Can books doom civilization?
Should they be censored?
Should history be censored?
How about words?
George Carlin proudly proclaimed his 7 words that could
not be said on television. To this those ‘words’ are bleeped’ on TV and
relegated to cable shows or movies.
But, unlike sticks and stones, words cannot harm us,
unless strung together into hate phrases meant to incite riots.
Our cherished 1st Amendment preaches that.
So, should books be banned?
We rate movies as fit for certain age groups but allow
parents to be the ultimate deciders.
What about schoolbooks?
Take Isaac Newton sitting under a tree and an apple
supposedly falls on his head leading him to discover gravity and write about it
in his 1687 “Philosophy Naturalis Principia Mathematica”?
At the time this was a radical idea.
If he was shunned as a heretic and the book banned, then
what of all the discoveries based thereon?
Where would be today?
Well, for one thing we would not be on the moon, or mars,
or even, perhaps in the air!
Did George Washington cut down that cherry tree?
Was there a race massacre in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1921?
One of those two is true, yet the false one is in history
books and celebrated in folklore.
What terrible harm could there be from teaching both
events as they really were?
An old western trope states that when
the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
But in an educated society the legend must be noted with
an asterisk directing the reader to a footnote explaining the difference.
We live in a time when many believe the moon landing was
faked, the Earth is flat, and a Jewish rabbi, born in the middle east over
2,000 years ago, was white, had blond hair and blue eyes!
Events that are happening today are already being ignored
and stricken from history books.
If we continue down this road of ignorance how long before
we have to deal with versions of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth in our daily
lives?
It has been said that those who ignore history are doomed
to repeat it.
But if we allow censorship to keep our children from
learning about history, good or bad, we’re all doomed!
