Spzi , 1 year ago

Ignoring such acts lends them power, and implies that it is acceptable, and leaves open the possibility of further burnings.

This is exactly my worry, just applied to “setting religious rules for people outside your religion”.

To burn a book is a profoundly anti-intellectual action, regardless of one’s set of justifications, and regardless of the content of what one is burning.

There exist many ways to burn a book with very different implications. Let’s look at three of them:

1. Nazi style: The attempt of intellectual genocide. The goal is to eradicate certain book(s) from existence, at least locally. In that logic, it ‘makes sense’ to steal these books from others, so that no private copy survives. Similarly, since you actually want to remove ideas from existence, it can ‘make sense’ to also kill people who hold ideas, because people, like books, serve as a storage medium for these ideas.
2. Protest: A provocative show to resist the threat to your own human rights. The goal is to demonstrate “your rights end where mine begin”. In that logic, it is necessary to respect property, rights and life of others. So you only burn what you own, and have neither intent nor make attempt to remove all copies of that book from existence. In some cases, people even create their own copies merely for destroying them (which still causes outrage). The goal is not to alter the amount of available copies.
3. Garbage: A task so mundane few would even think about it. We regularly destroy books without batting an eye, because someone threw them in the trash, because no one bought them, or other economic or practical reasons. In this case, they are removed not because someone cares about them, but because no one cares about them.

Wether the removal of the book is what you describe, depends entirely on intention and implementation. You are right for one specific case, and it is good to be aware of it and defend against it, to not repeat these dark chapters of history. However, all other cases have different characteristics and do not deserve the same conclusion.

There is a common ground between #1 and #2. A profoundly anti-intellectual attitude; dogma. Nazi-style book burnings are meant to force a view on others, if ‘necessary’ by brutal physical force. Some reactions to Quran burnings reveal the same mindset. One group feels so superior and entitled that they try to impose their view on others, make them submit to their rules. If necessary, by brutal physical force.