The Bad Side of History

 

I’ve never cared for the phrase the wrong side of history, perhaps because it is so often invoked by progressives to justify the grinding away of traditions and values of which I approve and that I think we will miss. When invoked as a defense of as-yet unrealized ambitions, it’s presumptuous: who really knows, after all, how history will judge the latest transformative social experiment?

Speculating about future history’s take on our times is always a high-risk endeavor. Just ask Martin Luther King Jr. or Theodor Geisel, if you doubt that. Or Andrew Cuomo, for that matter.

But the regular kind of history, the kind that actually looks back and learns from the past, has something to tell us. And to the extent that everyone who makes any sense at all agrees that slavery is bad, that fascism is bad, and that totalitarianism is bad, we have accumulated enough history to recognize when those bad old things are coming around again.

First, they came for Dr. Seuss, but I wasn’t the most popular children’s author in history whose whimsical illustrated works have charmed and delighted hundreds of millions of children for most of the last century, introducing them to language and rhyming and the joys of reading, so I said nothing.

To hell with that.

Book burning, literally or figuratively, is something fascists do. And that’s what Amazon is doing, Facebook is doing, Twitter is doing, and every other we-can’t-leave-you-free-to-hear-ideas-we-think-are-bad-for-you tech giant is doing when it silences someone it doesn’t like.

Don’t burn books.

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There are 34 comments.

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  1. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    The First Amendment exists in two spheres. 

    It is the law – and more so than most laws. 

    It is also the ethic. 

    Numerous people have pointed out that the courts are there for when manners fail. 

    We practice and live the First Amendment by not curtailing speech, religion, and the press. We do this through custom. When we stop doing that, the courts are forced to act because we failed to uphold our principles and rights. 

    Yes, Amazon is within its rights. 

    So what? 

    • #31
  2. Steven Galanis Coolidge
    Steven Galanis
    @Steven Galanis

    Marjorie Reynolds (View Comment):

    I burnt a book once.

    A woman I worked with self published some awful short stories. I bought a couple at the launch to support her but the stories were so bad I didn’t want to inflict them on anyone else so I returned them to nature you might say.

     Her writing group apparently let her down. 

    • #32
  3. Marjorie Reynolds Coolidge
    Marjorie Reynolds
    @MarjorieReynolds

    Steven Galanis (View Comment):

    Marjorie Reynolds (View Comment):

    I burnt a book once.

    A woman I worked with self published some awful short stories. I bought a couple at the launch to support her but the stories were so bad I didn’t want to inflict them on anyone else so I returned them to nature you might say.

    Her writing group apparently let her down.

    😀 overly supportive husband I think

    • #33
  4. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    D.A. Venters (View Comment):

    But I think we all agree that at some point, a bookseller can refuse to sell a certain kind of book. I think we would all agree that a small Christian bookstore, for example, (or even a large one) could refuse to sell books that insult or are otherwise hostile or inimical to Christianity.

    I recognize that perhaps the rule should be different for a huge mega bookseller like Amazon, when they can have such a huge impact on the market, but at what point does a company cross that line and lose control over what they sell?

    It may come down to whether a book store specializes or is a mass marketer.

    • #34
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