A lot of us are old enough to remember the book Fahrenheit 451. Written by Ray Bradbury, it was set in the future when firemen did not put out fires but instead started them. It was their job to burn books, all of which were forbidden. Like the book 1984, it was a warning. Bradbury, like Orwell, was trying to tell us that the potential for our freedoms disappearing was very real. But it was science fiction, right? It could never happen here, right? That’s what we told ourselves, but we were wrong.

The New Book Burning

There are no public book burnings yet, as in Nazi Germany, and firemen still put out fires rather than start them, but the horror of book “burning” has begun. Instead of flames consuming great literary works, or “inappropriate” books, they are instead eliminated by libraries, universities, and Big Tech. It’s book burning by another name, as Shakespeare would have said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” In the end it amounts to the same thing. 

An Outstanding Example

A recent example of this is the suppression of “Irreversible Damage” by Abigail Shrier. I read it, and it’s fantastic. Shrier demonstrated great courage in writing it. “Irreversible Damage” is about the terrible experiences of young women who identify as males, then have surgeries that alter their lives forever. She presents powerful stories of young women whose lives have been damaged by the transgenderism craze and the stories are heartbreaking in their implications. Shrier also points out that the situation has now reversed itself. Before males were the ones most wanting to change their gender. Now it is females. Her book was removed by Amazon, then re-instated. She was universally condemned by the trans and progressive communities and pilloried for her work. 

A Courageous Act

But the persecution of Ms. Shrier, did not stop there. Target removed her book from its shelves not once, but twice. Halifax Pride called for the removal of the book from the Halifax public library. They refused to do so. An attempt to remove it from an Ottawa library also failed, despite a determined attempt. The American Civil Liberties Union called for the book to be censored, a disgraceful betrayal of the organization’s original purpose. Ms. Shrier stood her ground, a testament to her courage, but not without suffering a lot of persecution along the way. 

Not the Only One

Abigail Shrier isn’t the only one. Ryan T Anderson’s book entitled “When Harry Became Sally, Responding to the Transgender Movement” was removed from the Amazon store.  Many other titles have also been removed or suppressed, “burned,” by the politically correct thought police who now dominate our society. Classical  literary masterpieces like Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Tom Sawyer have been removed from school curriculums and libraries because they did not fit the “woke” narrative.  Even some of Shakespeare’s plays, like The Merchant of Venice have been scrubbed, eliminated as surely as if they had actually been burned.  

The University Problem

One of the biggest contributors to this madness are the Universities. Universities are supposed to be places of higher learning, not agents of censorship and indoctrination. Yet they are becoming exactly that. They, along with the school system, are leading the charge in virtual “book burning.” In fact, universities are actually becoming harmful, places that promote falsehoods and brainwash young minds with extremist ideology. They are willing to be counter factual, denying reality and historical facts in order to promote their extremist views. One complaint from a student or small group and books are gone from shelves. This, of course, was not the idea of universities. They were supposed to be places where young adults went to acquaint themselves with a variety of influences, not be conditioned by the “woke’ mob.

Other Influences

We don’t have to look very far outside the universities  to find other examples of “book burning.” When classics are removed from public libraries and from school reading lists then book burning has triumphed. One friend of mine told me that he knew of a case where a librarian had bragged of removing thousands of books that were “heteronormative” in theme. For those of us who haven’t been keeping up, the old term for this is “heterosexual.” In other words, this person was getting rid of heterosexual romance novels or any other book that accepted heterosexual relationships. That’s how far this is going. Throughout our society in education, government, the military and literature the book burning is going forward. 

What to Do?

So what can we do? We don’t have a shortage of bad news connected to trends like book burning.  What we need are strategies to deal with them. In Fahrenheit 451 people committed themselves to memorizing the great works of literature so that when the dark age was over they could be reprinted. We are not there yet, but we need to preserve copies of great books so that we can promote them. We need to buy copies of forbidden classics and pass them around. We need to buy books written by conservative authors who are resisting the book burning craze and support them. And we need, as always, to resist in any way we can. Burning books is a sure sign that we are falling into totalitarianism and perhaps even a dark age. Save the books folks. It’s the first act of rebellion against tyranny. 

So what can we do? We don’t have a shortage of bad news connected to trends like book burning.  What we need are strategies to deal with them. In Fahrenheit 451 people committed themselves to memorizing the great works of literature so that when the dark age was over they could be reprinted. We are not there yet, but we need to preserve copies of great books so that we can promote them. We need to buy copies of forbidden classics and pass them around. We need to buy books written by conservative authors who are resisting the book burning craze and support them. And we need, as always, to resist in any way we can. Burning books is a sure sign that we are falling into totalitarianism and perhaps even a dark age. Save the books folks. It’s the first act of rebellion against tyranny. 

A note: Since originally writing this post the unthinkable has been reported. A francophone Ontario school district burned books in solidarity with the indigenous peoples and  the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It’s unbelievable!

https://thepostmillennial.com/ontario-schools-book-burning-reconciliation