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I have always been fascinated by the many ways that literature influences our lives, but, as a literary scholar, I also know that influence is a very hard thing to prove. Thats why I find censorship to be interesting. When people censor a book, they do so because they assume that it can have an impact, albeit a negative one. Censorship thus works as a kind of indirect compliment. Generally, authors would rather be censored than ignored.

Ben Click, my friend, colleague, and department chair, recently talked about Huckleberry Finns censorship history in a public lecture sponsored by our college library during Banned Book Week. That history, Ben reveals, has turned 180 degrees. When it first appeared, the novel was attacked by moralists and southern racists. Now it is sometimes accused of being racist itself. (I recently defended Twain against charges of racism here). That being said, Ben points out that some of our greatest African American writers have defended it, including Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, and, more recently, Toni Morrison. Here is Bens talk.

By Ben Click, Professor of English, St. Marys College of Maryland

I will start by explaining some terms that relate to the purpose and spirit of this evenings talk. Theres a difference between the banning, challenging, and censuring of anything: a movie, a speech, a book. Books may be challenged for inclusion in a library or in a school curriculum, and often challenges yield productive discussions. But banning a book never did anyone much good, and censuring one is just playing with toys that aint yours.

Ben Click

Welcome to Hushing Huck: The Banning of Huckleberry Finn. Of course, I am now leaning more favorably to the title that this years Twain Fellow, English major Alyssa Miller, suggested: Shut the Huck Up: The Banning of Huckleberry Finn. In a way, the two titles offer us an interesting rubric for how the book has been received and thus banned. Hushing reflects the early genteel considerations for why the book needed to be banned. In short, the genteel critique was that the book promoted bad morals and course behavior for young people. Shut the Huck Up seems more like the modern reason for banning the book, with the titular joke residing in the one word: Huck for F*** Theres one particular word that appears 200 times in the novel that fuels the ire of parents, preachers, and critics who claim the book is racistit even riles the ire of those who havent read it! But more about that in a bit.

Few books have felt the highs and lows of critical response like those of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. When a library bans a book, it has labels explaining why: too political too much sex irreligious, or the category that Huck falls under, socially offensive. Thus, it seems a great irony that a Mark Twain quote graces the opening page of all 344 volumes of the Dictionary of Literary Biography: almost the most prodigious asset of a country, and perhaps its most precious possession is its narrative literary product when that product is fine and noble and enduring.

The irony is that, within the literary canon, Twains novel is universally considered just thatfine and noble, and enduringand yet it is also one of the most banned books of all time. Currently, it ranks #14 in the Top 100 Banned or Challenged Books of the last decade. In the decade preceding that it ranked #5. Still, the novel continues to be read by millions everywhere.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been translated into over 53 languages. It has never gone out of print since it was first published in 1885, and it has sold over 20 million copies. In the U.S. alone, there are well over 100 different editions of the book, and a staggering 700 plus in foreign editions. It is celebrating its 125th year anniversary in the same year that we commemorate the 100th anniversary of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twains) passing.

In 1935, Ernest Hemingway claimed that all American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. Its been called our countrys great epic, as Homers was Greeces. British playwright George Bernard Shaw said he learned from Huck Finn that the funniest joke in the world was just telling the truth. It was the book Mark Twain himself considered his best, and it is the book that our college chose for summer reading for our first-year students. Copies of the book have shown up in the most amazing places: Bismarcks writing desk, the private parlor of the President of Chile, in the Czarinas boudoir. It has been converted to just about every form you can imagine: film several times, book adaptations, musical scores, comics, and a hit Broadway production. It is an amazing literary achievement.

It has also been banned ever since it was first published.

Trouble from the Start

In 1876 Twain published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and it was a huge success. He wanted to follow up with a sequel, but it took him over eight years to write and publish Huck Finn. During that time he published three other classics: The Prince and the Pauper, A Tramp Abroad, and Life on the Mississippi. Three main issues plagued the books pre and early release: an obscene engraving, an unfortunate lawsuit, and the Concord Public Library ban.

An Obscene Engraving

One of the 174 woodcut illustrations had been altered and included in the subscription salesmens prospectuses. The New York World published this embarrassment and the story was circulated widely. Heres the original, altered woodcut, and the corrected version next to it:

Heres how the paper described it: A mere stroke of the awl would suffice to give the cut an indecent character never intended by the author or engraver . . . a characteristic which would be repudiated not only by the author, but by all respectable people of the country into whose hands this volume should fall.

The Estes and Lauriat lawsuit

Even before the book was distributed to subscription book agents, the Boston bookseller, Estes and Lauriat, published a catalog that listed the books price below that of the subscription rate that Twains publisher would ask. Twain sued the bookseller, and the story was widely published. In short, although in the right, the lawsuit made Twain look greedy.

The Concord Public Library ban

In mid-March, the Concord Public Library Committee decided unanimously to ban the book, calling it flippant, irreverent, and trashy. One member of the committee said, It deals with a series of adventures of a very low grade of morality; it is couched in the language of a rough, ignorant dialect. . . . The whole book is of a class that is more profitable for the slums than it is for respectable people, and it is trash of the veriest sort.

Even Little Women author Louisa May Alcott lashed out publicly at Twain, saying, If Mr. Clemens cannot think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses he had best stop writing for them.Twain was initially unruffled by the controversy, writing to his publisher: They have expelled Huck from their library as trash & only suitable for the slums. That will sell 25,000 copies for us, sure.

The story got lots of press, and some papers, like the San Francisco Chronicle, defended the book. Twain wrote to his sister Pamela, who was living in California at the time (she probably sent him the Chronicle article), The Chronicle understands the bookthose idiots in Concord are not a court of last resort, & I am not disturbed by their moral gymnastics.

Eventually, however, he became disturbed by the charge of immorality, and in his lecture tour of 1885-86 he laid out the novels central conflict: in a crucial moral emergency a sound heart is a safer guide than an ill-trained conscience. However, within six years of its publication, the book left its detractors behind. Critics such as Brander Matthews called it a great book. Critic Andrew Lang called it nothing less than a masterpiece. The British journal Punch referred to it as a Homeric bookas no other English book is.

The Banning Continues: From questionable morals to racist trash

Despite its critical recognition, the novel was still challenged and banned locally by library boards and religious organizations because of its irreverence, its inappropriateness for children, and its questionable morality. This appeared to be the reason that, in 1902, the Denver Public Library excluded the book from its approved list of books for boys.

But Twain saw things differently. The reason appeared political rather than moral, stemming from Twains scathing attack on General Frederick Funston, who was made a war hero by Teddy Roosevelt for his deeds in the Philippine-American warwhich Twain vocally opposed. Twain wrote to the Denver Post,

Theres nobody for me to attack in this matter even with soft and gentle ridiculeand I shouldnt think of using a grown-up weapon in this kind of nursery. Above all, I couldnt venture to attack the clergy men whom you mention, for I have their habits and live in the same glass house which they are occupying. I am always reading immoral books on the sly, and then selfishly trying to prevent other people from having the same wicked good time.

Almost simultaneously, the Omaha Public Library, in the same month, hushed Huckagain, while the stated reason was its pernicious influence on young people, the real reason most likely was political. Twain ultimately shot back about Huck being censored: Censorship is telling a man he cant have a steak just because a baby cant chew it. All the while he remained critical of the U.S. pursuing its imperialistic impulses. And the book kept getting banned.

And just who are these people condemning Huck? Our wonderfully wise staff of librarians would like me to bury this next comment, but even they support the free revelation of unvarnished TRUTH. Many times it was the librarians themselves banning the book. This was the case in 1905 when the head librarian of the Brooklyn Public Libraries put not only Huck Finn but also Tom Sawyer on the restricted list. The librarian claimed that Huck was a deceitful boy; that he not only itched but scratched; and that he said sweat when he should have said perspiration.

Only one brave librarian voiced an objectionAsa Dickinson, a quiet rebel of obvious intelligence. He wrote to Twain expressing his concern. Twain wrote at least two letters back to Dickinson, both full of typical Twain humor:

The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean; I know this by my own experience, and to this day I cherish an unappeasable bitterness again the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15. None can do that and ever draw a clean, sweet breath again this side of the grave.

Twain then sarcastically makes the following request: If there is an unexpurgated Bible in the Childrens Department, wont you please help that young woman remove Huck and Tom from that questionable companionship. He asked Dickinson not to allow the press to ever know what his letters said. Dickinson never did.

It was not until after in death in 1910 that Twains stature as an author grew. In his day, he would not be recognized as a great author but merely Americas greatest humorist. Of course, I consider that a tremendous compliment. I agree with W. D. Howells assessment in 1900:

When we look back over our literature, and see what savage and stupid and pitiless things have passed for humor, and then open his page, we seem not only to have invented the only true humorist, but to have invented humor itself. We do not know by what mystery his talent sprang from our soil and flowered in our air, but we know that no such talent has been known to any other; and if we set any bounds to our joy in him, it must be from that innate American modesty, not always perceptible to the alien eye, which forbids us to keep throwing bouquests at ourselves.

Twain himself felt the sting of not being recognized for his great literary achievements. When he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oxford in 1907, he was troubled that persons of small and temporary consequencepersons of local and evanescent notoriety, person who drift into obscurity and are forgotten inside of ten yearsand never a degree offered me! Of all those thousands, not fifty are known outside of America, and not a hundred are still famous in it.

And so, while Huck had his share of troubles during its pre-publication period and then with contemporary reception, he was given a bit of a reprieve from 1910 (when his creator died) to 1957 (the early stages of the Civil Rights Movement). During that time, it was still banned, but with Twain no longer there to make his case and ridicule the attackers, the praise overshadowed the banning. Plus, Americas preoccupation with a Great Depression and two World Wars kept its mind on seemingly larger issues. This changed in the 1950s with the emergence of the Civil Rights movement.

On Language and Race

In 1957, the New York City Board of Education removed the book from approved textbook lists in elementary and junior high schools, citing it to be racially offensive. (See the above cartoon.) While the local NAACP denied any hand in this removal, it did respond to the Herald Tribune, saying that Twains work was chockfull of racial slurs and belittling racial designations.

Interestingly, they did not object to the use of the word nigger in the text, but rather that the textbook version used (a 1951 Scott, Foresman edition) didnt capitalize the word Negro. This 1951 rewritten and censored version had to follow a teacher- approved list of over 2000 words or phrases. Idiot became fool Jews harp became mouth organ and Hucks entire voice is taken away from him. Instead of the first line being,

You dont know about me without you have read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that aint no matter. That book was made by Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.

it became

You dont know about me unless you have read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Thus, we begin see the move to edit this great novel to make it acceptable.

As the book neared its centenary about 25 years later, it was banned in Davenport, Iowa, Houston, Texas, and Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It was also challenged by parents in Waukegen and Springfield, Illinois. But the case to censor Huck that received the greatest national attention occurred right up the road in Fairfax County, Virginia. In 1982, as the book moved toward its centenary, the principal at (and heres an irony that Twain would love) the Mark Twain Intermediate School, removed the book from the required reading list on the advice of its Human Rights Committee.

An administrative aide for the school, John H. Wallace, told the Washington Post that the book is poison. It is an Anti-American; it works against the melting pot theory of our country, it works against the idea that all men are created equal; it works against the 14th amendment to the Constitution and against the preamble that guarantees all men life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Three years later he told Ted Koppel on Nightline that the novel is the most grotesque example of racist trash ever written and in essence should be dropped from school reading lists. In her article, NAACP on Huck Finn: Teach Teachers to Be Sensitive; Dont Censor . . . , NAACP Education Director Beverly P. Cole, responded to Wallaces charge: You dont ban Mark Twainyou explain Mark Twain. Quite a different response from the NAACP of 25 years before that helped hush Huck in the NY Public Schools!

In his article The Case Against Huck Finn, Wallace claims that Huckleberry Finn is racist, whether its author intended it to be or not. Of course, Twain was no longer physically alive to respond, but his words do just as well. As he wrote in an 1887 letter, Dont explain your author, read him right and he explains himself.

Ironically, in the last paragraph of his article Wallace writes,

If an educator feels he or she must use Huckleberry Finn in the classroom, I would suggest my revised version, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Adapted, by John H. Wallace. The story is the same, but the words nigger and hell are eradicated. It no longer depicts blacks as inhuman, dishonest, or unintelligent, and it contains a glossary of Twainisms. Most adolescents will enjoy laughing at Jim and Huck in this adaptation.

The preface of Wallaces version reads, Huck and his friend Tom Sawyer have lots of fun playing tricks on Jim and several other characters in the novel.

This period of censorship in the 1980s can be seen in other ways also. In 1982, the publisher of an edition of Twains works thought it necessary to add the following note to the beginning of the book:

A note to the reader: There are racial references and language in this story that may be offensive to the modern reader. He should be aware, however, that these do not reflect the attitude of the publisher of this edition. Moreover, Mark Twains original intention was one of irony, where the insults applied to Jim, the runaway slave, were meant to emphasize Jims nobility and integrity, in contrast to those who cast the slurs. It is in this light that the story should be read.

It should be noted that not all African American readers have felt the book needed such a defense. Note the following voices:

Langston Hughes: Mark Twain, in his presentation of Negroes as human beings, stands head and shoulders about the other Southern writers of his time.

Ralph Ellison: Mark Twain celebrated [the spoken idiom of Negro Americans] in the prose of Huckleberry Finn; without the presence of blacks, the book could not have been written. No Huck and Jim, no American novel as we know it.

Toni Morrison praised Twains use of language and the river as structural device, but identified its silent passages as also part of its genius: when scenes and incidents swell the heart unbearably and precisely because they are unarticulated, and force an act of imagination almost against the will . . . It is classic literature.

Conclusion:

This is just part of the long history of censoring, challenging and banning of Huck. The novel is still being challenged. Just three years ago I was at the Twain home in Hartford, his adult home where he wrote parts of Huck Finn. A local school was considering excluding it.

As we conclude, Id like end with two more ironic examples connected to the challenging, banning, and censoring of the book. Along with Huck Finn in the top ten list of banned books is Vladimir Nabokovs 1955 novel, Lolita, banned for too much sex. When the British philosopher Edmund Wilson suggested that Nabokov introduce his son to Twains works, Vera Nabokov was shocked. She considered Tom Sawyer to be an immoral book that teaches bad behavior and suggests to little boys the idea of taking an interest in little girls too young. One wonders if she ever read her husbands banned book!

Two summers ago, I had the privilege to speak at the Sixth International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies. On the first night of the conference there was a big dinner to kick-off the conference. After dinner, a lifetime achievement award is given to one of the Twain scholars in attendance. The recipient was a man named Horst Kruse, from the University of Munster in Germany. This 75-year-old man was clearly surprised and humbled by this award. When he got to the podium he began to tell the following story (Im paraphrasing this):

The first time I heard of Mark Twain, I was just a boy of 7. I was at a campcamp with lots of other boys, and a young man in a uniform was reading a book to us all. That book was Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. When we finally left the camp, I never saw any of those boys again. But Im sure we all remembered that timethat time where we were when we first hear of Mark Twain and of Huckleberry Finn. That time was WWII and the Nazis were running things.

His narrative trailed off a bit as we sat in the audience realizing what he had just told us. I hadnt thought of that story until I began to write this talk. And Im not quite sure what to say or how to end this talk except to say that Horst wouldnt have met Twain then if Huck Finn hadnt survived being banned or burned through the years. And that would have been tragic.

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Huck Finns Censorship History - Better Living through ...

The term "censorship" comes from The Latin, censere "to give as one's opinion, to assess." The Roman censors were magistrates who took the census count and served as assessors and inspectors of morals and conduct.

In contrast to that straightforward definition from Roman times, contemporary usage offers no agreed-upon definition of the term or when to use it. Indeed, even whether the word itself applies to a given controversy in the arts is often vigorously contested.

Here are excerpts of definitions of "censorship" from U.S. organizations and publications with varying views. They are not intended as any composite mega-definition of the term, only as indications of the variety of approaches to this concept.

Censorship: The use of the state and other legal or official means to restrict speech. --Culture Wars, Documents from the Recent Controversies in the Arts, edited by Richard Boltons

In general, censorship of books is a supervision of the press in order to prevent any abuse of it. In this sense, every lawful authority, whose duty it is to protect its subjects from the ravages of a pernicious press, has the right of exercising censorship of books. --The Catholic Encyclopedia (a publication of the Catholic Church)

What Is Censorship? Censorship is the suppression of ideas and information that certain persons -- individuals, groups or government officials -- find objectionable or dangerous. It is no more complicated than someone saying, "Don't let anyone read this book, or buy that magazine, or view that film, because I object to it!" Censors try to use the power of the state to impose their view of what is truthful and appropriate, or offensive and objectionable, on everyone else. Censors pressure public institutions, like libraries, to suppress and remove from public access information they judge inappropriate or dangerous, so that no one else has the chance to read or view the material and make up their own minds about it. The censor wants to prejudge materials for everyone.

For the ALA, technically censorship means the "The Removal of material from open access by government authority." The ALA also distinguishes various levels of incidents in respect to materials in a library which may or may not lead to censorship: Inquiry, Expression of Concern, Complaint, Attack, and Censorship. --The American Library Association

The word "censorship" means "prior restraint" of First Amendment rights by government. --Morality in Media (Morality in Media is "a national, not-for-profit, interfaith organization established in 1962 to combat obscenity and uphold decency standards in the media.")

Censorship 1. The denial of freedom of speech or freedom of the press. 2. The review of books, movies, etc., to prohibit publication and distribution, usually for reasons of morality or state security. --Oran's Dictionary of Law

Censorship: official restriction of any expression believed to threaten the political, social, or moral order. --Encyclopedia.Com

Censorship - the prevention of publication, transmission, or exhibition of material considered undesirable for the general public to possess or be exposed to. --Fast Times' Political Dictionary (Fast Times is "a nonpartisan publication on contemporary world affairs & media with no political, ideological, or religious affiliation of any kind.")

Censorship: the cyclical suppression, banning, expurgation, or editing by an individual, institution, group or government that enforce or influence its decision against members of the public -- of any written or pictorial materials which that individual, institution, group or government deems obscene and "utterly" without redeeming social value," as determined by "contemporary community standards." --Chuck Stone, Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina

Censorship is a word of many meanings. In its broadest sense it refers to suppression of information, ideas, or artistic expression by anyone, whether government officials, church authorities, private pressure groups, or speakers, writers, and artists themselves. It may take place at any point in time, whether before an utterance occurs, prior to its widespread circulation, or by punishment of communicators after dissemination of their messages, so as to deter others from like expression. In its narrower, more legalistic sense, censorship means only the prevention by official government action of the circulation of messages already produced. Thus writers who "censor" themselves before putting words on paper, for fear of failing to sell their work, are not engaging in censorship in this narrower sense, nor are those who boycott sponsors of disliked television shows. --Academic American Encyclopedia

Censorship: supervision and control of the information and ideas circulated within a society. In modern times, censorship refers to the examination of media including books, periodicals, plays, motion pictures, and television and radio programs for the purpose of altering or suppressing parts thought to be offensive. The offensive material may be considered immoral or obscene, heretical or blasphemous, seditious or treasonable, or injurious to the national security. --Encarta Encyclopedia

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Definitions of Censorship - PBS

Media Censorship Defined Media Censorship is the act of altering, adjusting, editing, or banning of any or all media resulting from the presumption that its content is perceived to be objectionable, incendiary, illicit, or immoral by the applicable legislative authority or Government within a specific jurisdiction. The ideology, methodology, and measures or determination regarding media subject to Media Censorship exists in conjunction to the vast expanse of the varieties of media in existence; this can include but is not limited to books, publications, expressions, products, services, radio broadcasts, televised broadcast, Internet-based broadcasts, films, movies, pictures, images, videos, and speech: The Causes of Media Censorship The nature of the media in question, as well as any prospective measures of Media Censorship undertaken is in direct violation of applicable legislation existing within a specific location or jurisdiction; in the event that Media Censorship is considered to be unlawful or in violation of human or civil rights entitled to the respective citizenship, the Media Censorship in question may undergo judicial review. Media Censorship of Criminal Activity Online Crimes are defined as the participation or engagement in unlawful, illicit, and illegal behavior through the usage of the Internet; digital Media Censorship of activities and expressions considered to be criminal in nature are vast the following are examples of criminal activity subject to censorship within the media: Media involving the promotion or undertaking of criminal activity, threat, malice, or the promotion of illegal and damaging ideas with the intent to cause harm Media involving subject matter and content presumed to endanger the welfare of the general public, in addition to media assumed to compromise the safety and wellbeing of the public Media that is in direct violation of accepted and applicable legislation with regard to a particular jurisdiction or location Media Censorship of Sexual Expression Illegal in Nature Media including pornographic images depicting minors, children, or individuals below the age of 18 is considered to be a very serious offense; this criminal activity is not only applicable to those parties responsible for the release of this nature of media, but also to those individuals in ownership of that material: The ownership, transmission, or receipt of pornography or media sexual in nature involving children The solicitation of minors or those below the age of consent to participate in sexual activity; this can range from physical sex crimes to virtual sex crimes Pornographic images depicting sexual acts involving animals, violence, injury, and simulated relationships illicit and unlawful in nature are also considered to be illegal and subject to Censorship in America Digital Media Censorship Internet Law, which may be classified under as a subgenre of Cyber Law or Computer Law, is considered by many to be one of the most recently-developed legal fields as a result of the ongoing advent of computer-based technology; furthermore, the notion of digital or virtual Media Censorship is considered to be overseen by legislation expressed within this legal field. The reliance of the media of modernity on Internet-based, online activity has promoted the development of a variety of measures addressing digital media censorship, including the ethical and moral use of the Internet for lawful and legal purposes. Comments

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Pierre Gosselin has a great post: Former NOAA Meteorologist Says Employees Were Cautioned Not To Talk About Natural Cycles.

David Dilley, NOAA Meteorologist, tells how for 15 years work on man-made climate change was pushed while work on natural cycles was actively suppressed. Grants connecting climate change to a man-made crisis were advertised, while the word went around to heads of departments that even mentioning natural cycles would threaten the flow of government funds. Speeches about natural cycles were mysteriously canceled at the last minute with bizarre excuses.

But jobs are on the line, so only retired workers can really speak, and no one can name names.

We can corroborate David Dilleys remarks. Indeed, he is probably just one of many skeptics hidden in the ranks of NOAA. Way back in 2007, David Evans got an email from a different insider within NOAA, around the time he started talking publicly about the missing hotspot. The insider said, remarkably: As a Meteorologist working for [snip, name of division] it has been clear to me, as well as every single other scientist I know at NOAA, that man can not be the primary cause of global warming and that the predictions of gloom and doom due to rising temperatures is ridiculous.

So there are probably many skeptics at NOAA, but given the uniformly aggressive public stance of NOAA apparently none of them can speak until after they retire.

By P Gosselin on 26. August 2015

In the mid 1990s government grants were typically advertised in such a way to indicate that conclusions should show a connection to human activity as the cause for anthropogenic global warming. The result: most of the research published in journals became one-sided and this became the primary information tool for media outlets.

According to some university researchers who were former heads of their departments, if a university even mentioned natural cycles, they were either denied future grants, or lost grants. And it is common knowledge that United States government employees within NOAA were cautioned not to talk about natural cycles. It is well known that most university research departments live or die via the grant system. What a great way to manipulate researchers in Europe, Australia and the United States.

Dilley was invited to speak about natural cycles, but just before the event mysterious staff shortages meant his speech was canceled. Oddly, a different speech suddenly appeared in its place.

Its always the way, someone at an institution is keen, then just before the event, something changes:

All seemed well as I prepared for the lecture. Butthen came the manipulation and suppression of views. Just four days prior to the lecture, three people from the University of Maine viewed our web site (www.globalweatheroscillations.com). The next morning, just 3 days prior to the June 29th lecture, I received an email from Eagle Hill stating that my lecture is canceled due to a staffing shortage. Upon checking their web site, the calendar did show my lecture as being canceled, but carried the notation that we hope to have a different lecture on the 29th.

So what happened with the staffing shortage? A news service called The Maine Wire interviewed the President of Eagle Hill, and he said that the University of Maine felt some people in the audience may be uncomfortable hearing Mr. Dilleys lecture.

Read it all Former NOAA Meteorologist Says Employees Were Cautioned Not To Talk About Natural Cycles

Maybe the staff shortages meant they couldnt hire enough security staff to hold back the packs of students protesting someone who dared disagree with their programming. After all, this is a University.

h/t The Great ClimateDepot

UPDATE: David Dilley replied in comments. Perhaps you can ask him something about his work?

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Former NOAA Meteorologist tells of years of censorship to ...

[Content note: hypothetical spiders]

I complain a lot about the social justice movement. Or for a change, I sometimes complain that the media is too friendly to the social justice movement. So when the media starts challenging the movement, with articles like Trigger Warnings: New Wave Of Political Correctness and Weve Gone Too Far With Trigger Warnings and Warning: The Literary Canon Could Make Children Squirm and Americas College Kids Are A Bunch Of Mollycoddled Babies, I really ought to be happy things are finally going my way.

Instead Im a little disturbed. Lets fnord that last article:

This doesnt look good. Also, Jezebel and Baffler are against trigger warnings, as are a group of professors who teach gender, sexuality, and critical race studies (the last of which deals twice as much damage as regular race studies). Reversed stupidity is not intelligence, but sometimes its a helpful clue about where to look.

I like trigger warnings. I like them because theyre not censorship, theyre the opposite of censorship. Censorship says Read what we tell you. The opposite of censorship is Read whatever you want. The philosophy of censorship is We know what is best for you to read. The philosophy opposite censorship is You are an adult and can make your own decisions about what to read.

And part of letting people make their own decisions is giving them relevant information and trusting them to know what to do with them. Uninformed choices are worse choices. Trigger warnings are an attempt to provide you with the information to make good free choices of reading material.

And my role model here, as in so many other places, is Commissioner Lal: Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.

Trigger warnings fight those who would like to be our masters in another way as well. They are one of our strongest weapons against the proponents of censorship. The proponents say We cant let you air that opinion, it might offend people. Trigger warnings say I am explaining to you exactly how this might offend you, so if you continuing listening to me you have volunteered to hear whatever I have to say, on your own head be it, and let no one else purport to protect you from yourself.

I agree that bad people could use trigger warnings to avoid ever reading anything that challenges their prejudices. This is a problem with providing people informed choices. Sometimes they misuse them.

But I could also imagine good people using trigger warnings to increase their ability to read things that challenge their views. Suppose you are a transgender person who becomes really uncomfortable when you hear people insult transgender people. Gradually you learn that a lot of people outside the social justice community do this a lot, so you stop reading anything outside the social justice community, forget about genuinely rightist sources like National Review or American Conservative. Now suppose sources start trigger warning their content. Most right-wing arguments dont insult transgender people, so all of a sudden you have a way to steer clear of the ones that do and read all of the others free from fear.

Actually, fear is the wrong word, it buys into the stereotyping of triggered people as coddled or cowards or something. Maybe some people feel fear. Others would just be free from exasperation, anger, distracting dismay, the cognitive load of having to hear people insult you and not being able to respond and having to exert effort to continue to read. I feel like this might be my response to the existence of more trigger warnings (at least if anyone ever warned for my triggers, which they wont).

And I guess I admit that the people who use trigger warnings for epistemic evil will probably outnumber those who use them for epistemic virtue. But then the question is: do we, as a civilization, grant ourselves the right to force people to be virtuous without their consent? There are a lot of good arguments that we should, but that doesnt matter, because its not a going question. In every other area of life, weve already decided that we dont. Like, it would be a spectacularly good idea to make a rule that every fifth link to Paul Krugmans blog has to redirect people to Tyler Cowens blog, and vice versa, so people dont get a chance to only read the opinions they agree with. Or that every Republican has to watch one Daily Show a month, and every Democrat has to listen to one Fox News segment. But if were not going to do that, it hardly seems fair to put the whole burden of epistemic virtue on the easily triggered.

II.

The strongest argument against trigger warnings that I have heard is that they allow us to politicize ever more things. Colleges run by people on the left can slap big yellow stickers on books that promote conservative ideas, saying THIS BOOK IS RACIST AND CLASSIST, and then act outraged if anyone requests a trigger warning that sounds conservative like a veteran who wants one on books that vilify or mock soldiers, or a religious person who wants one on blasphemy. Then everyone has to have a big fight, the fight makes everyone worse off than either possible resolution, and it ends with somebody feeling persecuted and upset. In other words, its an intellectual gang sign saying Look! We can demonstrate our mastery of this area by only allowing our symbols; your kind are second-class citizens!

On the other hand, this is terribly easy to fix. Put trigger warnings on books, but put them on the bullshytte page. You know, the one near the front where they have the ISBN number and the city where the publishers head office is and something about the Library of Congress youve never read through even though its been in literally every book youve ever seen. Put it there, on a small non-colorful sticker. Call it a content note or something, so no one gets the satisfaction of hearing their pet word trigger warning. Put a generally agreed list of things no sense letting every single college have its own acrimonious debate about it. The few people who actually get easily triggered will with some exertion avoid the universal human urge to flip past the bullshytte page and spend a few seconds checking if their trigger is in there. No one else will even notice.

Or if its about a syllabus, put it on the last page of the syllabus, in size 8 font, after the list of recommended reading for the class. As a former student and former teacher, I know no one reads the syllabus. You have to be really devoted to avoiding your trigger. Which is exactly the sort of person who should be able to have a trigger warning while everyone else goes ahead with their lives in a non-political way.

Im sure there are some more implementation details, but its nothing a little bit of good faith cant take care of. If good faith is used and some people still object because its not EXACTLY what they want, then Ill tell them to go fly a kite, but not before.

I know a lot of people worry about slippery slopes; give the culture warriors an inch and theyll take a mile. I think this is a very backwards way of looking at things. Like, the anti-gay people talked about a slippery slope and fought desperately hard against gay marriage, even though it was pretty hard to find anything actually objectionable about it other than that it might be on a slippery slope to worse things. That desperate fight didnt delay gay marriage more than a few years, and it didnt prevent whatever gay marriage was on a slippery slope to. What it did do was totally discredit conservatives in this area. Now any time anyone makes a family values argument, even a good family values argument, people can say that family values is code for homophobia, and bring up that family values conservatives really have held abhorrent positions in the past so why should we trust them now? It gave liberals huge momentum, and if there is a slippery slope then all that opposing gay marriage did was destroy the credibility of anybody who could have stopped us going down it.

Opposing a good idea on slippery slope grounds is a moral failure and a strategic failure, and Id hate for opponents of the social justice movement to make that mistake with trigger warnings.

III.

But this is all tangential to what really bothered me, which is Pacific Standards The Problems With Trigger Warnings According To The Research.

You know, I love science as much as anyone, maybe more, but I have grown to dread the phrase according to the research.

They say that Confronting triggers, not avoiding them, is the best way to overcome PTSD. They point out that exposure therapy is the best treatment for trauma survivors, including rape victims. And that this involves reliving the trauma and exposing yourself to traumatic stimuli, exactly what trigger warnings are intended to prevent. All this is true. But I feel like they are missing a very important point.

YOU DO NOT GIVE PSYCHOTHERAPY TO PEOPLE WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT.

Psychotherapists treat arachnophobia with exposure therapy, too. They expose people first to cute, little spiders behind a glass cage. Then bigger spiders. Then they take them out of the cage. Finally, in a carefully controlled environment with their very supportive therapist standing by, they make people experience their worst fear, like having a big tarantula crawl all over them. It usually works pretty well.

Finding an arachnophobic person, and throwing a bucket full of tarantulas at them while shouting IM HELPING! IM HELPING! works less well.

And this seems to be the arachnophobes equivalent of the PTSD advice in the Pacific Standard. There are two problems with its approach. The first is that it avoids the carefully controlled, anxiety-minimizing setup of psychotherapy.

The second is that YOU DO NOT GIVE PSYCHOTHERAPY TO PEOPLE WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT.

If a person with post-traumatic stress disorder or some other trigger-related problem doesnt want psychotherapy, then even as a trained psychiatrist I am forbidden to override that decision unless they become an immediate danger to themselves or others.

And if they do want psychotherapy, then very likely they want to do it on their own terms. I try to read things that challenge my biases and may even insult or trigger me, but I do it when I feel like it and not a moment before. When I am feeling adventurous and want to become stronger in some way, I will set myself some strenuous self-improvement task, whether it be going on a long run or reading material I know will be unpleasant. But at the end of a really long and exasperating day when Im at my wits end and just want to relax, I dont want you chasing me with a sword and making me run for my life, and I dont want you forcing traumatic material at me.

The angry article above with all the talk of spoiled brats annoys me as an amateur politics blogger, but this Pacific Standard article pushes my buttons as a (somewhat) non-amateur psychiatrist. This is not your job to meddle. If you are very concerned about helping people with PTSD, please express that concern by donating to PTSD USA or one of the other organizations that will help those with the condition get proper, well-controlled therapy. Please do not try to increase the background level of triggers in the hopes that one of them will fortuitously collide with a PTSD sufferer in a therapeutic way.

If, like me, you think the social justice movement has a really serious kindness and respect problem, then you know that its really hard to bring this up without getting accused of unkindness and disrespect yourself. I dont know how to best respond to this problem. But Im pretty sure that the very minimum one can do is not to actually be unkind and disrespectful. And I worry that some of these arguments against trigger warnings are failing to clear even this very low bar.

Read more here:
The Wonderful Thing About Triggers | Slate Star Codex