Banning books....

 

Ban books?  Ban books??  

I tell you, sir, banning books is for the feeble-minded and small-time grifters.  Banning a book only encourages people to read books that no sensible person would even notice.

No, I tell you banning books is for the weak.  If you really want to control people, you don't ban their books.  What you do is teach their children that reading books is a waste of time.  Never show them a good book.  Never reward them for grasping new ideas by the written word.

No sir, one gets control not by banning books, but by making books obsolete!  Where will they turn when reading books is considered socially unacceptable?  They will be perfectly receptive to thinking exactly what they are told to think!  Not by books, which require willing thought, but by simple televised words that require no effort at all, demand no troublesome thinking, and convey only messages they wish to believe.

That's the ticket, sir.  That's the pathway to control.  Tell them what they want to hear, and make fun of anyone who bothers to think.  Make thought itself unfashionable, and appeal to basest human natures.  Laziness and a willingness to believe what they are told, especially when the voice is telling them it's okay to be lazy, and okay to be hateful.  Most especially, when the voice tells them they are a good person for being lazy and hateful as they are told to be.

Banning books?  That's just stupid and a waste of time.  To really control people just tell them what to think, and then tell them they are good people to think it.

Why, do that and you can make them do anything!  That's true power.  You can make children hate their parents and love you instead, no matter what you tell them to think.  You can make parents turn from their children and leave them to the state to raise.  Once you convince them to stop thinking, people will happily do anything you tell them, even the worst crimes one can imagine, as long as you make them think they are the 'good ones' and give them a target for their hate.

No, banning books is just a distraction for the useful idiots who think they are paying attention.  Let them focus on that, while you make reading itself forgotten.   Why ban books, when you can ban thought itself?  That's the real path to power.