“What gunpowder did for war the printing press did for the mind” – Wendell Phillips

An interesting topic was raised this week, on the merit of literature in modern society. A key piece we studied was Nussbaum’s “Democratic Citizenship and the Narrative Imagination”, in which she claims that literary works and arts serve to improve one’s empathy and perception by placing readers in an array of situations they may never be in. Nussbaum goes on to conclude that literature is a cornerstone of democracy, and should be promoted as being essential for the progress of society as a whole.

“Where they burn books, they will also burn people” – Heinrich Heine

It should be worth noting that all movements past and present that we often view as oppressive have banned books. Ideas, be they good or bad, are powerful weapons, and groups that seek to curb the power of the ordinary citizen know that if they can control what their people think, they essentially control their population. Orwell’s 1984 and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 touch upon these issues of a power-bloated state and of censorship, respectively. The concept of democracy means “power to the people” and thankfully most of the modern world is aligned with the ideals of freedom of speech.

“I am he attesting sympathy” – Walt Whitman

For every voice heard, there are many more drowned out amidst the cacophony of society. The poor, the underprivileged; those whom mainstream society rarely see and would rather not hear about. Thus, according to Nussbaum, literature gives a voice to the voiceless, and a face to the faceless, so that we may see and hear them as what they truly are; human beings like you and me.

While that concept is noble and true, Nussbaum ought to note that the very ideologies that lead to book burning were themselves first transmitted through literature.