The+Language+Police+Precis+and+Powerpoint+Period+8

Lillie Cicerchia & Jennifer Janssen AP Lang Mrs. Walker 10 February 2009 Precis: //The Language Police// by Diane Ravitch Censorship from both the political left and the political right can stifle freedom of expression in a way that is near to absurdity, and can also be counterproductive in terms of intellectual growth. Censorship, the central idea behind the piece, is defined as the intentional removal of particular language from published works that may be considered controversial in terms of offensiveness to a certain type of reader. The difference between the ends to the means of the right and the left are that the political right wishes to restore a pristine, intact, traditional, or otherwise idyllic version of the past, and the left wishes to impress a utopian version of the future on the public in accordance with their own views. Reading about these different views is seen by both groups as a method of behavior modification for our society. The battle for the political right begins with the rise in acknowledgement of the academic community of evolution as the only viable and simultaneously scientific explanation for the development of life on earth. The religious right fought lawsuit after lawsuit condemning books that referenced any material that vied away from the spiritual teachings of the Christian religion. These topics include evolution, the supernatural, other spiritual leanings than Christianity, feminism, anarchy, communism, disobedience, and dishonesty. These general categories were professed to be a threat to the American government, stability, the military, capitalism, and Christianity as a whole. A few highly contested classical books included //The Catcher in the Rye// by J.D Salinger, //The Grapes of Wrath// by John Steinbeck, //The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn// by Mark Twain, //The Scarlet Letter// by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and //Great Expectations// by Charles Dickens to name just a few. As time went on the religious right unfocused their attention on classical works and refocused it on the modern era. Here is when the J.K Rowling’s infamous Harry Potter series came under heavy attack as a representation of what was considered Satanism, the occult, violence, and an improper representation of the ideal or nuclear family. Left wing censorship is most noticeable in their efforts to make political correctness and complete equality the status quo in all literature. Not only do they wish to not offend Christians, they wish to eliminate all offense from the texts that we read. The primary example used by the author is that of the Council on Interracial Books for Children (CIBC) whose primary goals were to remove the social stigmas from literature including racism, sexism, ageism, stereotyping, and “anti-humanism,” materialism, individualist, and conformist, etcetera. In essence, all bias was to be removed from literature. Some examples of literature that the CIBC wanted to ban were //Mary Poppins// by Pamela Travers, //Uncle Tom’s Cabin// by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and //Charlie and the Chocolate Factory// by Roald Dahl. Traditional fairy tales were also accused of exemplifying sexism and stereotyping. In the end publishers have given in to pressures from both the right and the left in terms of their censorship demands. The reason for this is projected to be that no publisher wishes to have a lawsuit and/or scandal on their hands which may give negative attention and affect their profit and sales. This is true at least for those publishing educational texts, but in the case of literature at large these controversies are often encouraged by companies because the gained attention to their publications often positively affects sales through competition. Works Cited Ravitch, Diane. “The Language Police.” __The Language Police__. 2003. By Diane Ravitch. N.p.: Random House, 2003. Rpt. in __Language Awareness__. Ed. Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. 9th ed. Boston : Bedford St. Martin’s, 2005. 276-289.