Iconoclasts

In the mailbox this last day of September …

Johannes Gutenberg finished the first section of the Gutenberg Bible in Mainz, Germany, today in 1452. The event changed the course of history. Literally.

More than 1,600 books have been banned from public and school libraries in America so far this year (as of October 2022). This is a fear-based, home grown terrorist attack on your and my right to read. J.D. Salinger? Toni Morrioson? Really? Really.

Writing is a way of speaking across time. The process of reading and writing is a collaborative effort. We’re not making a singular book, we’re making an array of books, and everyone who reads a book is going to be reading something slightly different. Further, the book that I wrote, that you read, are two different books. Farther still: the “James Allen Bethel” who wrote that book is no longer the same person as the dapper dude who wrote it. He may still be dapper, but his dude status is always in evolutionary change. As are you.

Speaking of world views...

We read for some kind of reinforcement of, generically speaking, our existing world-view. More often than not, however, that reading experience always changes that view and, consequently, changes us – sometimes in minute and subtle ways, sometimes radically. There are in this world people who are terrified by change of any kind, and since change is a constant they are constantly terrified, which may explain the motives of those who try to ban or burn books. Or attack a nation's Capitol. Gutenberg would be appalled.