I’m curious. Have you actually READ these books, or are you riding on the wave of media hype?
I have NOT. (now, hold..hear me out.)
I've merely read the plot summaries on Wiki, and a couple of the interviews he's had on Guardian, etc.
I do not watch network news, and am STRONGLY reticent to follow the herd mentality on the web...I can assure you.
Furthermore, my fascist radar goes bonkers when I hear "book ban" or even "boycott."
I -DO NOT- support the squelching of this author.
In fact, I agree with him and with you likely that he explores some interesting alternative conceptualization of morality etc...even not reading the book. (BTW, his concepts are not that difficult to understand through his interviews. He doesn't have the breadth of Machiavelli...not that hard to figure out!)
What I think is deplorable, as a conservative, is his focus on delivering these concepts to immature minds via childrens books and movies.
OTOH, you may think I'm hyprocritical when I say that I embrace CS Lewis's attempts to introduce Christian concepts to children.
Why?
Because I am a Burkian conservative.
I believe that first and foremost, consistency with and a reverence for the wisdom of our elders trumps the most recent good idea.
Even if Pullman is right and Christianity is a cruel hoax and The Almighty is a senile fool, then according to conservatism, the worst thing to do to humanity is to yank the rug out from under it instantaneously. It should be introduced gradually, over dozens of generations....NOT in one fell swoop.
Free love, homosexuality, open-marriages, joy killings, embezzlement, communism, slavery, abortion, cloning....these are all experiments in humanity---which---have and some day may be commonly accepted as good for society. Burke believes that even though computers and technology progresses, that inter-human relations don't change that much over time and the long human experiment has pretty much provided the answers to what is basically right and wrong by the time Christ came around.
If Pullman had written the trilogy as a philosophical treatise, or a pulp-fiction series for adults, then maybe he could begin to counter the decisions of moral time.
But by chossing to destabilize the foundations of faith at the immature children's level, that's simply something that is anti-conservative, and I perceive that every bit as hurtful to children as any other abuse.
Let CHILDREN grapple with his new concepts after they have a strong understanding of philosophy from the Greeks and the Apostles and the Renaissance first!
In my opinion, Pullman is using children in his experiments in the same nefarious way as his 'evil' Magisterium does...
Liberalism is the adolescent arrogance that they know everything, their elders are idiots, and we'd have world peace and happiness if everyone would just adopt this or that latest new wave. And children are naturally liberal because they are omnicient at birth and only become aware of their ignorance and mortality as they age over 30.