Redefining Atticus Finch as a racist was an act of our era’s penchant for self-loathing. It was simply unacceptable to have a decent, honorable character whom people could look to for inspiration. Even a fictional character must be sullied and prepped for re-education camp.
I have a collection of old books for my grandchildren. They have been reading out of that small library for years. Included are that afore mentioned book and many others that would be considered subversive by our betters. They may turn not out as I wish, but it won’t be because they were never exposed to truth.
What next? Are the Bobbsey Twins going to be banned? Are Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden books gone? I read all of these between Grades 1 and 3 (was taught reading by our father before Grade 1) and I loved them all! And then in Grade 4, I all of a sudden, became older and started reading books from the Library Bus (lived in Ottawa at the time).
I am so glad that I do not have children in the K-12 system anymore!
Sorta…that is our best defence and response to the nonsense.
I’m sufficiently selfish I now longer get angry about this craziness. Rather, I am grateful I read them and don’t think any future generations deserve them.
https://www.marshall.edu/library/bannedbooks/to-kill-a-mockingbird/
The problem with both Glenn Reynolds’ analysis and Bastiat’s analysis is they have no grasp of history. The most recent drop in fertility rates began in 1800, not the 1980s or the 2020s. Various cultures around the world have experienced similar massive TFR drops as their cultures waxed and then waned (see, for instance, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305440323000961). Neither analysis seems aware of any of this.
Thanks for reading. These are blogposts, not dissertations–short and narrowly focused. Glenn Reynolds’s piece does mention Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 blockbuster, “The Population Bomb.” Doing some searches at Instapundit on fertility-related stuff, lots of older factors show up. As for me, back in March, I wrote “Your Boss Is a Contraceptive: Your Autonomy Is an Aphrodisiac” (https://graboyes.substack.com/p/your-boss-is-a-contraceptive). Among other things, it noted that, “The employer-employee relationship … was an early 19th century Faustian bargain—necessary for the Industrial Revolution (‘modernity’), but increasingly obsolete in a 21st century world of artificial intelligence, shorter learning curves, and fewer economies of scale,” and “working for other people causes you to have fewer children, and having fewer children actually makes you less productive—not more productive. Autonomy does the reverse.” So yeah, I know when fertility rates began declining. I can offer lots of reasons and likely will do so in future posts. One of my pet explanation was the late 19th century rise of the City Beautiful movement, which thought people should live in one place and work another–thus creating the time-consuming agony of commuting. I suppose I could have added “Hey, self-loathing is only one of many causal factors” to my Atticus Finch piece but, again, it’s a blogpost, not a scholarly literature survey. Anyway, thanks again for reading and commenting. I do appreciate it.
White savior complex? No good deed goes unpunished by the race pimps
Atticus Finch should’ve been brought up on the serious charges of #MeToo denialism. He didn’t believe the woman’s rape accusation. For shame!
For what it’s worth Mockingbird was a bullshite book and even worse movie.
I believe the most banned book is 1984.
That was one of my favourite Get Smart episodes.
Mine too!
Isn’t this an example of cycles in fashion? If you keep an old necktie, you can wait it out while they go from wide to skinny and back so that it will be acceptable to wear again.
We only had to wait a while for such fashions as eugenics, with killing of those not fit to live, to come back. We are seeing medical experimentation on children. Perhaps the most refreshing is that we can now quickly figure out a person’s guilt or innocence by finding out what race they are.