They're Not Burning Books Anymore. They Don't Have To.
Why a post-literate America is easier to rule than a burned library ever was
One of the best ways of enslaving a people is to keep them from education... The second way of enslaving a people is to suppress the sources of information, not only by burning books but by controlling all other ways in which ideas are transmitted. - Eleanor Roosevelt
According to “The End of Reading Is Here” by Rose Horowitch in The Atlantic, America has entered a “postliterate world” where fewer adults read books of any kind, and asks whether civilization can survive this shift. Not only are people who know how to read choosing to engage less with long-form writing (like this article), but the numbers are also clear that more Americans are unable to read above a 6th-grade level.
The creation of the internet and advancements in technology were supposed to be the great equalizer. With electricity, a wifi connection, and a computer, all the knowledge in the world would be at our fingertips. It was essentially a foregone conclusion that with increased access to information, humanity would experience a boom of increased intelligence.
Instead, reality is becoming a very dark and, dare I say, dystopian one. According to the National Literacy Institute, 40% of students across the US cannot read at grade level. For low-income fourth-grade students, that number climbs to almost 70%. The numbers don’t fare better for adults, as 54% of American adults read below a 6th-grade level.
The information age didn’t fail us. It succeeded at something else entirely: turning access to information into distraction, and distraction has transformed us into an illiterate society. If an educated population cannot be controlled, then reading, slow, deliberate, resistant reading, is not merely a hobby. It’s an act of defiance. Here are four ways we can turn the tide and become that kind of people.
Have books in your home where everyone sees and can access them
One of the values I’ve learned as a dad is having books available where everyone in our home can see and access them. This serves several practical purposes. To start, books are aesthetically a nice touch to any space. Not only do they look good, but having long-form content freely available throughout a home invites all occupants to pick one up and read just by its presence.
Books have become so commonplace in my home that my kids intuitively add books to rooms when they notice there aren’t any. Especially in an all-digital, all-the-time, AI world, having the option to slow down and pick up a book can often be a form of mindfulness, self-care, and increasingly a form of resistance. A house full of books is a house that’s harder to distract into submission.
Always be reading
Some of the loneliest years of my life were when I was in my early twenties in the Navy. Through cultivating a habit of reading, I learned to find connection and camaraderie with the written word.
If I had some downtime after a long day of work while out to sea, I’d find a chair in a quiet corner of my workspace to dive into a biography of Johnny Cash or get lost in a world of Neil Gaiman’s creation. No matter how homesick, stressed, or content I was feeling, I could always find solace between the pages of a book.
Note: In recent years, it has come to light that Neil Gaiman was accused of sexual assault, rape, and human trafficking. Since learning of this, I no longer read or recommend Gaiman’s works.
Despite having earned multiple master’s degrees, I always tell people my greatest education came from a love of reading. I’m not the only one who owed their education to books. My hero Malcolm X famously said:
My alma mater was books, a good library… I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.
In the Autobiography of Malcolm X, he also talks about how he never went anywhere without a book. I strive to do the same. Similar to having books accessible in the home, it’s a life-changing habit to carry a book with you everywhere. This way, wherever you find yourself with a spare couple of minutes, you can crack open your book instead of engaging in brain rot or doomscrolling. Every minute spent reading is a minute the algorithm doesn’t get.
Find a local bookstore and get to know your booksellers
If you live in a major metropolitan area, there is a high likelihood that your city has at least one independent bookstore. If you don’t know where the closest one is, my recommendation is to check your Maps app or do a quick internet search to find it, and make it a point to start visiting it regularly.
Yes, buying from a local bookshop will cost more than just buying a book from Amazon. The truth is, the reason Amazon has those great deals is that they often sell their books at a loss. It’s an intentional strategy they deploy to get people to purchase more and more from them until they become dependent on the platform for literally everything.
Do yourself and book lovers around the world a favor: don’t contribute to Amazon weaponizing books to hook users into their platform.
Just today I was at my local bookstore, Nowhere Bookshop, talking to Paul, one of the managers. A book review card he wrote on Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Astrophysics for People in a Hurry led to a great five-minute conversation exchanging our perspectives on Tyson’s books and podcast. Another seller at Nowhere, Seth, has been a huge help recommending Sci
-Fi and Fantasy books to my oldest son and me. We’re both naturally drawn to non-fiction but have wanted to become intentional about increasing our fiction intake. I currently have a list of 3–5 books on my “to read” list as a direct result of connecting with Seth.
As a matter of fact, when my family was relocating to the city we currently live in, part of our home-buying criteria was that our home had to be within 10 minutes of a local bookshop. Over the last five years we’ve developed connections with the amazing booksellers and baristas. My wife and I have met friends, gone on dates, and enjoyed sitting alone in silence because of Nowhere. I genuinely wish for every human to have the experience my family has through our local bookshop.
Reinforce positive reading habits
This isn’t hyperbole: without books I would be a fucking idiot. Some people think I’m still a fucking idiot, to which I would respond: imagine how much worse I would be if I didn’t read. When my wife and I first started having children, I made a commitment that I would do my best to cultivate a love for reading in each of them.
I knew from personal experience how much school systems often fail students, how most universities, private or public, have become money-making industries instead of institutions of higher learning. I didn’t want to farm out the cultivation of a love for learning to anyone else. One of the greatest gifts I could give my children was a love for reading, and through that avenue, doors I couldn’t imagine could open.
As a result of this commitment, since my kids were babies, every birthday and Christmas they know dad is going to buy them a book. This habit has become so ingrained that it’s evolved into every birthday or Christmas coming with three gifts: a want, a need, and a read.
As much as I can, when I see my kids make the choice to pick up a book, I stop what I’m doing and publicly praise them. I make it a point to also read for 20 minutes at the end of every workday to reward myself for a hard day’s work.
There are a hundred ways to celebrate reading. Find the ones that work best for you, and celebrate the shit out of yourself or your loved ones when they choose to pick up a book. A kid raised to love reading is a kid who grows into an adult who can’t be lied to as easily.
Remember: an educated population cannot be controlled
What do Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Chile, China, Bosnia, and ISIS have in common? At least two things:
They are all fascist or totalitarian governments.
They burned books, raided bookstores, and destroyed libraries as a way to control the population.
To state the obvious, book burning isn’t actually about a dislike of books. It’s an attempt by those at the top of a hierarchy to impose which ideas, people, and perspectives are deemed acceptable.
Reading is a threat to high-control institutions because the very act is one that cannot be controlled. Reading happens inside our heads and is an exclusive conversation between the reader and the author. It allows us to walk in someone else’s shoes and learn about the perspectives of others across time and space. Books carry an authority outside the institutions.
An uncontrollable society is like a three-legged stool. It’s made up of a people who are well-educated, informed, and united. With all three legs, a society cannot be controlled or manipulated by power-hungry leaders or movements. Take away one of the legs, and the stool crumbles.
The tragedy in our day is that no one is burning books, because those in power don’t have to. As a society, it appears we’re content to accept distraction and lay down the power gained through self-education. But things don’t have to be this way.