Censorship in Literature (Gynter)

When discussing the censorship of slaughterhouse five, one must understand the socio-political circumstances that surrounded the United States at the time. It was the 1960’s, a time of social change filled with political controversies, such as the Vietnam War, an on-going conflict where thousands of Americans would shed their blood. The American society was a much more socially conservative society when Slaughterhouse Five was published, with topics such as homosexuality, bestiality, criticism of religion, and the vilifying of the American government and military being considered socially taboo. For these reasons, it is very logical why the American people would have objections to the book, and it is understandable why they would want to ban the book.

However, I strongly disagree. I believe that no literature, no matter how controversial, should be censored. Without this basic notion of freedom, our modern civilization, as we know it, would not exist. If great minds like Galileo, who presented the basic idea that the Earth revolves around the sun, or Mohandas Ghandi, who pioneered resistance to tyranny through peaceful means, had not questioned the social order of the time, we would not cherish today’s freedoms. The written word is where all revolutions start. If government gained the power to regulate literature, our society would revert back to the middle ages.

Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five brought to light many moral issues that the American public had overlooked over the 20^th century. One of them was the atrocity that was the bombing of Dresden. Vonnegut, having had a firsthand experience of the Dresden bombings, presents the viewer the true destructive nature of war. Vonnegut presents the American the reader to the ugly nature of war, and how it degenerates the morale of a human being, by portraying the ill-nature and profanity of the American soldiers.  The reason that it provokes strong reactions is because Vonnegut is telling the cold hard truth, and truth hurts sometimes. Vonnegut was also one of the first to give literary acknowledgments that homosexual men, referred to in the novel as "fairies," were among the victims of the Nazi Holocaust.
Although many people may try to label Vonnegut as Anti-American, I sincerely believe that he was a true patriot. He was a war veteran who loved his country. He did not strongly criticize because he had feelings of hatred towards the United States, but because he wanted the best for Americans. In many ways, his book was a reflection of the culture of the United States. He forced the American people to take a close look at themselves and make them want to change what was wrong in their society. The passages in the book where he criticizes the poverty epidemic are intended to expose the American public (especially the middle class) to the fact that their society is far from being perfect and that problems like poverty should not be ignored. Controversial as it may be, a person who truly loves his country should be able to criticize it.
Literature should be the last thing that governments should focus on censoring. I think there is more harmful material, such as pornography, or the encouragement of recreational drug use through television that governments should prevent kids from getting exposed to.
It is true that the books that we have read this year like Brave New World, 1984 and Slaughterhouse Five include topics (sex, recreational drug use) that are inappropriate for certain age groups. However they also contain timeless messages such as the danger of totalitarian governments, the destructiveness of war, drug use, genetic engineering etc... This is why school boards should refrain from banning the reading of these books inside classrooms. They should, however, set a minimum age limit as to when the book can be read.
In conclusion, I believe that, in a civilized society, the written word is the strongest weapon a civilian possesses. If that is taken away from a person, we are nothing more than a fascist dictatorship.