Opinion
My Bonafides Are Better Than Your Bonafides
I am a “well-educated” Dutch Protestant with an advanced degree in Computational Linguistics who came to this country in 1993 to work on projects for U.S. intelligence agencies related to matters of national security.
I mention this, not to brag, but to show to certain parties that I am qualified to have an opinion in Warren County and that my opinion matters.
That out of the way, I would like to bring up an interesting piece of history: the Index of Forbidden Books, which was instituted by the Catholic Church and which existed for over 400 years, from 1560 to 1966. Catholics were forbidden to print or read these books, which were banned for various reasons. Living in The Netherlands, I became aware of the Index in the sixties when Dutch writers considered it a badge of honor to be on the Index. It also helped with book sales.
From the late 15th Century onwards, after the printing press was invented, books, which had been a rarity before, could be mass-produced. One interesting book at the time was the Bible, which was translated from the Latin into everyday language and could then be read by the lay people rather than being interpreted by the clerical authorities.
So, the mass production of books and pamphlets was of great concern to both the Church and the governments of European nation states, as you can imagine. They were no longer able to control what people thought. Instead, people started to think for themselves, which had severe consequences for the existing order and which led to the Reformation, the Renaissance, and many other important events in the 16th and 17th century.
Who would have thought that in the 21st century there are those who would like to bring back some form of Index of Forbidden Books into our lives? It is hard to imagine, but it is happening right now with the baseless attacks on Samuels Public Library. Do we really want to go back to a time of controlled information?
For more on the Index, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum
Job van Zuijlen
Front Royal, VA
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