“Burn!” cried the mob as the book pyre blazed in the night.
“Death to Infidels; heretics; free thinkers!”
Death?
Books can die?
This sentiment seems to be making a resurgence in some parts of the world. I mean, it’s never really been far from us.
The some churches still believes that Harry Potter poses an existential danger because of the whole witches and wizards thing.
At other times books that some so-called authority deemed ‘subversive,’ (re. Doesn’t agree with my opinion), have been collected and set ablaze as a public rebuke to anyone who might harbor similar positions.
But, books are not ideas.
They may, at best, be the vessels in which ideas travel.
Ideas, though, are by their very nature untouchable.
And, incurable.
Ideas are like a virus that spreads by getting inside of a person at a cellular level, invading and capturing the minds of those who are exposed to them.
Ideas become a part of a person’s DNA. They are, by nature, invasive.
Yet, not foreign.
Not harmful.
In fact, they can produce vitality and health in those who harbor them deep within their hearts and minds.
Ideas CANNOT be stopped by destroying the vessels that carry them.
Even if those vessels are living, breathing human beings.
That, too, has been tried. How many “heretics” have been burned; fed to lions; hanged; drowned?
And, yet, the ideas live on.
“But,” some say, “ideas can lead people astray! They can put a person in harm’s way!”
Astray?
NO! Emphatically, NO!
Ideas may open our minds to other ideas.
They may cause our minds and hearts to grow 2 sizes larger.
They may make us more empathetic.
But, astray? Nuh uh.
Ideas are what make us humans in the first place.
They are the engine that pushes us forward.
Yes, ideas can also give some people reason to hurt, maim, or destroy.
But, it will also be an idea that counters those who would act in that way.
Ideas are like a virus.
They will infect us.
They will change us.
The question that remains is, how will we embody these ideas?
How will we live in a world where Ideas live, thrive, and yes, Infect?