Fear not ... and read

President Eisenhower (left, center) at Dartmouth College

Not long after he became president of the United States in 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower gave the commencement address at Dartmouth College. He said, among other things, "Don't join the book burners. ... Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book."

Perhaps he should have said any book. I think I would fear trying to read every book in a public library of any size.

But let's take apart Eisenhower's words. Book burning in any form — actual book burning, censorship, protests, refusal to add to a public library's collection or to a bookstore's shelves — doesn't work. You have probably noticed that bookstores and libraries everywhere often have a table of "banned books." Most of these books have never actually been banned, certainly not in the United States, but they have been frowned upon publicly by somebody. The result is that these very books become highlighted, put on display and made more attractive to those who otherwise might never be drawn to them.

The best way to sell a book is to have somebody raise a fuss about it.

And so book burning is counterproductive. You can't burn every copy. You can't ban everyone from reading a book, printing it or selling it. It simply makes more people want to read it. And in a country with a free press, it would be illegal anyway.

This is not to say that there are not certain books that can be controversial in certain circumstances. A prominent man recently drew controversy when he was exposed on the Internet leafing through a lingerie catalog on an airliner. Carrying a book by a prominent conservative author on a liberal college campus could get a person in hot water with friends and professors. Reading a book denying the existence of hell, as was published a few years back, might raise eyebrows in certain churches.

Eisenhower was right. Don't be afraid to read any book. But you might want to be careful where you choose to read it.