Great books prevent vigilantism

Opinion

When hearing migrating geese, my kid grinned. He said it was a reminder of the “natural order of the universe.” After a summer of smoke and upheaval, we looked upward. We see democracy struggling, hate rising, and a poor understanding of cause and effect.

School’s start made me think about how civics and democracy is doing close to home. In Edmonton, public schools worked to comply with the Alberta government’s decisions regarding which books were considered “acceptable.” Taking a cautious approach to “explicit sexual content,” schools pulled classics, including books by Margaret Atwood, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Maya Angelou.

Edmonton’s efforts to comply with the July ministerial order, which “establishes the goals and standards for school authorities to develop policies regarding the selection and availability of library materials in schools,” made news. Premier Danielle Smith suggested this was “a little vicious compliance over what the direction is.” Indeed, when governments make decisions without thinking through the implications, compliance seems draconian. Alberta government revised the law.

Well-educated individuals in a democracy can analyze information and draw research-based conclusions. The Edmonton school system did this. Yet, the Alberta government seemed surprised at the results. Actions have consequences.

When government instructs schools to evaluate and limit student access to books or schools, that’s what happens. Fair, transparent access to appropriate education should be a right for every child, not just those special few who are granted access but told “not to tell anyone how they got in.”

An August U.S. National Public Radio (NPR) story, “What books shaped you in high school? Here’s what you said” mentioned 23 books. These include Angelou, Atwood and Fitzgerald, which were temporarily off Edmonton’s reading list. I recalled books that affected me.

George Orwell’s Animal Farm is on the list. Recent biased local and world news coverage reminded me of Orwell’s conclusions. As Orwell wrote: “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.”

In Canadian news, we read lots about certain world conflicts but nothing about others. We see a lack of transparency in local school divisions, city and provincial government. Orwell’s take on equality is important because it rings true. Why are some issues resolved through public, transparent discourse, but others are disregarded? Local examples include “in camera” school trustee meetings, which fail to follow provincial laws regarding school of choice, or a failure to use recent reading research to help students learn.

Internationally, politically motivated murders dominate headlines, but school shootings or a Ukrainian refugee’s murder on a commuter train don’t warrant much coverage. Some countries are always in the news. Other stories promote misinformation, reflect propaganda or include errors. Meanwhile, others starve in Yemen or Sudan without news coverage.

The NPR article left out a book that impacted me. I read Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment in an Advanced Placement Grade 12 public school class for university credit. It’s not on every curriculum. In Winnipeg, few high schools offer Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses, which creates “unequal” student opportunities. My friends and I saw this book as a slog, but its themes resonated. Raskolnikov, the main character, confronts societal injustices in a drawn-out narrative, but his belief that he’s above the law fails him. His authoritarian certainty that extraordinary people are above the law is wrong, even when surrounded by injustice. Indeed, crimes have punishments.

Geese know fall is coming. Kids return to schools. Governments are in session. The turmoil due to war, propaganda, misinformation, and leaders with outsized power may not abate. We can, however, return to influential classics. We can try to regain our moral compasses during challenging times. This requires us to swim against the current, too.

Protecting free speech, education and critical thinking means that our society must remember how to discuss difficult topics without resorting to violence. Killing those with whom you disagree, or threatening Halifax tennis matches and individual athletes due to political disagreement, shouldn’t be on the table. Reading difficult literature and discussing it teaches analysis skills we need to behave appropriately and ethically as adults. Threatening violence towards those with whom we disagree doesn’t create a better place. It creates situations in which some animals are more equal than others. Like Raskolnikov, violent vigilantes feel they are above the law when they kill public figures with whom they disagree.

These classics pulled by Edmonton’s schools may not always be available, but we’re lucky. We can still find books with powerful messages to debate and analyze. Educated stakeholders can hold leaders and vigilantes to account, so no one is above the law. Laws must be enforced consistently and not manipulated to only address some circumstances but not others. Policies, their interpretations, and exceptions to the law have broad, and perhaps, unintended implications.

Joanne Seiff, a Winnipeg author, has been contributing opinions and analysis to the Free Press since 2009.