The Mind Killer

While it is amazing that Toni Morrison’s Beloved is one of the top 50 books on the NYT bestseller list two years after her death, the reason for its presence there is quite interesting. The book is being used in the Virginia Governor’s race. The republican candidate is using the book’s banishment as an example of his planned advocacy for his hoped-for governorship. He is a proponent of parental power in the Virginia legislature particularly when it comes to education. The democratic gentleman touts his two-time veto as the flag for his refusal to kowtow to special interest groups, and in particular, to parental heft as the arbiters of their children’s educational material. Twice, he vetoed the bill that would have banished Beloved from the Virginia high school syllabus and school libraries. Now, Virginians will have to buy rather than borrow the book. So let me also say, strange things get books sold! 

I must applaud a mother who finds out her son is having nightmares because of a passage in a book and decides that the parental role in this dilemma is to have the book banned for all time from the entire educational system in her state. Mind you, what I’m applauding is her sheer effort not her decision making. Nevermind the fact that her son’s nightmares could have been one of the best teaching moments that any parent could ever desire. “Why are you afraid son? Let me tell you how fear works.” And to quote the most quotable contemporary lines ever written about fear from the current film and the original book by Frank Herbert – DUNE.

“Fear is the mind killer, fear is the little death that bring total obliteration

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over and through me.

And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

Surely, some pesky parent in the mother’s childhood state of residence must have also worked hard to have a book removed from the statewide syllabus. Perhaps sand dunes, giant worms, sand, and witches frightened this other daughter! She had Dune removed from the statewide system and there went the opportunity to have read the one book that may have helped her cajole her son and his fear. Too bad others didn’t have the opportunity to formulate their own theorems. 

There are scenes in Toni Morrison’s book that are frightening, and poetry that is mind altering. Considering the New York Times article, I won’t be the spoiler if I were to tell you that the mother in her book kills her child rather than allows him to live as a slave. Frightening, indeed, but how about we use this frightening experience to help a young mind understand how awful an institution slavery had to have been for anyone who lived through it. For this writer, the experience had to be not only horrific for the slave but also for the slave owner who must have spent a part of everyday trying to overcome the part of their spirit that would have been naturally outraged and should have outright revolted at treating another human in such a fashion. This would be the case for any creature claiming to be human. 

Unfortunately, the practice of besting our humanity has forever damaged us and in this American society, the injury has not yet healed. Otherwise, these moments of cruelty, inhumanity and thoughtlessness would not still occur.  

This too seems to me the only way that a mother – indeed – could encounter her son’s fright at something awful and not use the moment to teach him about some of our awful history and our role in it. This would have been the moment to make sure that her young son did not have to spend his entire life in small acts, each and every day, fighting against his own humanity and not mastering his fear. What has become of this young man? (See NYT article.)

Finally, removing, banning and in any way trying to separate our children from books is a statement that says simply, “we want our children to remain as ill read as we are.” Book burning and its cousin book banning – wasn’t that for Nazis? 

Do we want the future to be any smarter than the present? If so, why in the world would we spend any time ridding ourselves of information, especially in book form?

Vailes Shepperd