“Over time, American communities will build beautiful, church owned public-access libraries. I’m going to help these churches get funding. We will change the whole public library paradigm. The libraries regular Americans recall are gone. They’ve become liberal grooming centers.”
Technically that's not a call to defund public libraries, only to fund a new array of public-access libraries run by churches. It is true that the libraries of today often feature displays of books that are left-wing in character, and the ALA tends to side with the cultural left openly and reliably. Just as there's a desire to separate from each other politically, there's an understandable desire to separate from each other culturally.
The basic principle of free inquiry needs defenders. I understand that parents may not always want their children exposed to some things at early ages, and I agree that parents should have their rightful authority to guide their children's lives and educations recognized. That said, there needs to be a defense of the right of adult minds to think and speak honestly even when what they have to say is unpopular -- or popular with many ordinary people, but not with the wealthy and powerful.
Right now there doesn't seem to be an agenda by either party to defend freedom of speech and inquiry. There are movements on both sides (to the degree that there are two sides) to oppose it. That's a matter of grave concern.
UPDATE: Now book burning.
12 comments:
Indeed, there are way too many people who don't value free speech...for some thoughts, see my 2020 post The Multifront Attack on Free Speech:
https://ricochet.com/709691/the-multi-front-attack-on-free-speech/
The whole idea of an adversary system of justice is increasingly not accepted, respected lawyers have lost their jobs at prominent firms by defending politically-incorrect clients. (Ax murderers would probably be just fine)
And, as Marc Andreessen has repeatedly pointed out, AI systems such as the various flavors of GPT threaten to take the control of information to a whole new level. Just today at Twitter, somebody said:
"If AI models get even better, their unchecked use will begin to pose serious dangers to society. Most people agree it’d be great if countries could agree on rules to prevent AI misuse/accidents, & avoid an arms race. But how could rules on AI actually be enforced?
...to which someone else responded: "ou can finally see "AI safety" for what it is blatantly authoritarian total surveillance to limit the use of large language models to organizations approved by an unelected, un-policed, cabal of "ethicists" we have to stop them at all costs"
https://twitter.com/WillManidis/status/1640417465438986241
Many of the challenges because of sexual, violent, or political content that come to libraries can be easily solved by diverting the discussion to what age it should be encouraged at vs. available at vs not purchased. Neither side wants this, they want a fight in order to shame the others. My wife was a public and school librarian for over forty years, a couple of aunts were librarians, and my new daughter-in-law is a children's librarian. I have been watching this for years. It's not that hard to create a situation where you tell parents "It is only carried at the high school library /young adult room, but a junior high/children's room student can put in a request for it." Even that won't fix everything, but it fixes enough that you can't get a crowd to protest and you can't get enough annoyance from the staff to try and go to the media to make the parents look stupid.
The number of book challenges documented in the ALA article is tiny, whether you think about it in terms of books in circulation versus books challenged, or in terms of number of people in the US versus number of demands.
More fundamentally, I don’t think there’s anything at all wrong with people in the community - especially parents of school children - challenging books in schools. And a book being challenged doesn’t mean it is removed - why shouldn’t parents voice their concerns and ask the schools to take a second look?
I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with people in the community challenging books in public libraries. It’s their money being spent and the money spent on Book X is not available to be spent on Book Y.
I don’t have any objection to “church owned public-access libraries.” They sound like super-sized Christian Science Reading Rooms. If Representative Higgins is planning on funding them via government spending, that I’m not okay with. (This does open up a whole area of discussion about governments funding or essentially sub-contracting with, private actors to get stuff done: Planned Parenthood; NPR; Catholic adoption services; etc.)
My impression is that those on the Right are more supportive of free speech than those on the Left. I might be wrong. If I’m right, that state of affairs might result from the Left being more powerful in the society/culture than the Right or it might result from the Right reflexively opposing the Left.
Elise
Well, at least some of the calls to remove things from K-12 school libraries is because it's pornography. I saw images from one of the graphic novels in question and it really does show 2 teenage boys having oral sex.
Off the top of my head, I would guess the sudden increase in calls to get certain books out of children's hands is because the last 2 years of COVID have shown parents a lot more of what their kids are being exposed to at school.
In at least one case, parents were objecting to a graphic novel that shows images of two boys having oral sex.
I think the increase in parental complaints about a few books in school libraries is likely the result of parents getting a closer look at what is being taught in K-12 schools and looking further to see what other messed up things are going on.
The last two comments I've posted in this thread have disappeared right after posting. It may have been coincidence, or it may have been a term I included. It is funny to me that I seem to be being restricted in what I can say in comments to a post on free speech.
The parents who have wanted material removed or restricted in public school, K-12, libraries has mostly been due to sexual content. They're being portrayed as right-wing, but are they? Or are they just concerned parents?
AVI, I think the parents would be fine with such a discussion, but they are being portrayed as fascist book-burners for wanting to keep pornographic material out of school libraries. Obviously, you have family with first-hand experience and I'm just reading news articles, but from what I'm reading I don't see the drive to political victory motivating this. I see parents truly concerned about graphic depictions of underage sex in K-12 libraries.
Examples:
Controversial book returned to Canutillo High School library reignites protest, calls for removal
Indian River schools plan to review content of library books after parent protests
Emails: Parents Protest ‘Pornography’ in Yorktown High School Library
I might also include the push to re-write "problematic" books as a form of banning. While the re-written book has the same title, the original book has effectively been banned.
@ Tom - Parents are often unreasonable in their challenges, especially when someone starts organising them into groups. I have seen it with my own eyes and endured relatives going through unreasonable discussions, some continuing for months with public meetings. Just because challenges could be reasonable but still regarded as suspect and even fascist does not mean that the challenges are all reasonable.
I am no fan of the ALA and they do shade this information when they report it. But actual librarians deal with this crap all the time.
I'm really sorry your family members -- and anyone else -- has to go through that.
I worked in a library as a reference specialist -- not a "librarian," which requires a Masters of Library Science degree -- during my MA program long ago. It's true that disputes are often unreasonable and stupid, although it's also true that many of my colleagues delighted in arranging left-wing book displays that would fly in the face of the ideals of the rural Georgia community they were serving. And they were serving it, most of the time in most ways; but they couldn't resist putting a finger in the eyes, every excuse they could find.
This is a real stretch to find some kind of both sides-ism, especially with yet another instance of a conservative being shouted down by left-wingers recently in the news (Judge Duncan's treatment after being invited to give an address by the Federalist Society at Stanford). I suppose there could be some people who would be considered conservative cheering for Harry Potter books being burned but at this point I have to suspect the number of those is vanishingly small. One might also be able to find some instance somewhere of a Democrat or noted liberal being insulted by a conservative mob but the dearth of such stories when they would so obviously support the narrative of conservative hostility to free speech is good evidence they don't happen often if at all.
You can argue self-interest but conservative defense of their own right to speak and write freely is, in and of itself, a defense of free speech and free inquiry. I have yet to see a comment that claimed the Stanford students had no right to voice their opinions or protest Judge Duncan's appearance, only that they had no right to shut down his planned address with such a demonstration.
As far as librarian dealing with unreasonable people, cry me a river. When it was fundamentalist Christians attacking Harry Potter, the library associations were falling over themselves to defend Rowling and celebrate her books. Show me similarly open and unequivocal support for her now that she's offending left-wing pieties. The left absolutely depends on the inherent reasonableness of most conservatives, and the squeamishness of most moderates to align with the mildest of conservative positions, to allow their smug insolence to carry the day. Conservatives are catching on to this and asking why those institutions should continue to be supported.
Harsanyi over at the Federalist argues that There Are No Banned Books, which is true, as far as it goes. Asking for public libraries to not carry something isn't the same as asking the government to outlaw the work.
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