Saw an article yesterday that stated that incidents of book burning are on the rise here and abroad, in part due to the effective networking online by the moral storm troopers whose sworn duty is to protect us from our own wayward thoughts. I felt very queasy after reading this, a deflated sort of feeling. Like, here we go again.
Book burnings and thought supression have never been a sign of good things to come, have always been the tools of dictators and fascists. One of the most famous was the burning of books in Berlin in 1933 at the Bebelplatz, a public square where Nazi brownshirts destroyed over 25000 volumes that they felt were antithetical to the German and Nazi causes. That was a dark omen of things to comes. On that site there is now a memorial to that event with the words of German poet Heinrich Heine inscribed on a marker. The books of Heine were among those destroyed and he ominously foretold of the results of the event with his words written over a hundred years before:
“the burning was just a prologue: where they burn books, they ultimately burn people.”
So understand my unease at the news that book burners are back and ready to go into action.
It seems so ridiculous and so counterproductive to the movements who stage these events. Book burning is a trait of the weak and fearful. Burning a book says that you are afraid of the whatever is in that book and don’t feel confident enough in your own beliefs and morals, or those of your children, to simply counter the claims with tolerance and logic. Demonstrate your moral superiority and the strength of your own character by publicly pointing out the flaws and mistruths of the literature in an open forum rather than simply yelling that it is obscene and setting it ablaze. If you can’t counter the books with logic and truth then perhaps you must look at your own thoughts and motives with a bit more care.
Just put down the goddamn gasoline and matches.
Redtree Times 