Control of books
Sir, —Stan Darling’s article, “Florida bans books used in Canterbury schools,” was a most thoughtful and thought-provoking piece. It is sad that a significant section of the community remains so threatened by ideas that it seeks to suppress or control their transmission and would consign books (and probably their writers and teachers) to bonfires kindled with narrowmindedness and fear. In making the comparison in experience between the United States and here, Mr Darling served a useful warning about the political dangers to thought and the community posed by religious fundamentalism. One hopes its worst excesses will be avoided here. To quote John Milton: “... as good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature; but he who destroys a book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye.”—Yours, etc.,
JOHN M. ADAMS. Wellington, February 24, 1987.
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Press, 4 March 1987, Page 20
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153Control of books Press, 4 March 1987, Page 20
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