Plato. Catcher in the Rye. Harry Potter. Fahrenheit 451.

Stay with me. I'll connect the title, I promise.

As cliché as it may be, Catcher in the Rye is one of my favorite books. With a complete jackass of a protagonist that feels he's misunderstood by the world and uniquely understands the world better than any of his "phony" co-inhabitants, Salinger manages to create a character that almost everyone can connect with. Perhaps not everyone, but how many intellectuals will tell you that they've felt alienated, under-appreciated, and misunderstood by the world? Caulfield provides an exemplary character that goes through all of this pain (and mixes inordinate amounts of youthful angst to boot) and without learning how to fully deal with (it's hinted that he) ends up in a mental hospital. (Incredibly inarticulate and un-expansive) Moral? You've got to learn to live with the world.

Harry Potter is a book about wizards and witches. It's about love, dealing with power, forsaking power for the sacrifice and betterment of others. It's full of friendship, courage, and wisdom. The plot fights against sexism, racism, classism, and pushes equality. It shows exemplary characters that blow most religious texts' heroes entirely out of the water.

Fahrenheit 451 is a book about censorship. It's about protecting knowledge to the risk of one's own life. It's about how the ideals of society aren't always the best. It encourages individual thought, growth, introspection, and questioning.

All three of these are or have been banned books by different organizations.

Plato supports this idea of mass censorship for his intellectual elites. He assumes that the courage of the student will be inoculated with the discovery of death and the fear of the words of Homer and others of the malevolence and pain of Hades. Plato fears the weakening of Heroes shown as lamenting death, loss, or pain. Plato fears the very humanity of his philosopher kings becoming evident to themselves. The morals and thoughts presented in Catcher, Harry Potter, and Fahrenheit, would all be lost to his ideal kings. There very humanity thrown out in the creation of the naïve perfection education Plato advocates.

Instead the education should attempt to, as Plato later works into his allegory, revealing the full knowledge of the world. If these philosopher kings are truly capable of handling what is, then they should not have the thoughts of others hidden from them. Instead, with their superior capability for reason, they approach whatever ideas are given them, analyze, dissect and decide.

I find it humorous that this dialogue, presented with Socrates' own voice, is such an antithesis to his own approach.

Note: I should probably mention here that Banned Books Week happens at the end of this month.