The Lie That Tells the Truth
Cindy Layton
..truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth…
Neil Gaiman
My colleague, Victoria Fortune, wrote in her last post that both textbooks and library books are under intense scrutiny for perceived obscene material and what ever else the eye of the beholder deems objectionable.
Why this intensive push to pull books from libraries?
When The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was published in 1906 it spawned widespread revolt against dangerous working conditions and poor sanitation procedures at meat-packing plants in Chicago and then, country-wide. Sinclair caused alarm when he described men falling to their deaths into the vats of lard. His powerful fictional story, based on his first-hand knowledge of the workings of the industry, became a rallying cry for reforms through unionization and enforcement of government regulations. Sinclair was dismissed by some as a liar and a socialist but widespread outrage from the public brought about the formation of the precursor to the Food and Drug Administration.
George Orwell’s 1984, published in 1949, so resonated with the public that even today its language is enshrined in the lexicon. Double-speak, double-think, Big Brother, thought police, these ideas permeate the vocabulary of the current public conversation with a new sense of urgency and relevance as authoritarian movements grasp at the institutions of democracy.
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s speculative fiction portraying a dystopian patriarchal society of the near-future, was first published in 1985, before the ascendency of the extreme right-wing autocratic movement in the US. When faced with the question Could this happen here? Atwood made clear that everything she wrote about had already occurred. It was not speculative, it was reality.
Today, women protesting the infringements of their rights outside the Supreme Court wear red hooded cloaks symbolic of the role of the Handmaid in the fictional society of Gilead.
In each of the fictional settings a David vs. Goliath scenario exists: workers desperate for wages versus owners of the large industrial meat-packing plants, citizens whose rights and dignity have been manipulated and usurped versus autocratic and powerful governments, women who have been subjugated through government action and the steering of societal norms against their interests versus a patriarchal governmental, economic and societal power structure. Each of the fictional and real-life equivalent power centers has something to lose.
It will cost the meat-packing plants significant money if safety regulations and unionization is allowed.
Big Brother fears the exposure of the fraudulence their society is based upon, risking an uprising as oppressed people yearn for freedom.
A male dominated society fears power-sharing and reduced status as women demand equality.
It’s interesting that fiction is the preferred method these authors chose to convey their message. Why not journalism or essay? Fiction gives the reader an entrée into a world where the writer creates resonance through characters and plot that can hurdle over a reader’s bias. Readers become invested in the story and the character’s stories become their stories, the character’s struggles become their struggles. Fiction, through intimacy and emotion, creates understanding in a way fact-telling may not.
When books are banned it tells a story about the power of fiction’s ability to influence the populace and create a shift in the minds of readers, but it also reveals much about the people threatened by the book.
An ill-informed and narrowly educated public serves those who are autocratically-inspired. Citizens lacking critical thinking skills, who cannot analyze data or accept a challenge to their own thought process, are less threatening to those who want to wield and maintain power.
Books with ideas that challenge the status-quo or lie outside the mainstream of commonly held beliefs are dangerous to those who hold power.
Democracy depends on a well-educated society.
Librarians are now our front-line defenders of Democracy.
