump and his cohort are fed up with trying to break down the barriers that have prevented a true meritocracy to emerge.

A familiar pattern: If something goes wrong, and if anyone other than a white male is in charge, the pejorative cry of “diversity” is uttered again and again. The mayor of Los Angeles is a Black woman, and something definitely went wrong in Los Angeles recently. However, she did not attain her position as part of a DEI movement. She was not appointed by some person who thought it would be politically correct to have a black person (and woman as mayor. No. She was picked by the electorate, just as Trump was. But still conservatives talk about her as if she were part of a DEI or woke movement.

 If a white male had been in charge, his competence might be questioned, but we don’t point to the “old boys” network that might have put him there in the first place. And we only blame DEI if a non-conservative has done the appointment or hiring of a non-white male. If Pam Bondi turns out to be a less than a stellar attorney general, diversity will not be blamed. After all, a conservative president nominated her. (Fox News presents a lot of women as hosts and commentators. Aren’t they a product of diversity?)

The anti-diversity group, however, may proclaim that the country has been successful in the expansion of the meritocratic pool and that, sadly, the pool has been exhausted. Is that why they are advocating for the expansion of H-1b visas? It is certainly the case that having more of those visas is good for businesses of rich conservatives. Among other things, they can pay those workers less. However, if the barriers to success were truly overcome in the U.S., would we need to import workers from out of the country? Shouldn’t Making America Great Again mean making sure that all Americans in fact have the opportunity to attain merit? (Not all conservatives agree that we should expand the availability of H-1b. Laura Loomer, an ardent supporter of Trump, has said, “Our country was built by white Europeans, actually. Not third world invaders from India.”*)

There are things wrong with DEI and wokeness. It is fair to criticize these movements and policies, but a meritocratic society needs more than such criticisms. It requires plans and action to expand the pool from which we seek the meritorious. I have not seen that from conservatives, and without such expansion, it sure looks as if they want to see again a future dominated by white males.

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Education and Tolerance and Discernment

“The highest result of education is tolerance.” Helen Keller.

“Education, properly understood, is that which teaches discernment.” Joseph Roux

Those accused of book bannings are often vilified, but maybe they just have bad public relations. Book banners often say that they are not banning books but only restricting them to appropriate ages. That seems noncontroversial. We can all agree that A Brief History of Time is not appropriate for second graders, at least not any I have ever known. But the parents searching bookshelves are not concerned with the difficulty of the text. Instead, no matter the ease of the prose, they seek to remove books that present certain ideas, observations, opinions, facts, or concepts. This, too, might be something all can agree upon or at least discuss. All topics are not appropriate for all ages. Perhaps we are only differing on the details: When is the suitable time to introduce certain ideas, observations, opinions, facts, and concepts?

However, that is not really what is going on. Those yanking books off shelves only remove books containing certain subjects — ones with ideas, observations, opinions, facts, and concepts that they do not agree with. These books primarily address nonheterosexual relationships and race. Apparently the subject matter touching on these issues is inappropriate no matter what the age of the student. Certain advanced placement courses in high school have been banned even though students taking such courses are mature enough to seek college credit. Indeed, some states have even limited the presentation of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) topics to college students. While these students are assumed to be fully adult, they are, apparently, not mature enough for such topics. Indeed, some states have gone even further and seek to limit these concepts being presented by corporations to their employees.

Even so, I may have something in common with those seeking to hide books. By their actions the censors indicate a belief in the power and significance of books. Why restrict access to a book if you don’t believe it can affect ideas and behavior, thoughts and actions? As an avid reader, I, too, want to believe in the importance and power of books.

But I suspect that the book restrictors act not just with a concern that students will learn “too early” about same sex couples, our history of slavery and continuing racial oppression. The book removers act out of a rigid worldview. There is right, and there is wrong. There is morality, and there is immorality. There is good, and there is evil. There is male, and there is female. The censors fear books because they can cause readers to question such inflexible categories. The censors do not want readers to conclude that the world is nuanced and complex.

This has made me think about Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi. This best seller, published in 2003, is about the author’s experiences during the Iranian revolution of 1979 and its aftermath. The book is interlaced with stories from a book group of seven women reading banned Western literary works led by Professor Nafisi.

Although she writes about works of fiction, what she says often applies to works of history and children’s books. Nafisi says about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, “You don’t read Gatsby to learn whether adultery is good or bad but to learn about how complicated issues such as adultery and fidelity and marriage are. A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and evil.” This, of course, is what some don’t want. Their rigid categories of right and wrong should not be questioned.

Perhaps most worrying for the censors is that books might lead to a sympathy and understanding of those whom the book removers despise and fear. Nafisi writes, “The respect for others, empathy, . . .is the quality that links Austen to Flaubert and James to Nabakov and Bellow.” Children with empathy are a threat. They may reject the rigidity of self-righteous adults. Nafisi writes, “This, I believe, is how the villain in modern fiction is born: a creature without compassion, without empathy.” Elsewhere she says, “Evil in Austen, as in most great fiction, lies in the inability to ‘see’ others, hence to empathize with them.”

The censors wish to stifle the natural curiosity of children, afraid of the possible empathetic results that could lead to questioning the censors’ moral authority. But, as Nafisi says in Reading Lolita, “Humbert [Humbert] was a villain because he lacked curiosity about other people and their lives, even about the person he loved most, Lolita. Humbert, like most dictators, was interested only in his own vision of other people.”

It is not really the specifics of the books that animates the censors’ actions. Instead, their fundamental concern is to prevent challenges to their rigid, authoritarian world view.