Banning books: An undemocratic travesty

Share: Back in 380 BCE, Plato gave us the Allegory of the Cave, in which he discusses the effect of education, or lack thereof, on our nature. A better parallel could not be drawn regarding the impulse to burn and ban books than that of Socrates, Plato’s mentor, who was sentenced to die for ‘tainting’ the youth with education. In the Allegory of the Cave, Socrates illustrates the benefits of an illuminated mind through the parallel of a cave. In the cave there are men, …