The importance of books remains unwavering and here is why...

Ever since the creation and dissemination of published scrolls and texts, there have been those who sought to censor the stories, information, and ideas these texts imparted.

In 212 B.C.E, Chinese emperor Shih Huang Ti buried alive 460 Confucian scholars to control the writing of history in his time as well as all the books in his kingdom. In 35 B.C.E, Roman emperor Caligula banned the reading of Homer’s 300-year-old epic The Odyssey, because it expressed Greek ideas of freedom and democracy antithetical to his despotic control of the Roman empire. 

Imagine where science and medicine would be today if once-banned books like Copernicus’ On the Revolution of the Heavenly Systems, Pascal’s On Geometry, Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Descartes’ Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences, or Darwin’s On the Origins of Species never made it into the hands of other scientists or researchers.

Throughout history, dominant institutions and leaders have successfully banned or denounced books and other published forms of art, science and ideas that threatened the status quo or were deemed obscene, pornographic, or dangerous to individuals, society, or governments. Ironically, rarely had books been banned simply because they were poorly written or factually inaccurate. Instead, nearly all books that have been banned, whether 2,000 years ago or two days ago, have been censored for fear that the thoughts, concepts, and information expressed in these works as so compelling and engaging that readers would embrace and adopt the ideas as their own and thus challenge the authority of those in power or undermine longstanding religious, political or cultural beliefs and values.

Indeed, throughout history, be it the Spanish Inquisition, Nazi Germany, or Stalinist Russia, one of the first things these repressive regimes had done was to ban certain books and ideas, and depending on the severity of the repression, denounce, fire, jail, exile or murder the intellectuals who wrote them. Recognizing just how easily ideas can be shared through books, throughout the 17th, 18th, and first half of the 19th century, laws were enacted in the United States and throughout the Caribbean prohibiting Black slaves from learning to read at all. Even today, in some parts of the world, young girls and women are denied the opportunity to gain the benefits of an education, which starts with learning to read and write.

But as Aristotle wrote, nature abhors a vacuum. While Europe’s so-called Dark Ages “officially” came to an end in 1453 CE with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks, many literary historians date its end to 1452 when Johannes Gutenberg introduced Europe to the concept of mechanized movable type printing (movable type printing itself was invented by China’s Bi Sheng in 1039 CE), making mass production of books possible for the first time. As a result, the West saw literacy rates skyrocket. The availability of mass-produced books ushered in the Scientific Revolution and gave rise to the Enlightenment of the 17th century, which in turn gave birth to the modern notion of the power of the individual and individual freedoms, such as the freedom of expression, that lead to both the American, and subsequently the French, Revolutions and our understanding of modern democracy.

Even in this digital age, the importance of books remains unwavering, particularly as we have yet to fully democratize access to the Internet. According to the United Nations, 37 percent of the world’s population, or roughly 2.9 billion people, are still unconnected to the Internet. And for the poor or those with limited incomes who cannot afford to purchase books, public libraries around the world make it possible for all to have access to both printed and electronic books.

But this new age has also given rise to a new form of censorship — cancel culture — which seeks to discredit or erase the people, concepts or ideas with which a group of people on social media disagrees. While cancel culture comes from the people themselves, rather than those in power, it is still censorship because it uses peer pressure and shame to get people to conform to what the “group” believes is correct. Both the right and the left use cancel culture to deny and denounce both historical and contemporary figures, books, ideas, and even proven scientific facts that they view in opposition to their values and ideals, spreading misinformation and intolerance on both sides. Most of all, censorship of all kinds is sanctioned ignorance, deliberately depriving people of the right to read, learn, hear, and share differing perspectives and concepts and ultimately decide for themselves what they think or believe.

At a time when up to 800 million workers around the globe have been or may soon be displaced by AI, the last thing we need right now is a sheeplike workforce who has been taught only to follow orders, but not question for themselves. Businesses increasingly place a premium on employees who can do what robots or other forms of automation cannot: that begins with the ability to think independently rather than just regurgitating data that one has been spoon-fed. By limiting access to certain books and ideas, you limit access to different perspectives and concepts, which stifles creativity and innovation.

Indeed, a recent study of 60,000 Microsoft employees revealed that the biggest downside to remote working is not a loss of productivity, but the chance for workers to regularly share and exchange different perspectives and viewpoints. It is only when these innate sparks of connection occur that creativity happens.

Books inform, educate, entertain, and inspire. Reading (and writing) novels and narrative nonfiction remain the best way to teach empathy and introduce people to worlds, cultures, and people they otherwise would not have the opportunity to encounter. perspectives and ideas. It also is the best way to bring people together by encouraging them to discuss and share these different ideas and discover where they may find common ground. Ultimately, with censorship, nobody wins.

Article by Briar Prestidge and Sandi Sonnenfeld.