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Some believe that censorship is a tool of the conservative, trying hard to shelter eyes and minds from the truths of history and life; but there is a disturbing trend by liberals of using it as a tool to protect themselves from thoughts and ideas that offend them and scarcely anyone else. Both are fools.<\/p>\n
But they are not the first and- most certainly- won\u2019t be the last. In fact, Americans have practiced censorship long before this was the [at least on paper] \u201cland of the free\u201d.<\/p>\n
Some scholars deliberate whether John Eliot\u2019s The Christian Commonwealth<\/a><\/em> (written in the late 1640s) or William Pynchon\u2019s The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption<\/a><\/em> (1650) was the first book to be banned by the Puritans for theological or historical reasons, but America\u2019s first officially-banned book was Thomas Morton\u2019s New English Canaan<\/a><\/em>, published way back in 1637. New English Canaan<\/em> is a three-volume work collecting Morton\u2019s compassionate observations about Native Americans, along with a celebration of the beauty of the natural world and a stern satire of the Puritans.<\/p>\n Its publication distinguishes Morton as the first American poet of the English language.<\/p>\n The volumes were comprised of 10 chapters of closely-observed Native American life; 10 chapters on the wonders of American nature; and the final third a satiric derision on the Boston Puritans, warning that if their “martialist” approach to America were followed, the continent would become a \u201cChristian labor camp\u201d. He ridiculed their lack of learning, mocked their \u201cgloom\u201d, and referred to Myles Standish and his men as \u201cCaptain Shrimp and the nine worthies.\u201d<\/p>\n The critique could be summarized in Morton\u2019s comment that the Puritans \u201cmake a great show of religion but no humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n It was banned because it told his side in one of the pivotal battles for the cultural soul of the New World. To the Puritans, Morton represented the untamable \u201cother\u201d of colonial America. When he set up his rival colony of Merry Mount in close proximity to William Bradford\u2019s Plymouth Plantation and invited the Indians and escaped indentured servants to join him, all hell broke loose.<\/p>\n Morton did everything he could to thumb his nose at the Puritans by erecting a maypole at Merry Mount decorated with bright colors and penning a poem full of classical references that his neighbors considered a pagan and sacrilegious gesture almost as bad as the phallic nature of the maypole and some of the vulgar content of the poem.<\/p>\n Morton then proceeded to frolic with Native American \u201classes in beaver coats\u201d and \u201cdrink good liquor\u201d with his former indentured servants whom he had invited to join him as equals. That, along with the selling of guns to Native Americans, was seen as a severe threat to the Puritan social order.<\/p>\n He did win a lawsuit against \u201cNew Israel\u201d for having burned him out of his house.<\/p>\n Morton, who even after the Puritans \u201ccleansed\u201d Merry Mount, kept coming back to stake his claim, was finally \u201capprehended\u201d in Boston in 1644 for the publication of New English Canaan<\/em>.<\/p>\n Bradford, in his account of the conflict, is quite frank in his condemnation of the \u201cgreat licentiousness\u201d of Morton\u2019s crew and lists among their sins: trading with the Natives; setting up a maypole, drinking and dancing about it for many days together; inviting Native women for their consorts; dancing and frisking together like so many fairies- or furies rather; and \u201cworse practices\u201d. For Bradford, it was clear that Merry Mount (the sexual pun was intended) was an example of \u201cthe beastly practices of the mad Bacchanalians.\u201d<\/p>\n He was, consequently, New England\u2019s first criminal exile and considered America\u2019s first political exile as well. He died in Maine in 1647.<\/p>\n From Morton to Lenny Bruce and from Charlie Hebdo and George Carlin, the witticism of satire and the freedom to make fun of the establishment continues to be at war on two fronts- both conservative and liberal. Some take up the torch of censorship for fear that what you have to say will insult them and their own, private sensibilities, while others cry foul because what you say might<\/em> offend someone else simply because they think you should<\/em> be offended.<\/p>\n We may not have become the Christian labor camp Morton envisioned [yet], but neither are we free to express ourselves in the way we should in a true democracy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sources: <\/em>San Diego Free Press<\/a>, Copper Queen Library<\/a><\/em>
\n\u00a9 2016 R. Wolf Baldassarro\/Deep Forest Productions<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"