Fairy tales

You know, the human capacity for irrational behavior never ceases to amaze me.

A report today from Atlanta's WXIA-TV (via HuffPo) and this blurb from Jacksonville's First Coast News spotlight the efforts of Laura Mallory, a Gwinnett County, GA resident, to ban the Harry Potter book series from the county's school libraries. Or, as she so rationally puts it:

"I want to protect my kids, children and others from evil," Mallory said. "Not fill their minds with it."

[...]

Mallory hasn't completely read any of the books. But she said she has read portions of a few books and was offended by the demonic activity.

"My personal religious views don't agree with these books," Mallory said. "We need for our children to read things that teach good morals. Harry Potter lies, cheats and steals and there is no accountability. There are better things for our children to be reading."

I suppose the reason stories like this (and there have been many through the course of my lifetime) bother me as much as they do, is not so much a fear that broader Constitutional rights are under attack, or that pockets exist in the American landscape where theocratic suppression of information might become the norm, or even that these wonderful fantasy tales might actually be removed from children's reach - although each of those things is more than worrisome in its own right.

Rather, what always disturbs me is the selective inability - or refusal - of a vast number of otherwise modern human beings to distinguish fiction from reality, to tell metaphor from reportage, to distinguish between fairy tale and fact. Perhaps I should stop being so surprised, especially after nearly six years of George and friends setting the tone for the nation. That group has certainly elevated the blurring of lie and truth to a high art, so it's no wonder so many Conservatives can no longer see the difference.

Is it a problem with our educational system? Ms. Mallory seems in her photo to be a woman of at least moderate means, and as such, someone who must have benefited from a reasonable public education. How, then, to explain her apparently genuine belief that Harry Potter is Satan's messenger, a belief so strong she feels compelled to impose it on everyone around her?

My bet is that this past weekend, Ms. Mallory herself was celebrating fantastical stories of a Hebrew slave who stretched out his staff and parted an ocean, and a Galilean carpenter who murmured a spell and raised the dead. While these well-known incidents are wonderful representations of the powers of good over evil, can any rational person really think they are inherently more "moral" - and therefore less of a "danger" to impressionable minds - than the imaginary exploits of a good-hearted adolescent, who battles the enemies of love and loyalty by conjuring a Patronus charm - and who most definitely does suffer accountability for any untruths or bending of the law he may employ in that battle?

At least, to a degree far greater than our Executive "champion" of American morality.

The refusal by most to acknowledge that the Bible itself is a collection of mythological campfire stories written by men to inspire, guide, admonish, and control, is stunningly hypocritical. And what a book it is, filled with all manner of violence, wizardry, polygamy, secret ritual, and countless examples of a fickle deity who "tests" his followers with cruel afflictions, once drowning the entire world's population rather than continue to teach and forgive. The fact that any official hearing would be held to even consider the "merits" of Ms. Mallory's unsupportable objections, is simply an affront to common sense.

Of course, this Georgia mother is not without her supporters. In first person testimony, teenager Jordan Susch recounted:

"I'm a true example of how Harry Potter books can open your life to witchcraft," said Jordan Susch.

Susch says she read the first Harry Potter novel when she was in the fourth grade. Two years later, she says, she and her friends were practicing witchcraft.

"We wanted to know if spells, potions and curses worked. By the seventh grade, I was so depressed, I set a date to kill myself," Susch said.

Well, I'm convinced now!

I'm suddenly reminded of the "witch trial" scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, during which John Cleese's village idiot accusingly exclaims, "She turned me into a newt!" After a pregnant pause - and the withering stares of all assembled at his still-human appearance - he then sheepishly mutters, "Well... I got better."

Seems to me that young Jordan's problems might be a little deeper than exposure to a few chapters about Albus Dumbledore. So she wished that she had magic powers in the fourth and fifth grade... what kid hasn't? It's just that those who've been raised, even in "faithful" homes, to differentiate between the world of the imagination (something essential to human development) and the real world don't involuntarily become suicidal upon watching Matilda or reading Lord of the Rings. I suspect that poor Jordan would have headed to this same intersection in Crazytown even if she'd only read the Good Book and couldn't, ultimately, multiply loaves and fishes, or turn water into wine despite her faith.

Maybe community organizations should spend their time investigating the shortcomings in her upbringing that would allow for such confusion, instead of patiently legitimizing a crusade to blame it all on J. K. Rowling.

OK, you're right - I'm making much too big a deal of this, and I'm not even sure what my point is any more. I guess I'm just consistently frustrated with those among us who would see the Harry Potter saga as a danger to.. well, to anything! Maybe I'm just tired of the fact that ignorance masquerading as "religion" seems to drive so much of what qualifies as news lately, and that it continues to fuel an endless campaign of suppression, repression, and oppression that qualifies as U.S. public policy.

I just don't get it. And what truly worries me is that these same types of people are not only spearheading ridiculous movements to ban "objectionable" children's books, but are also Scout leaders, city council members, state officials, newspaper owners, even President of the United States - in short, influential decision makers and role models. Misguided attacks on fairy tales as agents of the Devil are not only a pathetic display of uninformed self-righteousness, but a terrible waste of energy and time when there are so many real problems in our nation and the world needing serious attention.

After all - that's exactly the kind of thinking that landed us in Iraq, isn't it?