Burn this
A response to censorship
Josh Peterson
Issue date: 4/17/08 Section: Opinion
Book burning is the equivalent of dropping bombs. Last week, an article on a former Facebook group encouraged the burning of important books. And some at Hillsdale, a place where books are read to free the mind and develop the soul, supported the statement. It's a heinous act that puzzles me.
As a political, moral and religious statement, such a move toward censorship reflects an archaic and ridiculous desire to control the thoughts of people by restricting the free flow of information. If the truth sets us free, how would we know the truth if knowledge were legislated and partitioned off as others saw fit?
The group has been accused of committing acts similar to the Nazis by burning books. But I think the local book burners can find a much more appropriate example in oppressive communist nations. These nations practice censorship on a larger scale, fearing people might get their hands on books that speak about liberty, economics, philosophy and religion, which would convince them of ideas that do not toe the party-line. Such regimes have seen that their systems of thought do not last when these ideas become available to the populace.
Equating the burning of books to the dropping of bombs upon civilizations begs explanation and defense, but the destruction of knowledge that promotes the ideas of free societies - ideas that give oppressed people hope - is essentially the destruction of what enables those people's hopes and the lives they could have had.
If people think burning books will encourage others to be more pious and community-oriented - which is the opinion of the local group - then they'd better think again. Charlie Le Jeune, the leader of the group and a professed counter-revolutionary, is quoted saying that even the apostles burned books - a blatantly false statement. The apostles did not spend their time burning books. No Scriptural accounts support this claim. They spent time with the poor, the orphaned and the widows. They spent their time administering healing, feeding people, studying scripture, and teaching people about Jesus Christ and his way of life.
Maybe if Le Jeune spent more time reading books instead of burning them, he would see how foolish his statements come across. Needless to say, Le Jeune has taken the Facebook group down, but such thoughts of censorship still loom in the hearts and minds of people I would have thought had better sense than that.
As a political, moral and religious statement, such a move toward censorship reflects an archaic and ridiculous desire to control the thoughts of people by restricting the free flow of information. If the truth sets us free, how would we know the truth if knowledge were legislated and partitioned off as others saw fit?
The group has been accused of committing acts similar to the Nazis by burning books. But I think the local book burners can find a much more appropriate example in oppressive communist nations. These nations practice censorship on a larger scale, fearing people might get their hands on books that speak about liberty, economics, philosophy and religion, which would convince them of ideas that do not toe the party-line. Such regimes have seen that their systems of thought do not last when these ideas become available to the populace.
Equating the burning of books to the dropping of bombs upon civilizations begs explanation and defense, but the destruction of knowledge that promotes the ideas of free societies - ideas that give oppressed people hope - is essentially the destruction of what enables those people's hopes and the lives they could have had.
If people think burning books will encourage others to be more pious and community-oriented - which is the opinion of the local group - then they'd better think again. Charlie Le Jeune, the leader of the group and a professed counter-revolutionary, is quoted saying that even the apostles burned books - a blatantly false statement. The apostles did not spend their time burning books. No Scriptural accounts support this claim. They spent time with the poor, the orphaned and the widows. They spent their time administering healing, feeding people, studying scripture, and teaching people about Jesus Christ and his way of life.
Maybe if Le Jeune spent more time reading books instead of burning them, he would see how foolish his statements come across. Needless to say, Le Jeune has taken the Facebook group down, but such thoughts of censorship still loom in the hearts and minds of people I would have thought had better sense than that.
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Maxwell
posted 4/18/08 @ 3:27 PM EST
"If the truth sets us free, how would we know the truth if knowledge were legislated and partitioned off as others saw fit?"
In the Catholic scheme, the Church would be the legislator/partitioner; she is seen to be guided by the Holy Ghost, and therefore a good index of what's intellectually healthy or not, which is to say she would be something conducive to intellectual freedom in truth. (Continued…)
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