Comics that make you think (thoughts you've already had)

So the other day I was reading this comic (part 1, part 2), hardly believing how bigoted and offensive it was. I’m still not entirely sure it’s actually for real. I learned a couple of interesting things about the US – the US is so weird that it could easily be another planet. For example, I discovered NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association). I couldn’t help scratching my head as I looked it up in Wikipedia. With the way the world – and the US in particular – has gone hysterical over paedophilia and child pornography how can a group like that be legal?

Of course then I started thinking that Neo-Nazi groups, like Golden Dawn in Greece, are legal (they even take part in the elections) and all sorts of other peculiar groups are legal too. And it is a person’s right to say and believe whatever they feel like. I certainly wouldn’t trust the state to tell me what sort of groups can or can’t exist. Neither would I trust the state to tell what books I can or can’t read. Of course the state seems more interested in sex than subversive political ideas when it comes to censoring books. As if the Story of O is somehow more dangerous than The Anarchist’s Cookbook, or any of those truly dangerous books written by islamist extremists.

If a bunch of middle-aged guys want to sit around talking about how great it would be to have sex with pre-pubescent boys, it’s their right. Just like anyone can write racist leaflets and hand them out or write extremely sadistic and demeaning pornographic novels. We don’t have to agree, to defend their right to be perverts/racists/religious extremists. Everybody knows that, I’m assuming.

Only thing is that we shouldn’t neglect the rights of the voiceless majority. Eight-year old boys have the right not to be assaulted by older men. Dutch film-makers have the right not to be shot by islamist extremists.

Back to books, because I believe the world can never have too many books and a person can never read too many (even though it’s obvious that it would be better to spend your time reading Richard Sennett than a Harlequin novel). I’m emphatically, categorically, absolutely against banning any sort of book, however badly written, perverted, bigoted, subversive or dangerous it might be. However the unfortunate truth is that there are people out there who aren’t able to properly judge what books they should or shouldn’t waste their time on. There also are people who will read a fanatical propagandistic book urging them to kill “infidels” and instead of shaking their head and throwing the book away, will believe it and follow the author’s orders.

What can anyone do about that? It’s the author’s right to publish his books and the bookshop’s/library’s right to stock them. Grudgingly I will confess that giving potential readers an “ability to think and judge for yourself” test before letting them run loose in the bookshop/library is a tad patronizing.

How about we put warnings on books? Like cigarette packets have these big black warnings that say “smoking kills” and other even more explicit and disgusting things. We can have warnings on books proclaiming “reading this book might kill brain-cells” or “this book could turn you into a dangerous terrorist” or “none of the facts contained in this book are in fact true. Read at your own peril!” How about the warnings we have on cds that say “Parental advisory necessary, contains offensive lyrics”? Why cds and not books? “Parental advisory necessary, contains bad grammar and syntax”, “this book contains ideas and/or situations that many will find offensive”.

Do you think my idea might catch on?