The Power of the Book

Ok... for the moment let's bracket the events in Gainesville. Let's take a step back and a broader question.....

What is it about books?

Mr. Jones is not the first person to ever dream up the idea of burning books. It is an old practice. They used to do it to people, too, although that is a somewhat different question. But I think it is related.

Why burn books? What does book burning represent? And, why are we bothered by book burning?

Ray Bradbury, whose novel Fahrenheit 451 explores the subject, had this reflection on his novel which appeared in the 1987 mass market paperback:

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist / Zionist / Seventh-day Adventist / Women's Lib / Republican / Mattachine / FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse….Fire-Captain Beatty, in my novel Fahrenheit 451, described how the books were burned first by the minorities, each ripping a page or a paragraph from this book, then that, until the day came when the books were empty and the minds shut and the library closed forever.

Books contain ideas. And ideas have always been dangerous. But ideas also exist in other forms, other media. The internet is full of ideas. But books are unique in two significant ways.

The are permanent. They embody accountability.

Once something is printed, it is there, in the world. Television programs come and go. Internets sites can be taken down. But books sit on shelves. Ancient writings are still in print. Ancient talk over the fence long since drifted away. But writings stay around. Ideas stay around. And when ideas are committed to print, they might be read. And if they are read, they might provoke thought. And if thought is provoked, who can say where the chaos and anarchy might end?

Not every book can be traced to its author. But, by and large, books and their authors are inseparable. Even Soren Kierkegaard, who utilized a variety of pseudonyms, could not separate his responsibility as creator from the texts he created.

In today’s world of social media and electronic communication, there seems little need for many to associate themselves with the words they produce. Whether this is a good thing is a matter of debate. But a book and its author are known. The writer is responsible for his words. I still believe that is a good thing.

So what about burning? The number of books, and the historical periods in which they were burned, are too many to mention. Perhaps at root is the perennial reality of human fear. Fear on what is different. Fear of change. Those in power fear the challenge to power. Those whose world view is carefully and fearfully constructed are afraid of learning or ideas that challenge the world view. If we destroy the idea, it does not exist. If we destroy the one who brought the idea, it does not exist. Ultimately it is about control. We desire to control that which we cannot control. But we can burn or destroy that which represents what we cannot control. And so we do. We censor, burn, destroy, execute.

But the book is not the idea---or the reality. The book only points toward the reality. They might have burned Galileo but that would not have made him wrong. You can burn Das Kapital but that does not make Marx’s observations less cogent. You can burn To Kill a Mockingbird but that doesn’t remove racism.

I understand why Muslims are offended at the burning of the Koran. I know why Christians would be upset if Bibles were burned. Many people are disturbed when flags and other symbols are burned.

But a book is just a book. A symbol is just a symbol. What the book and the symbol point to cannot be burned, executed, or destroyed. Ideas are immortal, even if the earthly body in which they live is destroyed.