Burning Books

Burning Books
Image Courtesy of The Good Atheist

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Biblioclasm, Libricide & Book Censorship Effects on Society

For this post I will be looking at effects on society

Cultural Heritage - By destroying a culturally significant collection such as the Jaffna Library in Sri Lanka, you destroy more than just paper and words you destroy that regions cultural heritage. All items in the Jaffna library were destroyed with no way of replacement. This irreplaceable written/visual heritage gone because of civil unrest, politics and simply being afraid of knowledge contained with the library.

Knowledge - Any destruction of books or collections/libraries is a destruction of knowledge. Knowledge is power and it is often for this reason that Libricide occurs, someone already in power is afraid of the populace uprising and overthrowing that power.

Blog: Banned Books
http://bannedbooks-group.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-did-you-read-during-banned-books.html
 Viewed 7/10/2010

Freedom of choice -This would have to be the greatest of all the effects on society, loss of freedom to choose for oneself to be told what you can or can't do, read, see and learn. To lose this freedom is not something I a western educated female in a non third world country could even imagine or being to understand. I love to read and the opportunity to read anything is a great privilege.

A good example is the Nazi regime burning books.

YouTube video: Dr. Goebbels Burns the Books http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF5kMVIolYw&feature=related
Viewed 7/10/2010




 

Religious Persecution – Burning of religious texts by a different religious group has occurred throughout history as a way of attacking that religion and those people who believe in that religion. Burning of religious texts has been beginning of many wars and certainly an easy target which still goes on today.

Article: IRAN – The Burning of Hundreds of Bibles by the Government Security Forces
http://www.fcnn.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1522:iran-the-burning-of-hundreds-of-bibles-by-the-government-security-forces&catid=127:iranian-christian&Itemid=593
 Viewed 7/10/2010


Article: Holy Smoke! QUT Man Tokes On Koran
http://www.australianews.com.au/australia/queensland/darlingdowns/toowoomba/story?cityid=9901bdf5-f527-4b68-852d-149172949fd4&storyid=c7fb8d78-afb7-4c3d-9d35-4f2d761900e5
Viewed 7/10/2010

Article: Burning Books: Thoughts Without Thinking
http://www.basilandspice.com/journal/92010-burning-books-thoughts-without-thinking.html
Viewed 7/10/2010

Reflection: Today's post got me to think about how important books are to our society, past present and future. Not only do books teach us, they expand our awareness of others, imagination is invoked and generally we see ourselves as part of a whole. Take the right to read away and humanity is reduced to acting like sheep, not thinking for ourselves just towing the line.

Process review: Today's post is on effects on society, I think I have covered the biggest effects on society. I tried to find a interesting link, article, video or image to go with each effect. I didn't want to repost the Jaffna library story again but I think in the final presentation this needs to be part of the cutural heritage section.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Miranda. The blog is looking good but there are still a few issues to attend to. I'd like to see you organising your information in a more structured way and all resources consulted correctly referenced (Harvard style). This includes all of the images used too. It's important to start gathering all of your research findings in preparation for the final presentation page of your blog. Not all links are active and it also looks a lot better if you embed the link into the phrase or title of the item.

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