Greg Stewart has a great post on Georgia's recent court case where a mother attempted to have the Harry Potter books banned from shelves--although she admits she's never read a sentence.
Check out Greg's God does not want you to read this book you naughty monkeys! Avert your naughty monkey eyes from the page!
I kid, but what gets me is that this Puritan attitude toward banning books that contain witchery or occult matters in no way addresses the fact that children have a natural interest in magical things--and banning anything naturally makes it more alluring!
Children can recognize the difference between make-believe and the real world--especially if their parents do, too.
2 comments:
Hi, Interesting about the Georgia case. I am not sure if you are from the states, but I did want to clear something up. The puritans lived in New England, mainly Massachusetts, where they never really left. They settled in there in the early 1600's. Atlanta Georgia is 1500 miles away, and this is considered part of the deep south, and no self respecting New England Puritan would ever claim to be the deep south. The south was populated by the Church of England types from England, the Scots-Irish Presbyterians, and they had a revival several centuries ago of the Baptists, and the two main religions there are Baptist and Southern Baptist which is very different from the Puritans. They call that area the Bible Belt and the rest of the USA knows it. There are progressive pockets, but it is what it is is. It is a very different flavor and feel to religion, and frequently one based on fear of hell-fire. My grandmother who I loved dearly was Southern Baptist, my parents were brought up that way, it was all very wounding to be told we were going to hell, and we all ended up in the Episcopal Church which is an offshoot of the Church of England. So, all that said, although it is all very confusing (remember everyone in the USA is a mixed-mutt with ancestry from other places) please never confuse a New England Puritan with a Southern Bible Belt Baptist. Very very different things. Cheers!
Thanks, Anonymous! Being one of the mixed mutts I was generally referring to the puritan(nical) attitude along the lines of H.L. Mencken:
Puritanism--the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
Like many Southerners I have 'Northern' ancestry as well...'mixed mutt' describes it perfectly, thanks!
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