Politics | Education | Book Banning

The War on Reading: Learning is an Act of Defiance

Education is a tool of freedom

There is no better way to fight back. | Photo by Vasily Koloda on Unsplash

Knowledge is power.

We’ve all heard that quote before. It’s in movies, it’s in popular television shows, it’s in books and classrooms, and scrawled on motivational posters.

It’s one of those statements that you hear so often that it’s almost lost any meaning. You know, like when you repeat a word over and over again and you find yourself questioning if it’s even real?

The origin of the phrase goes back to 1597, with the first iteration appearing in Sir Francis Bacon’s Meditationes Sacrae. The original Latin quote proclaims; “ipsa scientia potestas est.” Knowledge, itself, is power.

In growing your understanding of the world around you, you gain the ability to engage with it. That’s why little kids are insatiably curious, asking a thousand questions a day. The more you know, the more you can do.

Ignorance is not bliss, it’s blindness.

In other words, all I want out of life. | Photo by Paige Cody on Unsplash