Why do people fear books?
It is an evident truth that people fear books. Not all people, certainly, and not all books: some people fear all books, some people fear only a few books, and some people love books wholeheartedly.
But around the world, countless books are banned. Not just in countries typically thought of as not free, but in countries which boast that they are champions of freedom of speech. More have been banned in the past, and still more may not be formally banned but are quietly made invisible. Why would someone fear a book? you may wonder - it is, after all, only a few dozen sheets of paper stitched together and scribbled with ink! But look beyond the concrete, and what a book really is - what words really are - is an idea. Ideas are dangerous.
These are the reason why books are subversive and people are afraid of them:
They tell the truth.
Many books which are banned are exposés, critiques or political commentaries. Often it is left to books to tell people things they do not want to hear, or things that governments do not want them to hear. So-called 'muckraking' books have contributed to the downfall of politicians, corrupt corporations, and even industries.
Even when they tell lies, they are still somehow true.
The book Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell, was unexpectedly popular in Germany after the Second World War. It had previously been banned by the Nazi regime. Despite its rose-tinted view of slavery in the American South, what made it such a hit in that time and place was the emotional truth of its portrayal of a group of people who suffered and survived a great defeat.
They can change the world.
Ask any layman on the street what the American Civil War was about, and they will almost certainly say abolition. But in fact, the main issue was states' rights. The reason slavery is better-remembered is because of a book, Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, which was even (albeit apocryphally) cited as a cause of the war by Abraham Lincoln.
When it comes down to it, perhaps we should fear books. Whether as protest or propaganda, they influence us more than we might care to admit. But is banning them the answer? I would say: never. Because the only way to cure your mind of the influence of a book is to open your mind and read another book.
