MY POV: “Should we be reading The Nights?”

When Professor Albert brought up the question whether or not we should be reading The Nights, my mind immediately thought yes…we should. Why, you might ask? To put it briefly, I believe that everyone should be able to express their own ideas, thoughts, and beliefs. The author simply did not write this book just for mere entertainment; it came with a purpose. I can argue personally that everything I ever read contained some sort of meaning, whether that meaning was valuable or meaningless. To say that we should not read a book based on sensual content is a wrong way of keeping an open mind. Although The Nights does contain sexual information, slurs, insults, misogyny, etc; the book still holds a purpose which is why it was created. As harsh as this may sound, it is good sometimes to be exposed to harmful and problematic content because that will give you a moral sense of ethics. Without being exposed to harm, how is one supposed to know the difference between good and bad? Without being challenged with reading difficult concepts that you might not agree with, how else are you supposed to learn about other people’s viewpoints? By censoring a book, you are prohibiting your mind by not feeding it information. If the brain does not get enough exercise, it can actually harm your health. So, although I do not like the misrepresentation of women in this book so far, I will be keeping an open mind and do believe that we should continue to read and evaluate The Arabian Nights.