On the ownership and display of books that may be immoral

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My question is this: is it immoral, or perhaps even sinful, to own and (even more importantly) to display (such as on a bookshelf or in some other common area) certain books such as those containing and espousing postmodern themes and theories; written by communists and socialists; psychoanalysts whose diagram of humanity is merely that of a base creature without dignity; novelists such as D.H. Lawrence, Brett Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, and Franz Kafka, etc.?

I have enough sense to know the answer is “yes” in a general way, but “no” in that, if you have a mere intellectual interest in reading and consuming a wide variety of theories and viewpoints then you are not necessarily sinning. But, for instance, if I owned an overtly satanic book and had it sitting on a bookshelf in my living room, this would be immoral by itself whether I adhered to the messages and beliefs found within its pages or not. My intention in displaying these books isn’t to endorse non or anti-catholic messages/philosophies/people, but merely to show I have read a wide variety of authors. And because this is my intention in owning and displaying these books, am I merely being slightly prideful? Or am I really treading on immoral grounds?

I also understand that different members of the clergy may adhere to different political beliefs. What I seek is a magisterial declaration or papal bull on the matter, not speculation or unfair judgement of my person.

Authors whose works I own –

Friedrich Nietzsche
Karl Marx
Jean Baudrillard
D.H. Lawrence
Jean-Francois Lyotard
Louis Althusser
Michel Foucault
Franz Kafka
Brett East Ellis
Slavoj Zizek

Some specific works I own –

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
 
Literature is art. In my opinion, there is nothing immoral in owning or having these books on a bookshelf. (Where else are they meant to go?) How are we meant to engage with ideas if we do not read? I would even argue that in many of the works/authors you mention there is a religious element (Foucault, for example, discussed ideas about punishment and culpability frequently).

Now, if you had Fifty Shades of Grey on display I would seriously doubt your taste as it’s absolute tosh.
 
Um, these books are literature. I thought from the thread title you were going to be listing a bunch of pornographic novels.

I don’t consider any of the books on your list to be immoral, and I enjoyed reading Bret Easton Ellis’ early works (they got a bit repetitive and boring after “American Psycho” which I think is an unsung masterpiece in some ways).

I suppose if you were going to be led into sin by reading any of these books, such as reading DH Lawrence and deciding to go out and have a wild adulterous affair, then it would be a problem, but that doesn’t seem likely. I know when I was in Catholic high school many decades ago, we had a summer reading list for advanced English that had works by Gide and Mailer on it that were apparently considered obscene or nearly so when they first came out. By the early 1980s, they had become quite ordinary and tame.

Not sure why you’re even worried about this to be honest.
 
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Searching1 said:
My question is this: is it immoral, or perhaps even sinful, to own and (even more importantly) to display (such as on a bookshelf or in some other common area) certain books such as those containing and espousing postmodern themes and theories; written by communists and socialists; psychoanalysts whose diagram of humanity is merely that of a base creature without dignity
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no, I wouldn’t say that is a sin at all. (And I am scrupulous.)
 
And Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary” was considered obscene when it was first published in 1856, as well as Baudelaire’s “Les Fleurs du Mal” a year later.
 
It’s interesting you mentioned The Satanic Verses, I remember when my sister was visiting, she took some things, with my permission, from my house she thought I would not need.

They were all books that I know she thought had demons in them, or were otherwise cursed, judging by the titles. One of them was that book. Which was fine with me. It was a hard read, in my opinion.
Searching1 said:
And because this is my intention in owning and displaying these books, am I merely being slightly prideful?
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I don’t think it is prideful, at least you read them. I have a friend who had a bunch of books by Stephen King displayed on a bookshelf. I asked him which one was his favorite, and he said he hadn’t read any of them. In his case, he was being deceptive and was trying to make others think he has read a lot of books.

They can be used as a conversation piece for guests, no different than a magazine on a coffee table, or an elk mounted on the wall, in my opinion.
 
Out of the six books you list, I have now, or have had in the past, five of them on my shelves. The Satanic Verses I bought out of curiosity when the Ayatollahs issued their fatwa. I had never read anything by Salman Rushdie, because magic realism sounded like something that would have no interest for me. When I started reading the book, however, I found I liked it a lot. I have now read it twice and I think I have probably now also read just about everything else Rushdie has ever written. What is it, exactly, that you are doubtful about? Have you found something in the book that you think a Catholic ought not to read? If so, what?

I could ask the same question about Lolita, Black Skin White Masks, and The Prince. I read all three, but a very long time ago and I now have only a hazy recollection of them. In Lolita, though, I recall distinctly an episode near the end, where Humbert is trying to murder his rival, whose name I forget. He chases him up and downstairs and from one room to another, but he is too drunk to shoot straight and his intended victim is drugged to the eyeballs and can feel no pain. When I read it I thought that episode was a masterpiece of black humor, and I guess I would probably still think the same if I were to reread it today.

I never read more than a few pages of the Kundera novel. I don’t remember why not — maybe it just failed to grab me. Fanon’s book I found interesting at the time, but I suspect it may not have aged well. Once again, what exactly are you doubtful about?
 
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Lolita, the movie, is funny as heck in a very dark way. I especially liked the end when Lolita winds up as an ordinary housewife on her way to being homely. In my experience that’s where pretty much all youthful crush objects wind up. I think I read the book too but it was so long ago I don’t remember much of it.

I’d like to read the Kundera book. I remember the movie version of it as being very good. I related to one of the characters a lot at that time in my life.
 
This idea of putting books on a shelf so others can see what you read is odd to me. I’m not going to immediately call it pride because it could also be conversational fodder, I guess, but I never wished to display to the world what I was reading. Reading was for my personal enjoyment back when I read a lot, not anyone else’s business.
 
Searching1 said:
I also understand that different members of the clergy may adhere to different political beliefs. What I seek is a magisterial declaration or papal bull on the matter, not speculation or unfair judgement of my person.
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There simply isn’t a magisterial declaration on this. There isn’t one on many, many, many moral issues. This is because the Church teaches virtue and values our free will, and we are supposed to form our consciences in accord with the teachings of the Church. This doesn’t mean that there’s a declaration for every single conceivable situation telling us how to act. It means we learn the basic principles and then apply them. By way of analogy, consider that driver’s education teaches one how to operate a car. It doesn’t teach you every possible route you will ever drive. That would be ludicrous. Your job is to learn to use the car and use it well.

-Fr ACEGC
 
GladTidings said:
. I have a friend who had a bunch of books by Stephen King displayed on a bookshelf. I asked him which one was his favorite, and he said he hadn’t read any of them. In his case, he was being deceptive and was trying to make others think he has read a lot of books.
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Is your friend Jay Gatsby? In the book Gatsby has a bunch of books on the shelf he never even opened up. They were there to make an impression not because he cared about reading them.
 
That sounds like him. Not pretentious, just desperate with a learning disorder. I’ve never read that book, it sounds good.
 
Imo, if you must have them, then I strongly suggest not putting them in a common area like the family room/living room/parlor but in a private study.

The only one which I’d keep is The Prince because it has historical significance. Otherwise, if they were my books, I’d burn them.
 
If the books were pornographic (ie 50 shades (of stupid)) then I would say yes, otherwise however no, and I defend this by example.

Apparently, when Karol Wojtyla attended the Papal Conclave (in which he was elected Pope John Paul II no less), he brought along reading material (anyone who knows much about him knows he was a fantastic multi-tasker, able to read, while having a conversation with you, or dictate a book while reading, etc. doing both as if he were doing only one) in the form of the Communist Manifesto, when asked about it he explained that in order to fight we must first know our enemies. He later went on to be the single most influential figure in taking down communism. If Pope St. John Paul the Great could read the enemy to learn to beat him, then why can’t we?
 
I wouldn’t own The Satanic Verses, in case there were actual curses attached. It just seems imprudent. The rest are just literature. As long as you can own/display without endorsing them, I wouldn’t be concerned.
 
Cannot recall the title, however, Salmon Rushdie (sp?) wrote an autobiography that gives fascinating insight. I’ve read that one twice.
 
Unless you’re promoting ideas that are contrary to the faith there’s nothing sinful about having books on a book shelf.

Reading books that are different from your worldview is standard procedure in academia.
 
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The Satanic verses to which the title of the novel refers are just a historical controversy in Islam. There’s no way that “actual curses” are attached to the novel.

@Margaret_Ann Are you serious? You would burn the works of Kafka and Nabokov? You would burn some of the most influential texts in 19th- and 20th-century history such as the works of Nietzsche and Marx?
 
Michael_Anthony said:
Apparently, when Karol Wojtyla attended the Papal Conclave (in which he was elected Pope John Paul II no less), he brought along reading material (anyone who knows much about him knows he was a fantastic multi-tasker, able to read, while having a conversation with you, or dictate a book while reading, etc. doing both as if he were doing only one) in the form of the Communist Manifesto, when asked about it he explained that in order to fight we must first know our enemies. He later went on to be the single most influential figure in taking down communism. If Pope St. John Paul the Great could read the enemy to learn to beat him, then why can’t we?
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Team JPII here!
 
ORIGINAL POSTER, here – I am impressed with the responses I’ve gotten, and grateful. I was slightly fearful I may get replies such as “I would NEVER own those!” Burning books is a type of violence I cannot stomach.

I am struggling to formulate a response without writing my life story lol.

I used to love Marx and Nietzsche, as I used to be an atheist. There, I guess that’s a good starting point.

Possibly getting rid of the previously mentioned works has a lot to do with removing monuments to a former way of thinking from my living space. Putting books on shelves in common areas is a long held tradition of any relatively intellectual person I have ever met. So I will continue to have a bookshelf in my living room, thank you.

To be honest, more than Nietzsche and Marx, my biggest concern is one single book – “Less Than Zero” by Brett Easton Ellis. I don’t know if the Robert Downey Jr. movie version depicts this one passage from the original work, but towards the end there is a stomach churning scene in its pages I cannot and will not describe here. Suffice it to say it involves a young teenage girl who was kidnapped.

Brett Easton Ellis is a challenge to my newfound religiosity. In days past I would rationalize and dismiss any concern about these works by assuring anyone that no endorsement is made of torture, murder, or rape, but rather he judges these things negatively and displays them in juxtaposition to everyday consumer culture, or, in the case of American Psycho, to the corporate culture of the 1980’s which undoubtedly found among its ranks scores of (undiagnosed) psychopaths. He is not saying “torture and murder are good and fine,” but rather that “abject wealth and abhorrent personal conduct are one-in-the-same.” OR at least that’s my take on it, and THERE is the value these works have – I can actually reinforce my own faith with them.

Let’s not forget that Marx turned Hegel on his head, and Sartre utilized Kierkegaard. In each example, these were thinkers diametrically opposed in their views, where Hegel believed the material world and all created things originated from Geist/spirit/the mind, Marx is well known to have “turned Hegel on his head” by proposing the base of our world is the material (e.g. the workers) and all ideas come from that. And while Sartre was a dyed-in-the-wool atheist, his existentialist philosophies were largely influenced by the works of Kierkegaard, a man you could describe as a type of Christian Anarchist, believing God is the only authority we need obey. (In both cases I am oversimplifying… but to make a point.)

I can hold beliefs and views and still own works that are opposed to those beliefs and views. Lenin is taught in seminary, I believe. And Nietzsche, too. Marx and Nietzsche must be reckoned with, not ignored.

I suppose I am concerned with their display, though. Displaying them seems to be advocacy or at least flippant disregard for the immoral, atheistic, relativistic suggestions in their pages.
 
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