Pullman on Censorship

[f4f3]

Well worth reading is Phillip Pullman's reaction to his book "The Golden Compass" being one of the "most challenged" books in US libraries, and the fact that it's challenged on "Religious Viewpoint".

I think his concluding remarks are worth quoting in full;

"Religion, uncontaminated by power, can be the source of a great deal of private solace, artistic inspiration, and moral wisdom. But when it gets its hands on the levers of political or social authority, it goes rotten very quickly indeed. The rank stench of oppression wafts from every authoritarian church, chapel, temple, mosque, or synagogue – from every place of worship where the priests have the power to meddle in the social and intellectual lives of their flocks, from every presidential palace or prime ministerial office where civil leaders have to pander to religious ones.

My basic objection to religion is not that it isn't true; I like plenty of things that aren't true. It's that religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good."

Comments

[anthrokeight.livejournal.com]

Amen.

She said, using religious terms to support secular intellectualism.

Also, I think part of the problem I have with faith=good, religion=bad, or religion=bad cause it corrupts or whatever is that these POVs make narrow a very broad experience.

I couldn't DO "I am not religious but I am spriitual." I need community, and I need an intellectual and social history to understand what "spiritual" means. (see: Kate isn't sure how she feels about the existence of God/ let the mystery be, but goes to mass anyway because she thinks its worth struggling over)

But Amen, anyway, Pullman.

[psychochicken.livejournal.com]

*...is beginning to believe his lack of reliance on the rest of the world for context is probably pretty unusual*

[anthrokeight.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'd say so.

But I am probably much more context and influence-of-group oriented than most Americans and Europeans. It's the academic field- it ruins you, really.