Recently, I started re-reading Ray Bradbury's inimitable Fahrenheit 451. I hadn't read it since high school, and though I remembered much of the plot, I had apparently forgotten one of the most crucial – and relevant to our current world – details.

As I recalled it previous to picking up the book again, the Firemen burn books on the order of some dystopian dictatorial government. But Bradbury's point is the exact opposite: the Fireman burn books by populist democratic will, because Americans have become concerned that those books contain content that some minority of society might find offensive.

In a world of micro-aggressions and Social Justice Warriors, a world where our best comedians no longer want to play college campuses because the student bodies are literally too sensitive to take a joke, Fahrenheit 451 seems prescient indeed.

As F. Scott Fitzgerald observed, “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” And if we wish to be a first-rate country, our polity must similarly be willing to hold – or, at least, to hear – opposing ideas.

If you similarly haven't read Fahrenheit 451 for years or decades, I'd highly recommend picking it back up.