Promoters of Ignorance: the Enemies of Books

I love my books, all 3500 or so of them. In them is nearly everything that I've ever wanted to know of our world; of our beginnings; of our civilizations; of our sciences and of what happened to them all.
As I look at them I am thankful that I have found all these treasures of ancient knowledge; of the hopes of peoples everywhere and even of the attempts to destroy those peoples from ancient times to the current on going genocides against humankind and knowledge. This brings me to the enemies of knowledge and the enemies of books in general.
" The weapons of the dictator is not so much propaganda as censorship."
Terence H. Qualter, Propaganda and Psychological Warfare, 1962
Books have not only a long history but also, unfortunately an even longer history of book haters; those that promote ignorance by destroying books and thus, the human search for truth and most assuredly a tool for freedom.
Among these enemies of books, and of learning are the bookworms and other vermin, fire, water, heat, light, gas and dust. Due to their natures, such enemies are insidious rather than openly hostile, but dealing with them is more often than not simply a matter of care, and easy enough to accomplish, provided, of course, if one has a mind to, as well as a mind...
The other kind of enemies, however, are usually not only openly hostile but proudly so, and are considerably more difficult to deal with. These are the human enemies of books, those who believe they are entitled to decide what we all should think, recognize that the ability to read freely inevitably leads to the ability to think freely, for themselves and accordingly would keep books of which they don't approve of, out of our hands.
From the Church's efforts by a few closed minds to keep Galileo from publishing his findings in the 17th century, to the Nazi book burnings of the 1930's, to the continuing and ongoing efforts to ban such American classics as Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, to the infamous Fatwa declared against Salman Rushdie in the 1980's, those who would restrict our freedoms continue to make their lurking shadows felt. We might accordingly all be well advised to keep in mind the old adage that "books are weapons" and to always use them as such for the freedom of humanity.
"Tell me what you read and I shall tell you what you are...or are not..."
"The crime of book purging is that it involves a rejection of the word. For the word is never absolute truth, but only man's frail and human effort to approach the truth. To reject the word is to reject the human search."
Max Lerner, New York Post, June 4, 1953
"The world is fundamentally hostile to literature, in great part because the world is gregarious, and literature is a solitary pursuit." Joseph Shaylor, 1919
"To burn a book is not to destroy it. One minute is darkness will not make us blind."
Salman Rushdie, The Weekend Guardian Oct. 14, 1989
"I don't like to read books; they muss up my mind." Henry Ford, in the book Hero of America: A Chronicle of Hero-Worship by Dixon Weeter, 1941, (Ford, a man that re-printed and promoted the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion and an advocate of Adolf Hitler)
"Every burned book or house enlightens the world." Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Whenever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings."
Heinrich Heine, Almawnsor: A Tragedy, 1823
"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." Ray Bradbury, 1994
" To read too many books is harmful." Mao Tse-Tung, New Yorker, March 7, 1977. (Mao was a former librarian for 13 years apparently joined the Communist Party in a pique after being passed over for a promotion at the university library of Beijing....)
Thought du jour..."The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them..." Samuel Butler
Post Comment

Comments (11)

head banger Spent many hours in the Library as a teen. Unlike a computer screen, books are three dimensional,
have mass and texture, plus an aroma. Nothing like them. thumbs up
Nice quotes thumbs up

I love books too, although I don't have quite as many as you laugh

I will read any type of book as long as I find it interesting.
A quiet corner in a pub is the best place to read a book,
Its perfect for studying life dynamics while escaping it at the same time thumbs up
Bogart,
Nice tip on the inquisitor's prohibited list,

Check this out
There were plenty of books banned in Ireland before too. One book I love, because it was so simple and real , is called The Tailor and Ansty. It was set in an area near me.
It is just a book based on the simple life of an old man and woman.
However, the old man's thoughts on things didn't always coincide with the Catholic Church's teachings, and thus the book was banned for years. Very sad. Very wrong.
Monty Python was banned here too laugh
SMURFS!laugh
seems the spellcheck has a mind of its own with a lot os words lately...grin
Yeah, if I was hearing it as an outsider, I would think the person was making it up.

The Catholic Church in Ireland was particularly dogmatic, and had a stronger hold on both the people and government than probably any other country in the world. It was all-powerful.

It's amazing we came out of it even half-normal laugh
It certainly shows your peoples resilience in weathering all the foul and horrible things done to you as a people. Hopefully those times and deeds shall never again come to Eire and adequate safeguards have beeb put into place by those who inherited that legacy....comfort hug wine
wow so many books, I am afraid i have moved too many times to have so many but the libraries certainly got used wherever I was. I would never come up for air with all those books, Lots of info is locked away for 100 years before it can be divulged?? so reckon same goes for books. Words though are interpreted by who is reading, knowledge written 100 years ago sometimes does not sit the same in time, so wonderful to read of mans thinking and advancementthumbs up
Katte You made me laugh nicely thoughgrin as we do not have libraries like that, mores the pity as we have plenty of himeless people.

We have posh outdoor toilets, after one has been and come out these toilets the doors lock and the whle place is flushed down. So yes you have guesed it the homeless spen 20p and go in at night these places are so big the sleep on the floor undisturbed by anyone. In the morning the have a wash and brush up and when leaving the whole place is flushed. Now the councils are going around locking these toilets at night, so our homeless sleep on the street and if we get caut short we p---on the streets blushing rolling on the floor laughing rolling on the floor laughing

funny old world, I know with internet we can learn most things but nothing better for a peaceful day is a book and a wine But I read many different views on same subject dunno which is correct.
Post Comment - Let others know what you think about this Blog.