Books are symbols of knowledge. Burning them is a physical manifestation of cultural total war: one set of ideas conquering another set of ideas.
Knowledge was once attributed. We had authors, painters, and composers. Slowly, but seemingly surely, we’re entering an era where knowledge has only owners. Owners who invest their rents into police control of their property.
I am not joking when I say this terrifies me. It’s one thing to hunt down libraries and librarians, museums and historians, and art and artists to try to expunge all record of something that once was. That’s proven to be difficult. Few things have ever been completely lost.
But, now, we’re building a worldwide system of control in the name of Owners. A system an Owner can use to burn their book is a system that can just as easily be used to burn all books.