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# 2021-11-12 - The Freedom to Read
The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is
continuously under attack. Private groups and public authorities in
various parts of the country are working to remove or limit access to
reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label
"controversial" views, to distribute lists of "objectionable" books
or authors, and to purge libraries. These actions apparently rise
from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no
longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to counter
threats to safety or national security, as well as to avoid the
subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. We, as
individuals devoted to reading and as librarians and publishers
responsible for disseminating ideas, wish to assert the public
interest in the preservation of the freedom to read.
Most attempts at suppression rest on a denial of the fundamental
premise of democracy: that the ordinary individual, by exercising
critical judgment, will select the good and reject the bad. We trust
Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make
their own decisions about what they read and believe. We do not
believe they are prepared to sacrifice their heritage of a free press
in order to be "protected" against what others think may be bad for
them. We believe they still favor free enterprise in ideas and
expression.
These efforts at suppression are related to a larger pattern of
pressures being brought against education, the press, art and images,
films, broadcast media, and the Internet. The problem is not only
one of actual censorship. The shadow of fear cast by these pressures
leads, we suspect, to an even larger voluntary curtailment of
expression by those who seek to avoid controversy or unwelcome
scrutiny by government officials.
Such pressure toward conformity is perhaps natural to a time of
accelerated change. And yet suppression is never more dangerous than
in such a time of social tension. Freedom has given the United
States the elasticity to endure strain. Freedom keeps open the path
of novel and creative solutions, and enables change to come by
choice. Every silencing of a heresy, every enforcement of an
orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of our society and
leaves it the less able to deal with controversy and difference.
Now as always in our history, reading is among our greatest freedoms.
The freedom to read and write is almost the only means for making
generally available ideas or manners of expression that can initially
command only a small audience. The written word is the natural
medium for the new idea and the untried voice from which come the
original contributions to social growth. It is essential to the
extended discussion that serious thought requires, and to the
accumulation of knowledge and ideas into organized collections.
We believe that free communication is essential to the preservation
of a free society and a creative culture. We believe that these
pressures toward conformity present the danger of limiting the range
and variety of inquiry and expression on which our democracy and our
culture depend. We believe that every American community must
jealously guard the freedom to publish and to circulate, in order to
preserve its own freedom to read. We believe that publishers and
librarians have a profound responsibility to give validity to that
freedom to read by making it possible for the readers to choose
freely from a variety of offerings.
The freedom to read is guaranteed by the Constitution. Those with
faith in free people will stand firm on these constitutional
guarantees of essential rights and will exercise the responsibilities
that accompany these rights.
We therefore affirm these propositions:
# 1) It is in the public interest for publishers and librarians to
# make available the widest diversity of views and expressions,
# including those that are unorthodox, unpopular, or considered
# dangerous by the majority.
Creative thought is by definition new, and what is new is different.
The bearer of every new thought is a rebel until that idea is refined
and tested. Totalitarian systems attempt to maintain themselves in
power by the ruthless suppression of any concept that challenges the
established orthodoxy. The power of a democratic system to adapt to
change is vastly strengthened by the freedom of its citizens to
choose widely from among conflicting opinions offered freely to them.
To stifle every nonconformist idea at birth would mark the end of
the democratic process. Furthermore, only through the constant
activity of weighing and selecting can the democratic mind attain the
strength demanded by times like these. We need to know not only what
we believe but why we believe it.
# 2) Publishers, librarians, and booksellers do not need to endorse
# every idea or presentation they make available. It would conflict
# with the public interest for them to establish their own political,
# moral, or aesthetic views as a standard for determining what should
# be published or circulated.
Publishers and librarians serve the educational process by helping to
make available knowledge and ideas required for the growth of the
mind and the increase of learning. They do not foster education by
imposing as mentors the patterns of their own thought. The people
should have the freedom to read and consider a broader range of ideas
than those that may be held by any single librarian or publisher or
government or church. It is wrong that what one can read should be
confined to what another thinks proper.
# 3) It is contrary to the public interest for publishers or
# librarians to bar access to writings on the basis of the personal
# history or political affiliations of the author.
No art or literature can flourish if it is to be measured by the
political views or private lives of its creators. No society of free
people can flourish that draws up lists of writers to whom it will
not listen, whatever they may have to say.
# 4) There is no place in our society for efforts to coerce the
# taste of others, to confine adults to the reading matter deemed
# suitable for adolescents, or to inhibit the efforts of writers to
# achieve artistic expression.
To some, much of modern expression is shocking. But is not much of
life itself shocking? We cut off literature at the source if we
prevent writers from dealing with the stuff of life. Parents and
teachers have a responsibility to prepare the young to meet the
diversity of experiences in life to which they will be exposed, as
they have a responsibility to help them learn to think critically for
themselves. These are affirmative responsibilities, not to be
discharged simply by preventing them from reading works for which
they are not yet prepared. In these matters values differ, and
values cannot be legislated; nor can machinery be devised that will
suit the demands of one group without limiting the freedom of others.
# 5) It is not in the public interest to force a reader to accept
# the prejudgment of a label characterizing any expression or its
# author as subversive or dangerous.
The ideal of labeling presupposes the existence of individuals or
groups with wisdom to determine by authority what is good or bad for
others. It presupposes that individuals must be directed in making
up their minds about the ideas they examine. But Americans do not
need others to do their thinking for them.
# 6) It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians, as
# guardians of the people's freedom to read, to contest encroachments
# upon that freedom by individuals or groups seeking to impose their
# own standards or tastes upon the community at large; and by the
# government whenever it seeks to reduce or deny public access to
# public information.
It is inevitable in the give and take of the democratic process that
the political, the moral, or the aesthetic concepts of an individual
or group will occasionally collide with those of another individual
or group. In a free society individuals are free to determine for
themselves what they wish to read, and each group is free to
determine what it will recommend to its freely associated members.
But no group has the right to take the law into its own hands, and to
impose its own concept of politics or morality upon other members of
a democratic society. Freedom is no freedom if it is accorded only
to the accepted and the inoffensive. Further, democratic societies
are more safe, free, and creative when the free flow of public
information is not restricted by governmental prerogative or
self-censorship.
# 7) It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians to give
# full meaning to the freedom to read by providing books that enrich
# the quality and diversity of thought and expression. By the
# exercise of this affirmative responsibility, they can demonstrate
# that the answer to a "bad" book is a good one, the answer to a
# "bad" idea is a good one.
The freedom to read is of little consequence when the reader cannot
obtain matter fit for that reader's purpose. What is needed is not
only the absence of restraint, but the positive provision of
opportunity for the people to read the best that has been thought and
said. Books are the major channel by which the intellectual
inheritance is handed down, and the principal means of its testing
and growth. The defense of the freedom to read requires of all
publishers and librarians the utmost of their faculties, and deserves
of all Americans the fullest of their support.
We state these propositions neither lightly nor as easy
generalizations. We here stake out a lofty claim for the value of
the written word. We do so because we believe that it is possessed
of enormous variety and usefulness, worthy of cherishing and keeping
free. We realize that the application of these propositions may mean
the dissemination of ideas and manners of expression that are
repugnant to many persons. We do not state these propositions in the
comfortable belief that what people read is unimportant. We believe
rather that what people read is deeply important; that ideas can be
dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas is fatal to a democratic
society. Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours.
* * *
This statement was originally issued in May of 1953 by the
Westchester Conference of the American Library Association and the
American Book Publishers Council, which in 1970 consolidated with the
American Educational Publishers Institute to become the Association
of American Publishers.
Adopted June 25, 1953, by the ALA Council and the AAP Freedom to Read
Committee; amended January 28, 1972; January 16, 1991; July 12, 2000;
June 30, 2004.
A Joint Statement by:
* American Library Association
* Association of American Publishers
Subsequently endorsed by:
* American Booksellers for Free Expression
* The Association of American University Presses
* The Children's Book Council
* Freedom to Read Foundation
* National Association of College Stores
* National Coalition Against Censorship
* National Council of Teachers of English
* The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression
From: https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/freedomreadstatement
tags: article,freedom,philosophy
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