Just when I thought that people had stopped making these sorts of easily parodied statements, I find this article at Melbourne’s The Age:
Nuclear industry blasts ‘medieval’ Queensland
Apparently, Queensland is introducing laws to outlaw nuclear facilities in order to block the national government from building new nuclear plants in the state. The move prompted Ian Hore-Lacy of the Australian Uranium Association to remark, “The reaction sounds a bit like medieval book burning.”
Of all the bad things that are uniquely medieval out there to compare something to, why go and bring up book burning? All the Baptists I know burn six copies of Harry Potter before breakfast just to be on the safe side. I know books got burned in the Middle Ages, it’s just not an exclusively medieval thing. It’s like saying, “The reaction sounds a bit like medieval tooth decay” or “This is exactly the sort of medieval manslaughter I’d expect out of you.” And aren’t Nazis the go-to guys for book burning references? Or Joseph McCarthy? Or Stalin?
Really, the Middle Ages can’t win for losing. Usually, they get flack for not having enough books. Now they’re in trouble for burning the books that they didn’t have. But what do you expect? It’s not like they had nuclear plants. They had to keep warm somehow, and witches were mostly extinct by the 1200’s.