I spent today at Shanghai University’s Library.
“Fear of the word can therefore be understood as fear of the magical power of words, and it is tempting to see in most textual censorships, book burnings, mockeries of the readers craft, an exorcising attempt to defeat the suspected wizardry of language itself.
It may be that a society, defining itself through the erecting of walls, nurtures at the same time the suspicion that within those walls something will be born that will contest its definition, will seek to alter its identity. And even though our societies grow in the give-and-take between that which we exclude and that which we include, we are more wary of the critical and inventive force of language than we are proud of its power to preserve. Consequently, we attempt to restrict or deride its imaginative efforts.”
The Traveler, The Tower and The Worm, Alberto Manguel
