Monday 11 April 2011

Burning Books

I dislike burning books, preferring to give away unwanted books. The nearest I've come to burning one was when I threw away a book of essays by Ayn Rand, unwilling to inflict it on any friend and fearing that, if I gave it away to a charity shop, someone might buy it and believe what she said.

However I should not try to prevent anyone burning a book that belonged to them, provided they did so where there was no danger of it setting light to anything else.

If someone printed out a copy of the Philosophy Notes from my website and burnt those, I should be disappointed, though I might also be flattered to have provoked so extreme a reaction. I should certainly not be outraged or inclined to riot. Such over-reaction strikes me as ridiculous.

1 comment :

Sasha said...

I'm with you. Burning books has a very nasty historical resonance, and it is to my mind a lot more offensive than burning a national flag.

Mind you, I too would have thought twice about leaving intact a copy of Ayn Rand's pernicious ravings.