If books weren’t weapons, then they wouldn’t pierce our minds so much. Some people have attempted to repress the benefits of books- wisdom, knowledge, empathy, and collective consciousness- with a movement of anti-intellectualism. But what happens when these sharp objects puncture the coating of repression anyway? And why is there a coating in the first place?

To explore this, let’s visit a recent example. About four months ago, musician Ethel Cain posted a rant on her Tumblr blog about the repression of any intellectual discussion surrounding her artwork:

The sheer thought that she put into her albums makes her frustration understandable- her penultimate album Preacher’s Daughter is a concept album that follows a young girl of the same name who lived in the American South. In this story, it’s the 90s. The trauma of Southern Baptist fundamentalism floats around her town. Her preacher father abuses her, but she manages to escape her family. She meets a man called Isaiah and falls in love with him. However, during their journey on the road, he slowly exposes her to other men. He pimps her out, and she tries to escape by running through the forest. However, he catches and murders her. She ascends upwards into Heaven to the tune of her song Televangelism, which is a very poignant piano composition. While she finds peace in the afterlife, she witnesses Isaiah eating her body. With this gruesome imagery, Ethel explores complex themes of finding one’s authentic spirituality among the clouds of religious and sexual trauma.

This is a highly simplified summary, so here’s the complete lore of Ethel Cain if you’re interested. But it’s worth acknowledging the careful construction of Ethel’s tragically beautiful story. Unfortunately, this shows that an audience can interpret a complex piece in a shallow way, while repressing intellectual discourse. So how can her toxic fans pierce through this repression?

Well, Children’s literature can be one of the sharpest genres out there. Two children’s books (among many) fight for the same idea from completely different eras- Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights (1995) and Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden (1911). Both of them explore forces of intellectual development, like Pullman’s ‘Dust,’ within their stories. Dust refers to a strange particle associated with knowledge and awareness that can settle on people when they are intellectually curious. However, these authors also show that children’s books are the first Dust that settles on young readers in the real world. They root this idea by portraying their protagonists’ epistemic potential. Lyra’s adopts her newfound knowledge with her Dust-powered alethiometer (a golden compass that answers any questions that Lyra has about her journey) and her daemon (one’s soul-tied animal companion). Mary’s epistemic development is also inspired by outside elements, like sunlight and plants- Burnett fights for a proto-Dust idea that Pullman later names in his story. Then, through storytelling techniques, they encourage the readership to adopt the girls’ potential for themselves, purely through the act of reading. Pullman’s description of stories is comparable to that of Dust- a medium of awareness and potential that settles on people. Therefore, the authors’ admiration of this potential is doubly conveyed. They avoid endorsing for their readership the anti-intellectualism that adults express, both in the story and in our world.

To sow this twofold encouragement of embodying knowledge within the readership, both authors first explore the benefits of outside elements that kickstart Lyra and Mary’s knowledge-seeking within the stories. Pullman diagnoses this in his worldbuilding- Lord Asriel observes an element, ‘Dust’, which ‘comes from the sky, and bathe [us] in what looks like light’. However, he tells Lyra that ‘Dust is what makes the alethiometer work.’ Swashbuckling paternal figure Farder Coram recognises it as an ‘alethiometer… That’s a Greek word. I reckon it’s from aletheia, which means truth. It’s a truth-measure.’ This italicised word etymologically originated from the River Lethe in Greek mythology, the river of forgetfulness. The prefix ‘a’ means ‘not; without.’ The alethiometer’s truth-seeking is etymologically suggested to uncover forgotten or suppressed truths- Dust inspires knowledge in people. Lyra thus interacts with a medium that improves her intellectual understanding. But let’s see how our pets can help us out too.

Photo Credit: Framestore/His Dark Materials/HBO

This Dust-powered device also prompts Lyra and her trusty daemon (one’s soul-tied animal companion) Pantalaimon to have lots of back-and-forth arguments. Initially, Lyra ‘“reckon[s] it’s a spirit”’. But Pantalaimon argues back by claiming that ‘“I’d see a spirit if there was one in [the alethiometer]”’. Lyra asks ‘“Well what else could it be?”’. This line of questioning suggests the Dust’s effect of creating a need for cognitive closure. Moreover, the need builds doubly, because ‘processes of deduction become collaborations in which human and daemon help each other’, according to critic Lucy Hughes-Hallett. So Pullman has conceptualised Dust to show that cognitive undertaking massively benefits Lyra’s journey to rescue other kidnapped children from the anti-intellectualist Church. So talk to your pets more often.

In some ways, outside influences also whip up Mary’s desire for cognitive closure and awareness. Burnett writes that ‘Living… all by herself in a house… and having nothing whatever to do amuse herself, had set her active brain to working and was actually awakening her imagination. There is no doubt that the fresh, strong, pure air from the moor had a great deal to do with it.’ The phrase ‘all by herself’ implies a lack of engagement in epistemic awareness. However, ‘imagination’ implies experiential awareness, as it shows her creativity and experiment. But ‘working’ also shows that intellect is important for creativity. She embraces logic and imagination to fully achieve cognitive awareness. Also, the words ‘fresh, strong, pure’ emphasises these elements’ potency for Mary. Like Pullman’s naturally occurring Dust, Burnett’s air and moor display the benefits of self-development and creativity to her young readership.

Indeed, her readership love this theme. In March of 1986, an article from peer-reviewed journal The Reading Teacher analysed a selection of ‘Children’s Choices’ for their social perspectives. Critic Patrick Shannon and his associates decided that 29 out of the 30 books they read oriented towards this theme of self-development. This points to a larger trend of teaching self-development within children’s literature- this is important because it shows that children’s authors curate this theme on purpose. Specifically, Pullman and Burnett sow the twofold endorsement of our cognitive potential by exploring its benefits for the characters first. Pullman is just the first to name such an idea within his story.

Photo Credit: Roger Deakins/The Secret Garden (1993)

Through storytelling and narrative techniques, the authors also encourage the readership to adopt the protagonists’ cognitive practices for themselves. Pullman’s description of stories themselves is extremely similar to Dust itself- a medium of independent cognition that literally settles on people. Burnett practised this phenomenon herself, but she never named it Dust. The authors’ admiration of this cognition is therefore doubly conveyed. When referring to Lyra’s eavesdropping on Lord Asriel’s meeting, he writes that ‘Lyra could see something. She pressed her face to the crack to see more clearly.’ While this demonstrates Lyra’s curiosity, the use of ‘something’ implies ambiguity and adds suspense for the reader. This vagueness exemplifies a storytelling technique that author Charles Harris identifies. Namely, ‘the temptation with the opening is to fill it full of information. At [the beginning], the author doesn’t want information.... it wants emotion, suspense, someone to care about… Questions are more important than answers.’ This technique draws the reader in, and creates a desire for cognitive closure and knowing the full story, like Lyra with her alethiometer. By using vague vocabulary, Pullman creates the urge among his readership to know more by reading on. Any reader can identify with Lyra by pursuing knowledge in the same way as her.

And Pullman is well aware of this. In his essay collection Daemon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling (2017), he remarks that ‘one way’ to introduce children to ‘pleasures’ like reading is to ‘let [children] see us adults enjoying it, and then forbid them to touch it',’ because ‘it’ll drive them mad with uncontrollable desires’ to read. Similarly, Lord Asriel, an adult, tells Lyra that ‘You’re not coming [to explore], child.’ refusing her wishes because of her youth- Pullman compares his reader with Lyra. He also writes that ‘Stories come from somewhere else… I… have to protect it from interference while it… settles on the form it wants.’ In Lord Asriel’s photogram, Dust is ‘coming down’ from ‘the sky, and bath[ing a man] in what looks like light.’ The sense of soft movement and descent attributed to Dust is the same as that of the verb ‘settle’. It seems like Pullman subconsciously considers his children’s book a form of Dust that settles on readers.

Burnett’s narrative voice prefigures Pullman’s subconscious idea. Children’s literature has always been Dust. When describing Mary finding the key to the garden, Burnett writes that ‘It was something like a ring of rusty iron or brass.’ Like Pullman, Burnett also utilises vague language. The simile also elicits a desire for answers within the reader; the comparison to several other objects conveys the ambiguity of that object. Later, the narrator states that ‘In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered.’ Burnett, without mentioning characters, makes explicit to the reader the benefits of intellectual curiosity and awareness. Both authors imitate an academically supported idea by R. A. Zwann, a professor of psychology, who ‘hypothesized that reading automatically activates neural events similar to those occurring in the lives of the characters one reads about. This double release- of thinking through events… and thinking in ways that are different than one’s own- may produce effects of opening the mind,’ according to Maja Djikic, Keith Oatley, and Mihnea C. Moldoveanu.

Photo Credit: Getty Images/MJ Kim

So readers neurologically respond to the authors’ intention of doubly inspiring cognitive awareness, in both characters and readers. By reading this article, you are pursuing knowledge. Hopefully, this article is a kind of Dust too. The ‘opening’ of ‘the mind’ also parallels the medium of knowledge that books, Dust, and Burnett’s flora are all described as being. But Pullman names this wider trend of doubly encouraging self-development and epistemic pursuit in children’s literature more explicitly than Burnett.

To fight against the anti-intellectualism within fiction and reality, the authors avoid endorsing the anti-intellectualism that Mrs Coulter, her ‘friends in the Church’ and Mary’s mother engage in. At this point, Mrs Coulter is Lyra’s new guardian, but Lyra walks around a cocktail party to find out if she has anything to do with the recent mass kidnappings of Oxford’s children. Lyra overhears two guests conversing. One remarks that ‘“The last experiments [on the children] have confirmed what I always believed- that Dust is an emanation from the dark principle itself, and-”.’ The other replies with, ‘“Do I detect the Zoroastrian heresy?”’ This comment might remind us of the Inquisition, a Catholic judicial procedure which was aimed at suppressing what scholar Henry Angsar Kelly calls ‘heretical depravity’- Mrs Coulter’s guests are presumably religious, and part of the repressive Church.

However, Pullman shows the ignorance of their religious anti-intellectualism. ‘Heresy’ refers to a deviation within the same religion from a specific doctrine that is considered orthodox. It does not describe devotion to a different religion. Yes, the Inquisition tried Antonio Vieira, a Jesuit priest, of ‘having defended ideas impregnated with Jewish heresy,’ according to scholar Anita Novinsky. But the definition makes the phrase ‘Jewish heresy’ inaccurate too, because Judaism and Catholicism are completely separate religions. Admittedly, Zoroastrianism and Christianity are connected. Mary Boyce, an academic authority on Zoroastrianism, writes that ‘It was out of a Judaism enriched by five centuries of contact with Zoroastrianism that Christianity arose in the Parthian period.’ The Church is historically tied with Zoroastrianism. However, the party guest’s misapplication of ‘heresy’ shows that they can’t distinguish between historical ties and denominations within the same ongoing religion. To emphasise the importance of epistemic development, Pullman demonstrates the Church’s intellectual dishonesty.

Mrs Coulter dismisses ‘Dust [as] something bad, something wrong, something evil and wicked.’ This vocabulary that suggests malice also echoes the Inquisition. In the twelfth century, Huguccio, a canon lawyer, created the rule that ecclesiastical judges should torture any heretics of ‘vile condition.’ Huguccio uses similar language relating to morality. Mrs Coulter also tortures people to expand her religious anti-intellectualism. She claims that ‘all that happens is a little cut’ between a human and daemon’s soul tie. But later, Lord Asriel reveals that such a human turns into a pacified ‘zombi.’ Even the narrator hates it: ‘Oh, the wicked liar, oh, the shameful untruths she was telling.’ Pullman’s narrator emphasises the important of truth-seeking and intellectual awareness by condemning the lack thereof. The exclamatory ‘oh[’s]’ suggest the visceral reaction that the readership are invited to have with Lyra, who was ‘nearly blazed with hatred.’ Pullman reinforces his twofold message by evoking a reaction in both the characters and the reader.

Burnett also doubly avoids endorsing anti-intellectualism. In the beginning, ‘her mother cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people’. This is pure hedonism. Look, I love amusing myself with gay people too, but Mary’s mother prioritises indulgence over intellectual growth. Moreover, ‘cared only’ and ‘amuse herself’ demonstrates the narrator’s invitation to share their disapproval- the sense of exclusivity and the pronoun suggesting observation imply the narrator’s criticism of the mother’s indulgent actions from a distance. Both authors thus prove that ‘story-telling and truth-telling are not antithetical’- they use an intellectual medium to criticise anti-intellectualism.

Photo Credit: Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury, 19th Century Oil Painting of Galileo Galilei before the Holy Office during the Inquisition. Anti-intellectualism is timeless.

So both authors doubly create epistemic curiosity, within the character and the reader. They plant this seed by revealing the benefits of their protagonists’ need for cognitive closure with Dust or nature. Then, they use storytelling techniques to encourage the same closure within the reader and condemn the suppression of it. Children’s literature is the first Dust to settle on readers who need it most. Am I saying Ethel Cain fans should read a book for a change? Maybe…

But does this apply to an even wider cultural context?

Well, Pullman certainly thinks so. In an interview with NPR, he clarifies that ‘the points when I become critical are the points when politics come into it, and religion acquires political power — political with a small “p,” for example, within the confines of a single family, or Political with a large “P,” on a national or international scale.’

Well, musician Ethel Cain’s fandom is something of a single family. If they started a book club, you could probably call it a family meeting.

But their constant repetition of quips like ‘yes you ate that like isaiah ate ethel’ are understandably annoying for her. The phrase ‘you ate’ may have good intentions behind it. After all, it is an African American Vernacular English phrase that’s used to compliment someone’s actions. But Ethel Cain proves that she is just like Pullman and Burnett in some ways- an artist who wants others to intellectually engage with their work. Ethel Cain’s rant is simply part of a wider historical trend that Pullman, Burnett, Galileo Galilei and Antonio Vieira all took part in. Like Pullman, Ethel Cain values the audience’s intellectual engagement with her work, even if she loves a joke once in a while.

However, if I did not explore what Pullman meant by the ‘large “P”,’ I risk being just as superficial as Ethel Cain’s fandom can be. There are certainly real-life dangers to anti-intellectualism that go way beyond the safety of fiction. Contrary to what influential, world-renowned author J.K. Rowling tweeted, the Nazi regime did target transgender people and research on sexology.

Photo Credit: Costume party at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft with Magnus Hirschfeld (second from right)/ Archive of Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft

The Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science) was a non-profit sexology research institute in Weimar Germany. It carried out treatment for alcoholism, marital and sex therapy, STIs, and gynecological exams, and famously developed research on topics regarding gay, trans, and intersex people. But the Nazi Party attacked the institute and burned their books, for reasons that had nothing to do with ethical concerns. Read more here if you’re curious!

J.K. Rowling’s ignorant tweet is especially dangerous in a time when governments threaten trans rights. Anti-intellectualism isn’t just something that annoys people- it has real-life consequences for entire groups. Ethel Cain’s rant is a strong mouthpiece for every other intellectual who has been silenced. This is why books are needed more than ever, and children’s literature can be a perfect introduction to a world of complex and mature ideas. So pick up a copy of your favourite book from when you were a kid. It might be more relevant than you think.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Hodgson Burnett, Frances, The Secret Garden, new ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)

Pullman, Philip, Northern Lights, ed. by David Fickling (London: Scholastic UK Ltd, 1995)

Secondary Sources

‘a- prefix’, in Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries [online], <https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/a_4> [accessed 7 January 2025]

 Boyce, Mary, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, 1st ed. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1979)

Djikic, Maja, Oatley, Keith, and C. Moldoveanu, Mihnea, ‘Opening the Closed Mind: The Effect of Exposure to Literature on the Need for Closure’, Creativity Research Journal, 25.2 (2013), 149-154

Harris, Charles, Complete Screenwriting Course, [online] (Teach Yourself, 2014), <https://www.perlego.com/book/3179512> [accessed 8 January 2025]

‘Heresy’, in The Oxford English Dictionary [online], <https://www.oed.com/dictionary/heresy_n?tab=meaning_and_use> [accessed 7 January 2025]

https://archiv.hkw.de/en/hkw/geschichte/ort_geschichte/magnus_hirschfeld.php [accessed 22 February 2025]

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/ [accessed 22 February 2025]

https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1767912990366388735 [accessed 22 February 2025]

Hughes-Hallett, Lucy, ‘Introduction’, in His Dark Materials, 1st ed. (New York City: Everyman’s Library, 1995)

Kelly, Henry Ansgar, ‘Inquisition and the Prosecution of Heresy: Misconceptions and Abuses’, Church History, 58.4 (1989), 439-451

Novinsky, Anita, ‘Antonio Vieira, the Inquisition, and the Jews’, Jewish History, 6.0.5 (1992), 151-162

Pullman, Philip ‘Magic Carpets: The Writer’s Responsibilities’, in Daemon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling, ed. by Simon Mason (Oxford: David Fickling Books, 2020)

Stephens, Bonnie, ‘Taking the Second Step in Reading’, The Reading Teacher, 42.8 (1989), 584-590

Yancey, P. H, ‘Origins from Mythology of Biological Names and Term’, Bios, 16.1 (1945), 7-19