WIRTW #813 (the 'isn't it ironic' edition)

Somewhere, George Orwell is shaking his head.

This week, a Florida school board voted to remove a graphic-novel adaptation of 1984 from a school library.

Yes, 1984. The dystopian novel about censorship, government control, and the manipulation of information.

And yes, during Banned Books Week.

You can't make this stuff up.

To be fair, the Duval County School Board didn't ban Orwell's original novel. The district's roughly 200 copies remain available. The board removed its sole copy of Fido Nesti's illustrated adaptation because of concerns about its sexual imagery.

That distinction matters. But so does the irony.

Orwell gave us "Big Brother," "thoughtcrime," and "doublethink" to describe a world in which authorities control information and decide which ideas people are permitted to encounter.

Eighty-seven years after the fictional events of 1984, a Florida school board is debating which version of 1984 its students should be permitted to read.

I understand that schools have a responsibility to consider age-appropriate materials. Parents should have a voice in their children's education. And reasonable people can disagree about where to draw those lines.

But there's also a difference between protecting children from inappropriate content and deciding that the best response to uncomfortable ideas or images is to make them disappear.

Orwell understood that distinction. That's part of what makes this story so remarkable.

Perhaps the most important lesson of 1984 isn't what happens when a government controls what people can read.