meghan, with all due respect, you're full of it

Oh, lordy. There is NOTHING I would prefer than to shut up about the boring YA-is-more-lurid argument. Whatever. Everything in our culture is more lurid and rising and sinking tides lift and sink all boats and some YA may be sinking but the majority of YA, including supposedly dark stuff like THE HUNGER GAMES is, when you get past the covers, provocative, deep, smart and thoughtful commentary on the world we live in. A lot better than the DRAGON TATTOO series where people seem to always be sticking things up people's nether regions and is truly lurid. But I digress.

 

If only Meghan Cox Gurdon would've shut up. But the thing is she keeps pedaling this argument, this from her latest diatribe in the Wall Street Journal:

It is true that so-called problem novels may be helpful to children in anguished circumstances. The larger question is whether books about rape, incest, eating disorders and "cutting" (self-mutilation) help to normalize such behaviors for the vast majority of children who are merely living through the routine ordeals of adolescence.

There are real-world reasons for caution. For years, federal researchers could not understand why drug- and tobacco-prevention programs seemed to be associated with greater drug and tobacco use. It turned out that children, while grasping the idea that drugs were bad, also absorbed the meta-message that adults expected teens to take drugs. Well-intentioned messages, in other words, can have the unintended consequence of opening the door to expectations and behaviors that might otherwise remain closed.

What she is strongly suggesting is that by reading about cutting or drug-taking or sex-having, "innocent" readers might turn into cutters or drug-takers or cutters. The is spurious, which is a fancy way of saying bullshit. There is NO RESEARCH to this, and the research Gurdon gives doesn't even back up her own argument! Still,  in spite of the dearth of research,  social conservatives have, for years now, tried to make the case this case. It is the reason that sex-ed in school is such a hot-button issue. Teaching kids about how to use condoms or how not to get pregnant or get AIDS will ENCOURAGE THEM TO HAVE SEX. Never mind that the opposite is true as evidenced by the US's shamefully high teen pregnancy rate. Countries with a more enlightened attitude (Hi, Holland, how YOU doing?) not only have delayed onset of sexual activity but much lower rates of STDs. But again, I digress.

The point is, if you don't like darker YA, don't buy it. If you don't want your kids to read it, don't let them. But don't make a cultural blanket statement using this extremely tenuous argument about why lame anti-drug messaging didn't work. Maybe the DARE program didn't work because it was so dorky and kids saw right through it? Maybe incidences of cutting are going up because kids feel under insane amount of pressure from such early age to take all AP classes and make the gymnastics team and debate and also do well in that after-school Mandarin they're enrolled in so they can compete when China takes over the world. Or maybe it's because the culture is surrounded by such ridiculous models of womanhood that no girl can live up. Maybe it's Jersey Shore's fault. Who knows? But there are an awful lot of scary things going in the world, in our culture—things that would require a lot of systemic change—that are making life more complex for kids today. It would be nice if we could just make books cheerier and kids would be fine (and for the record, I think kids ARE fine and that the worry that today's generation is doomed is perennial), but it's not that easy. Sorry, Meghan. There's no silver bullet. Or maybe that's a bubble-gum pink bullet for you.

For the record, and please don't kill me, I don't actually think YA saves. I don't think books save people. I think people save people. I think books sometimes help people feel that they're not alone and this allows them to connect with other people. I also don't think you have to be an anguished person to enjoy a book about anguish. For instance, I don't think readers of IF I STAY have to have been in awful car crashes and have lost their families to like the book. But kids—and adults, it turns out—like to engage in emotional reading experiences, to have catharsis through reading. The Greek philosopher Aristotle coined that term to describe the public release that came through works of art. If Gurdon is so into the classics, she might want to look that up. Sometimes, readers relate on a more personal level and that gives a book more resonance. But it's not necessary to the reading experience. And as far as I can tell, no one has read IF I STAY and gone on to try to kill their families in car crashes. Some readers have said they've stopped texting while driving, though and others have picked up the cello. Ohh, gateway book!

Gurdon's argument is stupidity. And using faux science to back up personal tastes is Glenn Beck territory. And part of me knows the best way to combat stupidity is to shut up about it. But in my last post about this, I exhorted us all not to let the bullies and liars and purveyors of misinformation be the loudest voices, so following my own advice, I'm getting the last word.

For now anyway.

Oy, the stupidity. It stings.