In a few pages at the end of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury gives us an eloquent defense of freedom of speech as he recounts the ridiculous editing of short fiction for consumption by students in the middle 20th century. These pages should be required reading now, as Bradbury reminds us that not only governments can censor thought and art and that all censorship is dangerous and deplorable.

“There is more than one way to burn a book,” he writes. “And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.” This should resonate with anybody paying attention today as misguided activists demand that Netflix remove The Closer from its streaming line-up because they find Dave Chappelle’s jokes offensive. The badly reasoned USA Today op-ed I linked even quotes academics in opposition to Chappelle, which is ironicury because the first victims of the government’s war on books in Fahrenheit are scholars of literature, history and philosophy.

Says Bradbury: “Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist/Zionist/Seventh Day Adventist, Women’s Lib/Republican, Mattachine/Four Square Gospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.”

Bradbury is as annoyed at the petty censors from society as he is the professionals who kowtow to such audiences, citing market forces as reason enough to blandify art and culture to suit the under-developed tastes of amateur critics.

These few pages, clearly stated and a strong rebuke to the forces of order and obedience now at work in our homogenizing culture, are refreshing and vital.