Read Or Bury Our Traditional Stories?

Is the title nonsense? Yeah. I just wanted my title to create the acronym ROBOTS. I previously had a line rationalizing the title, but it seemed pointless. This doesn't seem any more fruitful. So...

I think avoiding controversial texts, like “Heart of Darkness,” does nothing to serve individual growth or growth as a society/community. Without reading a book like “Heart of Darkness” and considering, internal and external, reactions to it we risk a reaching a point where we continue to operate in the same ideological framework and don’t move past certain ideas. Now, I suppose one could argue that teaching the same text each generation can lead to the same sort of stagnation, but I’d say that risk is almost negligible because the context in which HoD is read and the way it is read change over the years. As a result, HoD continues to inform people, but brings them to different conclusions. For example, HoD was read for 50+ years before an opinion like Achebe’s was developed and published. Achebe rails against the text and Conrad for the evils he observed, but without reading HoD Achebe might not have been compelled to respond when and how he did and we may not be considering the question of Hillis Miller’s essay “Should We Read ‘Heart of Darkness’?”

As can be deduced from my comments above, I agree with Hillis Miller’s general opinion that “’Heart of Darkness’ should be read, ought to be read” (HoD 474). However, I kind of disagree with Hillis Miller's opinion that it should only be read a certain way. HoD is a work of fiction, so to assume everything in the book is completely accurate isn’t very reasonable. However, I think there’s value in HoD, or most any book, regardless of how it’s read.  Is reading “Heart of Darkness” without some sort of discourse, introspection, etc. dangerous? I think dangerous is overstating things, but yes I suppose it could skew or reinforce a reader’s opinions. However, things are open to interpretation and if someone goes into “Heart of Darkness” looking to find examples to reinforce their negative opinions of another race, culture, gender, and so on, that's what they'll likely find. If they don’t read “Heart of Darkness,” they’ll likely find it in another text they come across. I don’t think that the discourse that can come out of reading “Heart of Darkness” should be sacrificed to avoid the risk of causing harm. We shouldn’t avoid things just because they might be taken one way or another, because they present potentially disquieting concepts, or because we can get similar ideas from another text. A set of ideas presented in a specific way will elicit very specific opinions that may not be conceived otherwise.

Furthermore, we, as members of society in general, should also read classic books like HoD because those who came before read them.  We shouldn’t read them out of obligation or to maintain the status quo, but to understand what shaped our forebears’ thought processes, how society has or hasn’t changed, and how we can individually interpret the world in which we live.