The Day Oxford Burned (some of) its Books: A Meditation

Book burning is a thing.

Many of us still are angry about the fires at Alexandria. And I personally find it hard to conceive of the destruction of the university at Nalanda at the tail end of the twelfth century. The burning of the great Hindu and Buddhist repository is said to have taken months.

And, the 21st of July has a place in the annals of book burning. It was on July 21st, 1683, that its last officially sanctioned book burning took place at Oxford University. Worth noting.

The University published its record from the event as

“The judgment and decree of the University of Oxford past in their convocation July 21, 1683, against certain pernicious books and damnable doctrines destructive to the sacred persons of princes, their state and government, and of all humane society rendred into English, and published by command.”

A fascinating document.

Now there is a backstory. It follows an attempted assassination of King Charles II and his brother.

This led to a self-examination at the university about what doctrines and ideas were current that contributed to the plot, at least indirectly. Among these was the idea that civil authority derives from the people. A proposition that would make quite a stir not quite a hundred years later, although somewhere across the Atlantic. In the moment it was seen as very, very dangerous.

Principal among the books containing such pernicious teachings was Samuel Rutherford’s Lex, Rex. A Scottish Presbyterian minister, Rutherford offered, among other propositions, what we might think of as a first draft of John Locke’s more developed theory of the social contract. Among others named were Hobbes and Milton. Also grouped in all this were Presbyterians, Quakers, and Socinians (you may read Unitarian here, and not be entirely incorrect.)

Members of the university were forbidden to study these writings.

And, well, extant copies in their libraries were to be burned…

First, it’s good to think of who “they” and “their” might be, especially how on occasion that they may be a me. Always good to do a little soul searching at such times. It’s too easy to see ourselves as the hero rather than the villain. It’s good to think about what we would suppress, given the power.

Second, this is a pretty good example of how such efforts at suppression can fail. Not always. But. In this case, fail, and spectacularly…

And it is always good to recall Ray Bradbury, author of the classic novel of book burning, Fahrenheit 451,  warned us “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” In our culture, awash in distraction, we have many ways to lose repositories of wisdom in a headlong attempt at getting rid of something wicked. Sometimes it is wicked.

Not wanting books banned is different than accepting everything is true, or even deserving. Refutation is always on the table. Or, should be. And ignoring can be good, too. I think of it as the positive understanding of Bradbury’s observation. Some things don’t deserve any sustained attention. We don’t have to read everything. Actually we can’t. Too much out there now. But the good news here is that  we don’t have to deeply consider anything somebody cooked up and proclaims.

But. However. We can apply some general principles about where to put our attention. Which will be a bit different for each of us. Although for all of us this requires care and attention and work…

So. Much easier to burn a book.

And. But.

But today, here, it might be good to recall the overt act of suprression. Putting a match to a book, to an idea, to a person. And, with that, how this inclination lives within our culture in both subtle and, frighteningly, overt ways.

Not to mention what lurks in our hearts.

And, I think of the contrary thing, the other thing. It’s captured, always and only in part in many words. Multiculturalism. Globalism. Cosmopolitanism. Universalism.

Curiosity.

Maybe that’s the best word.

Endless curiosity…

A day to pause and reflect…