The Religious Right and the Leftist ‘Woke’ Walk into a Bar; This Is What Happens

I’m talking about the United States and the United Kingdom, two Anglo-Saxon countries that view themselves as paragons of freedom of expression, and which have recently begun to regress under pressure from a variety of religious, conservative, “woke” and vigilante groups. This inclination has, fortunately, not (yet?) been evident among the democracies of continental Europe.

Traditionally, the decision to censor content was determined by the state, relevant institutions (as was the case in Portugal during the Estado Novo era) or by judicial decisions based on prevailing moral norms. That type of censorship largely disappeared in Western democracies throughout the 20th century in what was seen as a concerted effort to strengthen individual rights and freedoms. From that point, it became possible to publish practically anything, even works of questionable value, be they devoid of reason, dishonest, immoral or even based on false premises. It was up to the public to buy these works or not, and it had complete freedom of choice to do so.

This basic principle is fundamental. On the one hand, ideas and norms are constantly evolving, and works considered historically erroneous or obscene at one point often come to be seen as accurate or acceptable later on. Further, the concepts of what is “right” and what is “proper” are subjective and every concept has the right to be expressed, even if it is not universally accepted. Freedom implies that everything has a right to be published so citizens are able to debate freely and make choices.

The only ethically acceptable restriction to this universal principle has to do with the age of the reader. There is an ongoing and pertinent debate about whether still-developing young minds should have access to works they are not yet able to evaluate critically.

In modern times, which we might define as starting roughly in the middle of the last century, freedom of expression has fostered a continued debate between reactionaries — those who view traditional ideas as absolute and call themselves conservatives — and progressives, those who feel tradition is always subject to evolution so that they don’t become an obstacle to progress.

It’s easier to understand this dichotomy and antagonism in the fields of natural and physical science. It was progressives who knocked down theories once seen as absolute, such as, for example, that Earth was the center of the universe, or that Homo sapiens were a creation and not the result of evolution. Likewise, it was progressives who identified and explained germs and microbes, blood circulation, modern chemistry and other advances that, at one time, were seen as sacrilegious.

In the social sciences, which are not prone to precise experimentation, and in matters of morality, it is much harder to find consensus. And even though some of them, specifically racial and gender-based differences, have been completely demystified, the debate continues to rage. What’s worse is that reactionaries don’t want to even allow the debate, refusing to accept anything that might question their “truth.”

And so we come to a new situation, in which state-sponsored censorship is replaced by a form of grassroots censorship, as seen in the religious communities, parents’ groups and other private associations that try to ban certain works from schools, libraries, bookstores, or dissemination of them in any form. Their targets are communities of color, LGBTQ+ narratives, women (the issue of in vitro fertilization) or historical revision of the “official” narratives that erased past injustice.

These groups use all the legal means available to them: local legislation, regional education government institutions and the power of parents’ associations to decide what their children read in school. In reality, many of these initiatives are either unconstitutional (as is the case in the United States) or illegal (in the United Kingdom), but that doesn’t stop people from introducing them, accordingly leading to relentless pressure on teachers and librarians.

These groups represent only themselves and do not reflect common attitudes. In the United States, attendance at religious ceremonies has decreased, and about 30% of Americans claim they are not religious. In Britain, more than 50% of young people say they have no religion.

Perhaps it’s this loss of influence that leads such beleaguered groups to adopt a more aggressive posture in defense of their principles.

In those American states with Republican legislative majorities — Republicans currently align themselves with religious radicalism — recent laws demonstrate this tendency to force Christian principles into education. This is the case in Oklahoma, where the state government has allowed religiously inspired schools to receive public funding in evident conflict with the constitutional tenet of separation between church and state. Federal law allows the state to fund private schools, which enroll 8% of students nationwide, but not those that have an official religious orientation.

In Texas, the state legislature passed a law that prohibits universities and secondary institutions from establishing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion departments and using an ethnic quota system to hire teachers. The law specifically says that institutions may not “compel or request that any employee, student, or candidate support different treatment of individuals or groups based on race, color, or ethnicity.” It may also not inquire about individuals’ preferences with regard to “anti-racism, social injustice, inclusion, or related concepts.” The language could not be clearer. There are efforts underway to establish similar norms at the University of Chicago, as well as in Missouri and Utah.

Libraries: a Battlefield

Another front in this American battlefield focuses on public libraries. Informal associations, usually religious, have increasingly pressured libraries to remove certain books — typically those that attempt to revise historical narratives in light of racial injustice or those that defend sexual minorities — from the catalogs. Unable to use the law, in these cases, they resort to applying pressure on the librarians themselves.

In Britain, these “cultural wars” have not been as evident in schools — the British system is essentially agnostic, underpinned by the relative permissiveness of the Anglican Church — but are in full view in public and community libraries. According to the national librarians association, as reported in The Guardian, a full third of librarians have been the subject of pressures, and even threats, to remove books from their collections, specifically, books that question British imperialism, address racial issues and present LGBTQ+ narratives.

This censorious activity has had pernicious effects on book publishers. The largest publishers, which, like large corporations in any type of business, prioritize sales over any sort of militancy or moral stance, have taken the initiative to purge books, many of them classics, of words and expressions that might be seen as provocative.

Some ridiculous, if not tragic, cases are well known, such as the removal of “Oriental” from a description of a character in the Poirot series of novels by Agatha Christie, or of ethnic references in Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. In the famous book by Roald Dahl, “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (which has sold millions and twice been adapted to film), the “wompa-wompa” natives of an island in the South Pacific and supposedly “dark,” have become pink in new editions!

The rewriting of books from the past, adapting them to “politically correct” norms of the present, or aligning them with current attitudes, be they held by the religious right or the leftist “woke,” is an indefensible cultural crime. At the very least, it leads to a sad moment, as in the of the umpteenth publication of Soren Kierkegaard’s work, which, this time, added an introductory note explaining that the author’s ideas did not reflect the publisher’s beliefs.

Worse, or at least as bad, is the censorship of contemporary authors who are denied publication, even with introductory notes. Here in Portugal, the case in which an American publishing house rejected Afonso Reis Cabral’s work has become notorious. The rejection letter says it all, in just a few lines:

“The writer is clearly very talented, however, I feel the frankness in ‘My Brother’ could be problematic for the U.S. market where these subject matters are taken very seriously by the media. The review of ‘Sugarloaf’ was mostly good but a colleague of mine expressed concerns about a cis person writing about a trans person — another high-sensitivity subject here. I tried to find a Portuguese-speaking LGBTQ person to write a sensitivity report but could not find any who spoke Portuguese. So, for these reasons I have decided to pass.”*

It seems that literature, under pressure from both religious fundamentalists and cultural radicals, is going through a rough period. And this is without taking into account those countries, the usual suspects, where state censorship continues to be a given.

Fortunately, the majority of European democracies (with the exception of a United Kingdom under the throes of Brexit) do not appear inclined to follow this civilizational decadence. As long as there is literature, there is thought, dreams and hope.

*Editor’s note: Although accurately translated, the original language of this letter excerpt could not be independently verified.