Also just the general sense that only that kind of literature HAD ANY VALUE, so of course you wanted kids to read literature With Value, so it had to be that kind of literature, and the other shit would Rot Children's Brains (because it was not Valuable Literature). People who were in The Educated Classes (etc) really and truly believed this, and really and truly believed that if you let kids read "escapist" fiction (or even adults!) you were destroying their minds.
That's basically the mentality through most of the mid-century, in terms of the people who controlled both publishing and libraries (which is where a lot of the awards drew their committees) and universities and so on, held without any irony at all.
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Date: 2021-04-19 10:01 pm (UTC)Also just the general sense that only that kind of literature HAD ANY VALUE, so of course you wanted kids to read literature With Value, so it had to be that kind of literature, and the other shit would Rot Children's Brains (because it was not Valuable Literature). People who were in The Educated Classes (etc) really and truly believed this, and really and truly believed that if you let kids read "escapist" fiction (or even adults!) you were destroying their minds.
That's basically the mentality through most of the mid-century, in terms of the people who controlled both publishing and libraries (which is where a lot of the awards drew their committees) and universities and so on, held without any irony at all.