Educators thought Orwell’s 1984 was promoting Communism. They thought Huxley’s Brave New World made promiscuous sex “look like fun,” and the book is “centered around negative activity.” They thought the point of Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-5 was to promote “deviant sexual behavior.” People burned Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings outside a church because they thought it was “Satanic.”
The history of banned books over at the American Library Association, in honor of Banned Books Week, is both hilarious and depressing, because it’s really all about authority figures missing the point. Over and over again. [Thanks Vance!]
