Many years ago, a liberal columnist — I think it was Ellen Goodman — said that it used to be the function of parents to introduce their children to as much culture as possible. Now it’s the parents’ job to keep the culture away from their kids. It surprises me that at least several good Catholics have cast their lots with the libertarian defenders of our popular culture, which is shot through with deeply destructive ideas and teachings. (See the comments section of the post for what I’m talking about.)
(Before I continue, let me try to head off some criticism. Although I think popular culture is ill, I don’t think it’s incurable. There is much literature, theatre, film, and music that is praiseworthy or at least indifferent. Besides, there will always be popular culture, so railing against it per se is silly. We should try to improve it.)
I’ve noticed a strain of Catholic thought that I would call “radical familialism,” which is one step above radical individualism. That strain can take at least two different forms: one, exemplified by Chris and Josh, that say it is the parents’ job and only the parents’ job to protect children from potentially corrupting culture. Another strain looks at the culture, sees a slowly rising, fetid swamp, and thinks families ought to completely wall themselves off from the rest of society.
Either way, the implicit idea is that the family is the only meaningful institution in a country. That is how Islamic culture has gotten itself into so much trouble, because only the family and religion are sanctioned by the Koran. That means states, associations, professional guilds, etc., do not have their own proper spheres of influence, but must be subordinate to families and religious authorities.
“Come on,” you tell me, “faithful Catholics believe in the Church as well as the family.” Not in every case. Many faithful Catholics mentally support the Church but walk out on a particular parish if everything isn’t to their liking. They may retreat into traditionalist enclaves, such as a group of Tridentine Mass attendees, or even a quasi-monastic entity like that St. John community up in Pennsylvania. “The Church,” for more than a few traditionalists, amounts to their idea of the Church, comprised of one part doctrine and one part wishful fantasy. See Latin Mass magazine, New Oxford Review, and Mr. Patrick J. Buchanan.
The family, not the individual, is the natural building block of society. I don’t know if that is a de fide teaching, but it ought to be self-evident. Like so many self-evident things these days, we have to provide evidence for it, and it’s not my intention to defend that idea in this itty-bitty post. Rather, I want to defend the idea that society, family, and Church play mutually complimentary roles, with family being the most important. Society should assist families by assisting parents in appropriate ways: by allowing them to govern their homes as they see fit, by writing tax laws that are not unduly burdensome, and yes, by curtailing obscenity in popular culture. That need not take the form of government censorship — I would prefer to see media industries police their own — but it may be necessary at the local or state level.
No man is an island, and neither is any home. Parents have the primary duty to see that their children are raised well, but it would be nice if we could discourage other institutions from aggressively trying to corrupt them.
2 comments
Comments are closed.
Dear Mr. Johnson,
I don’t know where I fall in the groupings here. I do believe that the majority, if not all of the banned books should be present in the library for a number of reasons; however, having once been a librarian, I am in full accord with you–some of those banned books should not be available to children.
While I see no harm in allowing Huckleberry Finn to be where children can get it (and indeed, much potential good), Lolita, Tropic of Capricorn and other such works do not belong in the hands of young ones.
You are correct in your evaluation of radical libertarian librarian ideals. I see librarians in a certain sense as “custodians of the repository of knowledge.” Therefore, I would think it irresponsible of them to pick and choose what others should read–removing from the library such works as Mein Kampf and Das Kapital sounds okay at first, but exposure to the ideas, like exposure to chicken pox, is probably best done at a young age when you can get over it fairly easily. Contra modern library theory, I think it is up to custodians to be custodians–that is, one allows responsible adults to form their own opinions, but one does not allow children to play with dangerous things. Lolita is potentially damaging for a child. As I was growing up there was an adult section to the library and a children’s section. In order for me to check out books from the adult section I had to have a parent in tow to approve. This did not prohibit access to information for me, but it also did not put the library in the position of being an indulgent parent, allowing me to check out The Joy of Sex if that’s what I thought I needed to know. The information was available, and to some extent the library was a neutral purveyor of that information asking only that an adult approve my adult choices.
So, I’m somewhere between. I do not believe in unrestricted access to all information for all people. I wouldn’t mind my child checking books from an adult section of the library, but I would certainly want to know that it was happening and give my approval to it. The ALA does not condone this sort of “parental censorship.”
Children are precious, fragile, and wonderful. Their childhood needs to be protected and it is the responsibility of every adult to assist in this. If some parents let their children read adult books, and watch adult movies, it has the potential to hurt all the children they come into contact with. Librarians need to understand and come to terms with the fact that information is not a neutral commidity–it is charged with all manner of potential good and harm.
shalom,
Steven
Eric,
I agree with your sentiments 100% here. I think our difference in opinion stems not from what we would mutually like to see, but from what I see happening. Or, to be more accurate, from what I see not happening.
Popular culture is indeed in a state of moral collapse. The success of Eminem and Britney Spears in music and the general applause of more risque cable dramas like The Sopranos point towards my belief that things aren’t going to get any better. That which we consider “obscene” as morally straight Catholics is being lauded by the public at large, and therefore, I can’t realistically believe that any sort of self-censorship or laws that curtail obscenity in popular culture are coming any time soon.
I am by no means saying that all popular culture is amoral garbage. Far from it. But we are living in a society where garbage smells a lot better to the majority than it used to.
It would be nice to see society give parents a hand, but I just can’t see it happening. Our society isn’t headed in that direction. Call me a fatalist, but I see no proof to suggest that my resignation is based upon anything but the reality of it all.
So what is the responsible Catholic parent to do? Certainly, we all see the problem with the fortified-family approach; sooner or later, the chicks leave the nest and need to be able to handle “the world out there.” That’s why I see the family – and also the Church – as the necesarry “line of defense” against the amoral goofiness that surrounds kids everywhere. Shouldn’t society play a part? Isn’t this ultimately the responsibility of society? Absolutely, but it’s obvious that as immorality becomes more mainstreamed, society refuses to lend that helping hand.
As far as literature, libraries, and children go, I suppose it all depends upon who we’re defining as “children.” Is it anyone under the age of 18? Under the age of 13? I think literature is an exceptional case in all of this, because a pre-pubescent isn’t a) going to have any interest in reading Nabokov or Miller and b) isn’t likely to have the mental faculties to make it through these works in the first place. That being said, putting something like The Tropic of Capricorn in a grade school library is like putting a “how-to-build-a-shed-in-your-back-yard” book right next to it. Not only is it inappropriate for people who shouldn’t know of such things, but why would you bother? I think they’d gladly take a good ole-fashioned kids book any day (so long as it’s not “Heather Has Two Mommies”….argh).
Classic literature isn’t a picture or a movie or a song; it requires a deeper intellectual engagement and commitment that most kids between 13-18 don’t even care to exercise. In an age of “instant gratification” via the Internet, MTV, and video games, your most impressionable minds don’t fall prey to D.H. Lawrence or Rimbaud. They never get past the boob-tube. It was always my experience growing up that those who read anything beyond popular fiction were strong-willed individuals of conviction; the very act of reading anything like Miller or Nabokov anymore is a testament to a rejection of mainstreamed nonsense, even if the subject matter is a bit “sexy.” The sexiness or amorality of a piece of classic work of literature isn’t likely to corrode a mind and will strong enough to seek it out in the first place.
So, I hope that rant (longer than the original post? ;-)) helps clear up my position a bit. I hope I’m tragically wrong about where pop culture is headed, but it’s precisely because pop culture is where it is that I take a lighter stand on the issue of books and youth.