Heresy

“Let’s talk about heresy. To celebrate banned books is to exalt the unholy trinity of irreligiousness: Heresy, Apostasy, and Blasphemy. It is to celebrate not naughty words that might offend a 1950s housewife, but rather ideas that have within them the capacity and potential to topple a church, institution, or government. To do this, to celebrate banned books, is to celebrate Anaxagoras proclaiming that the sun is not divine but rather a hot rock in the sky. Salinger may have been the first author to point out that being 16 sucks — we already knew — but this hardly makes him a hemlock chugging Socrates figure — who really was murdered for crap he wrote and said on charges he was actively corrupting the youth. Banned books are heretical: Luther, Lucretius, and LaVey. They are books that issue out challenges to authority and power. They are books that are banned not for their language and metaphor but for the thunder they contain. These are books that can shake the foundations of nations, be they Little Red Books, manifestos, Mein Kampf, or The Starry Messenger. Ideas have consequences and to honor banned books is to honor the principle that all revolutions begin with a word. To focus on tomes that have been restricted due to their proliferation of shit, bitch, and fuck is simply an exercise in promoting your Puritan roots and ensuring your Puritan future.”

-Honest Lewis,

“On Banned Books” (essay, 2017)