Opposition, Free Press, and Democracy with Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye”

CASE FENNER
Sep 4, 2018 · 2 min read
The Catcher in the Rye (cover)

In the warm July of 1951, J.D. Salinger’s magnum opus, The Catcher in the Rye, came out; introducing the world to it’s tuberculosis ridden protagonist Holden Caulfield. The story itself is about opposing the reality enforced upon you by society, and with the challenging of the book from multiple school districts from around the country, I think it is an almost perfect representation of democratic values honored in America.

Holden Caulfield is a rebel. That much anyone who’s read the book can assure you. He smokes, drinks, and even hires a prostitute near the end of the novel; all to assert his opposition to the “norms” of the society he lives in. This opposition to “normal” ideas and thoughts are what makes Holden…well…Holden. It’s also what makes American politics work, despite the gridlock that it causes.

To be a Democracy, we have to have civil discourse; a free flowing river of ideas that separate and mingle but eventually recombine; only to begin the process over again. We have to be in opposition to our other halves “norms”, and we can’t let one party have total dominance over the American politics scene. It is inevitable that opposition will arise, as in the words of Jame Madison’s Federalist #10 “Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires.” So now you see why opposition is a must have of Democracy, but what of the free press?

Well, Salinger’s work is also considered one of the most challenged books in American literature, with more than thirty one schools having banned it between 1960 and 2018.

“But,” you cry “, if Salinger’s work is so offensive, why was it even allowed to be written?”

That comes from one of our most valued American freedoms, the free press. Salinger’s ideas about people and opposition were allowed to prosper because of the free press, and his message was received by people because of it. If we didn’t have this freedom, we would be lied to by government controlled news-slaves working for shell companies; and we would have never heard the story of Holden Caulfield, a true American if any ever existed. I leave you with the words of The Bill of Rights, “The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom in a state: it ought not, therefore, to be restrained in this commonwealth.”

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Welcome to Probably News, my A.P. Government blog; where we’ll delve into the topics Mr. Crites gives us with a mostly scientific bend. Written by Case Fenner!

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