The American Library Association is considering replacing the principle of library neutrality with other concepts, like "radical empathy." Why that would be a mistake.
This ALA proposition is an effect of the changing in the profession, not a cause, though it would certainly codify the change. Emphasizing "radical empathy" as opposed to neutrality, also erodes trust between librarians and library staff. As the profession embraces an explicitly political position, those library workers who do not share the far Left/progressive values are increasingly unwelcome even now; codifying the position would force (is forcing) many out of the field and prevent some people from ever entering the field.
I agree. The ALA proposition is so imposing and intense, it makes work environments feel like a mine field or a place where you work tirelessly to conform, no place for free expression. I believe that may be the point: control. And the inclusiveness rhetoric is cynical.
The ALA is dominated by middle-class white women. They hate that it's so, wish it weren't, pretend it isn't, but it is. And the "radical empathy" proposition is the exact kind of nonsense that self-hating middle class white women write.
While I don't appreciate the concept of "neutrality" because of what it has come to mean -- we have no values, as it were -- I also question the adoption of values that advocate a particular set of outcomes. I believe in radical empathy; I don't believe it should be part of a professional organizations policy statements. As a scholar of public libraries, I suggest it threatens the political position of libraries within their communities. The original framework for "neutrality" -- almost 100 years ago now -- was "non-partisanship." Non-partisan meant libraries did not adopt a particular political stance, which actually enabled them to successfully navigate political environments. We need to keep in mind that public libraries, at the very least, are political institutions.
I have a huge problem with the title of this article ... 'core values' have a specific meaning (at least within ALA), and some of what this article discusses does not address the officially adopted Core Values. I was intimately involved in the original statement. It was not an easy process to create the current statement (expanded/amended in 2019). You can find that statement here:
The core values do refer to the Freedom to Read statement, which has language that seems to advocate for neutrality. If a concept such as "Radical Empathy" is adopted, would it appear in the core values or elsewhere? Thank you.
I think about this as someone who teaches LIS. I know what radical empathy means but would this then become part of the standards for accreditation? What is the downstream impact of adoption of this language? I think that values of empathy are currently taught but this statement, seems to me, would necessitate a revision of curricula, more cross-listed classes in mental health, perhaps. Will Boards of Trustees understand this? In most LIS programs the emphasis has moved to data and I would think this would need to be addressed by ASSIST and ALISE concurrently. Has that been done?
Having grown up in a religious environment, nonsense terms like "radical empathy" strike me the same way that concepts in church like "personal relationship with Jesus" did, even as a child. What could this possibly mean in a way not dependent on standpoint and introspection? Its a doctrinal formulae that stand in for moral commitments but can't have any real meaning independent of the ideology it is supposedly necessary to underpin (despite the fact that in both cases, the values allegedly dependent on the concept existed long before the concept itself). I see the whiff of evangelical religion in almost everything done in these woke agendas, which go far beyond taking the impacts of history and the importance of civil rights seriously in that they are totalitarian in the literal and political sense. Just using the term itself is a marker of being in the moral in-group and is framed in such as way that questioning it already creates doubt about your values. In the case of religion, if you have a "personal relationship with Jesus" then you will defacto believe in a host of un-related ideological/theological/political/social claims and in the case of woke language games, if you believe in "radical empathy" then you will defacto believe in a whole host of specific ideological claims - the latter of which are the real meat of what we want to proof text with "doing the work" of introspection.
May 6, 2022·edited May 6, 2022Liked by Bridget Wipf
I also grew up in a religious environment and the one precept that sticks with me is the Golden rule which is quite simple to understand and if practiced would address everything and is not a doctrinal formula.
Technically, the "Core Values" is the list of values. The rest is explanatory language which was not what was adopted by ALA Council. (I served on CVTF2 [the second Core Values Task Force] which created the list with a large amount of input. We guided its adoption through ALA Council. I also was still serving on ALA Council when Sustainability was added - and that motion included only that one item.
Hello Michael. Thank you for your feedback, information and insight. Had I been aware (as I probably should have been) of the the "Core Values in Librarianship" document beforehand, I would've suggested that we consider citing it as a supportive source in the Open Letter.
The Social Justice subgroup argues that the officially adopted Core Values of the ALA already "eschew" neutrality: "Through the adoption of ALA’s core values, the American Library Association has already eschewed neutrality and taken formal positions on many issues so it is important to be explicit about our beliefs and how they inform our work."
For them, the ALA has already implicitly embraced empathy and rejected neutrality in the CORE values statement that you worked on. It just has to be stated more directly.
Thus, I think that it is fair for the authors to frame their essay as a critique of the appropriateness of radical empathy as a core value of librarianship. By advancing this critique, they are participating in the discussion that you ask them to join.
As a non-librarian, I'm interested to understand better the conditions in which this new proposal is being made. What is the job market like for new young library science grads? Bad or good?
I'd be very surprised to learn that it is good. I've come to the point of view that these declarations of "we are now 100% changing the rules of how you get to enter and work in this profession in which the jobs are pretty cool and interesting and high status" are about what Peter Turchin calls elite overproduction and the frustrated desire of new entrants to land berths. There simply are not enough berths in the system as it stands... but if the system could be shaken up in a foundational way? Surely some old folks would fall out and some young folks could scramble in.
As much as I agree with the arguments made here that "neutrality" is preferable to "empathy as defined by ME", I don't think this is a situation that will be resolved on the terrain of "persuasive intellectual rhetoric A goes mano a mano with persuasive intellectual rhetoric B"
It's really a fight over resources and indicates something pretty awful about resource allocation at present. If the traditional value librarians had something other than rhetoric to offer new young librarians -- if there were many real, paying avenues into the profession -- I don't think this fight would be happening.
In sum: I'm politically and intellectually sympathetic to traditional librarianship. But I see why the younger generation is mad and frustrated about their prospects, and if we don't figure out how to help them, these resource-allocation challenges framed as values-challenges are going to continue.
I'm in accord with your sentiments completely. A couple of quick comments. It's always about resources, particularly here in Alberta post-secondaries right now, as you know. Nor is the job market in Canada particularly strong (I cannot speak for the US). This isn't really about intellectual rhetorical challenges though; underlying it is how libraries put boundaries on their professional responsibilities, and how they communicate those responsibilities to 'stakeholders'. The argument we're making in the letter is for 'professional neutrality' (the old civil service ethos, if you like) and focusing resources on services and collections for their communities, not a mission creep to save all humanity. Moreover, it is strongly aimed at using good processes - including not judging users or dismissing their needs - to ensure engagement and inclusion in the library mission for library staff and for its communities of users. I strongly agree with you that inclusion and openness are core to helping all who are disengaged find a more welcoming home in libraries. And we need a younger, more diverse staff (see above about job opportunities). Finally, a more radical wording that defines the proposition is always a harder sell for funding, which does affect resources. In short: I think the changing of ALA wording will damage these goals by removing ethical and professional boundaries, and affect public support.
I am in agreement with the authors, especially with their criticism of the the notion that there is a correct set of values and it is those of the political left. This is likely to have unfortunate consequences for the decisions funding agencies make about libraries and librarians. Our professional development should include workshops on empathy, the persistence of racism and ethnic prejudice, and how to deal with all patrons respectfully, among a variety of other topics.
I'd like you to discuss more regarding your views on the "the kind of polarization and partisan wrangling now eroding the public's confidence in teachers and public schools." You're implying in your text that such "erosion" is somehow warranted and prop up an undefended position that "much of the public" actually believes that public educators are somehow radical leftists.
Further, you argue that "it is easy to imagine conservative legislators questioning why they deserve taxpayer funding, or such autonomy, if they’re not going to represent the interests of all citizens." Who are these conservative legislators and present their bona fides to support your position. The only conservative legislators who you would ask us not to anger seem to argue against any form of inclusion or worthwhile educational enterprise seeking to help students and others understand what it means to live in a diverse, liberal democracy.
I want to give your arguments a chance, but your claims in the paragraph from which I've quoted dissolve your reputational foundation and limit my belief that you are attempting to authentically participate in this debate.
"The only conservative legislators who you would ask us not to anger seem to argue against any form of inclusion or worthwhile educational enterprise seeking to help students and others understand what it means to live in a diverse, liberal democracy." This is for two reasons. 1)Because critical theory thinks any pushback to the absurd ideological framing of systemic racism that is seen now as the "only" way of thinking about it calls any objection to critical theory framing as an argument against inclusion. and 1)Because there is no constituency for those of us who believe that systemic racism is largely a matter of differential exposure at the group (but not individual) level to suffering metrics that aren't exclusive to any particular race and no constituency for those of us who definitely want it to be well understood that group disparities have racism/oppression as part of their origin story, but might have downstream effects that are no longer dependent on it. Where is the political party that wants to say no both the conservative head in the sand denialism as well as the critical theory obsession with simplistic identity disparitarianism? Where is the party that wants the New Deal as the model for the future of leftist politics and opposes both the party that attacks it as "socialism" and the party that erroneously "problematizes" it as racist. Where it the party for those of us who agree with Cedric Johnson, Adolph Reed, Barbara Fields, Toure Reed, Ariella Thornhill, Jen Pan, Adaner Usmani and other left materialists on this stuff? Where is the party for those who want to say NO to both the assholes on the Right who thinks trans people are icky sinful degenerates but also NO to the people on the left who think gender identity is what makes a person male or female for every possible situation and that gender is just a pure matter of introspection? There is not a bit of difference between what assholes in my state of Florida like DeSantis are attempting to do to push their simplistic moral certainties and what the most ideological DEI activists in academia are doing. Where is the party for people who object strenuously to both?
I am one of the signatories and speak only for myself here, so those who drafted and edited the document may have perspectives at variance with mine. (I mainly provided some of overviews cited of recent scholarship on limitations and liabilities of empathy, suggesting it's a motivated and selective process which can subserve and exacerbate pre-existing intergroup biases and prejudices -- features, that is, of our evolved political, interpersonal and coalitional psychology that aspirational commitments to neutrality in our public institutions are designed to counter in liberal democracies.)
I should also perhaps take the opportunity here, in order to correct some misperceptions I've seen floating around, that we are all politically conservative: my "social justice" political sympathies align most closely with the likes of materialist Leftists such as Adolph Reed, Cedric Johnson, Toure Reed, and, as I've recently discovered, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò. Moreover, I don't even have a firm grasp of precisely where all the rest of my co-signatories' respective politics lie -- which, frankly, I think is great, and in keeping with the spirit, as I understand it, of Heterodox Academy, its librarians subgroup in which we exchange ideas, and of this forum.
To your particular concern: I can see how what you quote might lend itself to the interpretation you are suggesting, but I understand it to mean that abandoning neutrality as an aspirational principle for the proposed alternatives *risks* politicizing institutions in a manner which could invite perceived and actual partiality of a kind incurring backlash from conservatives in power. The erosion of trust in higher ed in particular over the past several decades is well-documented:
So I don’t take the paragraph of concern to be justifying or endorsing anything analogous to the alarming developments currently underway in some Red States under overzealous legislatures.
Thanks, Rob. I do sympathize to *an extent* with you and co-authors who are most likely being immediately pinned down as conservative zealots. Part of the problem, as I see it, is our hot take society willing to express a "critique" in 280 characters or less. But it's also your responsibility as authors for not being clear about your political positionality in such a politically charged piece. (As much as you may want this to be an academic writing, its material is too political to free itself from those chains.)
Adding "risks" to the part I quote would soften the blow, and that's quite a different statement than the one currently written. Still, you and your co-authors are arguing that the "polarization and partisan wrangling" are legitimate issues. To my eye, they are fabricated by the right. Look no further than the CRT—or better put, "CRT"— debate to get an idea of my position. This is especially true in K-12 education (and their libraries).
I'm going to push back on your citation of the "erosion of trust in higher ed." Look deeper into that post and follow the data to its source, which is a survey of college and university presidents (1,2). This is not a general public survey about the perception of higher ed. These are administrators with financial and political interests, many of whom I assume work in institutions where they must work with Republican legislators because they are employed by public institutions. So, to "express," as 80 percent did, "concern about Republican skepticism regarding higher education," is arguably a statement about working with conservatives with these views who have power over the financials and construction of their institution.
Out of fairness to you, the same report goes on to write that "A growing plurality (44 percent) agree that the 'perception of colleges as places that are intolerant of conservative views is accurate.'" Without access to the actual report (it's behind some kind of form), it's difficult to say how this statement breaks down across institution type or state geography (here I am assuming some correlation with political leanings of the state). Regardless of the data breakdown, if the major, dominant conservative view is to deny a liberal democracy that is inclusive, then why should that view matter to begin with? There are many ways to express conservatism in the United States, but the dominant strain these days is to push toward homogeny in extreme ways.
This is an excellent, well-reasoned letter! I hope this discussion continues throughout the profession. From conversations I've had with fellow public librarians, I believe there are many of us who still believe that neutrality in library services is a goal towards which we should be striving. Thank you for sharing this!
This is an excellent letter (which I stumbled upon only recently). I tried to find out what actually happened with the Intellectual Freedom and Social Justice WG proposal, but the trail seems to have gone cold. Was the effort simply dropped?
This letter contains such a rich discussion of the democratic sensibilities American libraries are built on! I've often marveled at how open-minded and welcoming librarians are in responding to my questions and requests. I'm sure there are clunkers out there, but the standard of neutrality has given me the confidence to ask about nearly anything over the years. This letter points out that the insidious drive to change one of the true strengths of our culture is also at work in some of the "quiet" corners of society. Yikes.
I view these issues through a developmental lens. We usually start out looking for information confirming out current views. Traditionalists might come to the library looking for justification for their views and stumble on a book about the awakening of a former white nationalist. A Modernist might discover a writer who captures a Traditional religious view that is consistent with their thinking. A Postmodernist could find a book about the Civil Rights movement reminding them of one of the great achievements of the Modern movement. Finally, the Post Progressive shakes off these natural, parochial worldviews and takes an overall developmental approach so we can meet the individual where they are now and trust that friendly professional service will help them learn and grow. If libraries are forced to force a viewpoint, we demonstrate that we don't trust people to grow.
Yikes! Great 2-year-old position statement about librarian neutrality, which I am now reading against a cultural backdrop of AAUP's recent decision to rescind it's position on boycotting academic institutions (they're fine with it now) and HxA's recent advocacy efforts to promote neutrality on academic campuses. But I am also disappointed to see "trauma-informed" practices thrown into the hopper with other bad library approaches. Trauma-informed practices, when properly administered, are the epitome of neutrality because they accept all people as they are and do not judge people for the beliefs they hold. A colleague of mine often says, "people do things for a reason." Trauma-informed approaches accept those reasons without judgment. People who strive to view the world through trauma-informed lenses may disagree with others, but they don't cast those others down for the beliefs that those others have landed on, perhaps with the recognition that people don't always get to choose their beliefs, let alone how they are allowed by their culture to express them.
This ALA proposition is an effect of the changing in the profession, not a cause, though it would certainly codify the change. Emphasizing "radical empathy" as opposed to neutrality, also erodes trust between librarians and library staff. As the profession embraces an explicitly political position, those library workers who do not share the far Left/progressive values are increasingly unwelcome even now; codifying the position would force (is forcing) many out of the field and prevent some people from ever entering the field.
I agree. The ALA proposition is so imposing and intense, it makes work environments feel like a mine field or a place where you work tirelessly to conform, no place for free expression. I believe that may be the point: control. And the inclusiveness rhetoric is cynical.
The ALA is dominated by middle-class white women. They hate that it's so, wish it weren't, pretend it isn't, but it is. And the "radical empathy" proposition is the exact kind of nonsense that self-hating middle class white women write.
While I don't appreciate the concept of "neutrality" because of what it has come to mean -- we have no values, as it were -- I also question the adoption of values that advocate a particular set of outcomes. I believe in radical empathy; I don't believe it should be part of a professional organizations policy statements. As a scholar of public libraries, I suggest it threatens the political position of libraries within their communities. The original framework for "neutrality" -- almost 100 years ago now -- was "non-partisanship." Non-partisan meant libraries did not adopt a particular political stance, which actually enabled them to successfully navigate political environments. We need to keep in mind that public libraries, at the very least, are political institutions.
Has this been run by United for Libraries? Their input important.
This is the type of discussion that is needed to understand and analyze the proposal.
I have a huge problem with the title of this article ... 'core values' have a specific meaning (at least within ALA), and some of what this article discusses does not address the officially adopted Core Values. I was intimately involved in the original statement. It was not an easy process to create the current statement (expanded/amended in 2019). You can find that statement here:
https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/corevalues
I would also note that the initial link is for the beginning of a discussion. If you are concerned, be part of the discussion.
I am wondering what courses or trainings would be recommended to develop these values.
Should state libraries provide as CE? Are there any that anyone can suggest? Would these be in other academic departments?
Point taken, thank you. "Principles" is more accurate.
The core values do refer to the Freedom to Read statement, which has language that seems to advocate for neutrality. If a concept such as "Radical Empathy" is adopted, would it appear in the core values or elsewhere? Thank you.
I think about this as someone who teaches LIS. I know what radical empathy means but would this then become part of the standards for accreditation? What is the downstream impact of adoption of this language? I think that values of empathy are currently taught but this statement, seems to me, would necessitate a revision of curricula, more cross-listed classes in mental health, perhaps. Will Boards of Trustees understand this? In most LIS programs the emphasis has moved to data and I would think this would need to be addressed by ASSIST and ALISE concurrently. Has that been done?
Having grown up in a religious environment, nonsense terms like "radical empathy" strike me the same way that concepts in church like "personal relationship with Jesus" did, even as a child. What could this possibly mean in a way not dependent on standpoint and introspection? Its a doctrinal formulae that stand in for moral commitments but can't have any real meaning independent of the ideology it is supposedly necessary to underpin (despite the fact that in both cases, the values allegedly dependent on the concept existed long before the concept itself). I see the whiff of evangelical religion in almost everything done in these woke agendas, which go far beyond taking the impacts of history and the importance of civil rights seriously in that they are totalitarian in the literal and political sense. Just using the term itself is a marker of being in the moral in-group and is framed in such as way that questioning it already creates doubt about your values. In the case of religion, if you have a "personal relationship with Jesus" then you will defacto believe in a host of un-related ideological/theological/political/social claims and in the case of woke language games, if you believe in "radical empathy" then you will defacto believe in a whole host of specific ideological claims - the latter of which are the real meat of what we want to proof text with "doing the work" of introspection.
I also grew up in a religious environment and the one precept that sticks with me is the Golden rule which is quite simple to understand and if practiced would address everything and is not a doctrinal formula.
Technically, the "Core Values" is the list of values. The rest is explanatory language which was not what was adopted by ALA Council. (I served on CVTF2 [the second Core Values Task Force] which created the list with a large amount of input. We guided its adoption through ALA Council. I also was still serving on ALA Council when Sustainability was added - and that motion included only that one item.
Hello Michael. Thank you for your feedback, information and insight. Had I been aware (as I probably should have been) of the the "Core Values in Librarianship" document beforehand, I would've suggested that we consider citing it as a supportive source in the Open Letter.
I looked for more info on the ALA website about why they want to initiate this discussion. There is a "Radical Empathy Report" from IF Committee Social Justice Subgroup on June 29. 2021 that addresses it. See: https://www.ala.org/aboutala/sites/ala.org.aboutala/files/content/ALA%20CD19.5-19.7%20Intellectual%20Freedom%20Committee_action%20items.pdf
The Social Justice subgroup argues that the officially adopted Core Values of the ALA already "eschew" neutrality: "Through the adoption of ALA’s core values, the American Library Association has already eschewed neutrality and taken formal positions on many issues so it is important to be explicit about our beliefs and how they inform our work."
For them, the ALA has already implicitly embraced empathy and rejected neutrality in the CORE values statement that you worked on. It just has to be stated more directly.
Thus, I think that it is fair for the authors to frame their essay as a critique of the appropriateness of radical empathy as a core value of librarianship. By advancing this critique, they are participating in the discussion that you ask them to join.
As a non-librarian, I'm interested to understand better the conditions in which this new proposal is being made. What is the job market like for new young library science grads? Bad or good?
I'd be very surprised to learn that it is good. I've come to the point of view that these declarations of "we are now 100% changing the rules of how you get to enter and work in this profession in which the jobs are pretty cool and interesting and high status" are about what Peter Turchin calls elite overproduction and the frustrated desire of new entrants to land berths. There simply are not enough berths in the system as it stands... but if the system could be shaken up in a foundational way? Surely some old folks would fall out and some young folks could scramble in.
As much as I agree with the arguments made here that "neutrality" is preferable to "empathy as defined by ME", I don't think this is a situation that will be resolved on the terrain of "persuasive intellectual rhetoric A goes mano a mano with persuasive intellectual rhetoric B"
It's really a fight over resources and indicates something pretty awful about resource allocation at present. If the traditional value librarians had something other than rhetoric to offer new young librarians -- if there were many real, paying avenues into the profession -- I don't think this fight would be happening.
In sum: I'm politically and intellectually sympathetic to traditional librarianship. But I see why the younger generation is mad and frustrated about their prospects, and if we don't figure out how to help them, these resource-allocation challenges framed as values-challenges are going to continue.
Look for the discussion thread I will be posting tomorrow.
Bingo!
I'm in accord with your sentiments completely. A couple of quick comments. It's always about resources, particularly here in Alberta post-secondaries right now, as you know. Nor is the job market in Canada particularly strong (I cannot speak for the US). This isn't really about intellectual rhetorical challenges though; underlying it is how libraries put boundaries on their professional responsibilities, and how they communicate those responsibilities to 'stakeholders'. The argument we're making in the letter is for 'professional neutrality' (the old civil service ethos, if you like) and focusing resources on services and collections for their communities, not a mission creep to save all humanity. Moreover, it is strongly aimed at using good processes - including not judging users or dismissing their needs - to ensure engagement and inclusion in the library mission for library staff and for its communities of users. I strongly agree with you that inclusion and openness are core to helping all who are disengaged find a more welcoming home in libraries. And we need a younger, more diverse staff (see above about job opportunities). Finally, a more radical wording that defines the proposition is always a harder sell for funding, which does affect resources. In short: I think the changing of ALA wording will damage these goals by removing ethical and professional boundaries, and affect public support.
I am in agreement with the authors, especially with their criticism of the the notion that there is a correct set of values and it is those of the political left. This is likely to have unfortunate consequences for the decisions funding agencies make about libraries and librarians. Our professional development should include workshops on empathy, the persistence of racism and ethnic prejudice, and how to deal with all patrons respectfully, among a variety of other topics.
Neutrality and fascism aren’t compatible.
Is fascism here in the room with us now? Can you point to it for us? This is a safe place and we won't let anyone hurt you.
Just because you get hard thinking about riding the gnarled cock of authoritarianism doesn't mean everyone else does.
Now that’s elevated discourse!
I'd like you to discuss more regarding your views on the "the kind of polarization and partisan wrangling now eroding the public's confidence in teachers and public schools." You're implying in your text that such "erosion" is somehow warranted and prop up an undefended position that "much of the public" actually believes that public educators are somehow radical leftists.
Further, you argue that "it is easy to imagine conservative legislators questioning why they deserve taxpayer funding, or such autonomy, if they’re not going to represent the interests of all citizens." Who are these conservative legislators and present their bona fides to support your position. The only conservative legislators who you would ask us not to anger seem to argue against any form of inclusion or worthwhile educational enterprise seeking to help students and others understand what it means to live in a diverse, liberal democracy.
I want to give your arguments a chance, but your claims in the paragraph from which I've quoted dissolve your reputational foundation and limit my belief that you are attempting to authentically participate in this debate.
"The only conservative legislators who you would ask us not to anger seem to argue against any form of inclusion or worthwhile educational enterprise seeking to help students and others understand what it means to live in a diverse, liberal democracy." This is for two reasons. 1)Because critical theory thinks any pushback to the absurd ideological framing of systemic racism that is seen now as the "only" way of thinking about it calls any objection to critical theory framing as an argument against inclusion. and 1)Because there is no constituency for those of us who believe that systemic racism is largely a matter of differential exposure at the group (but not individual) level to suffering metrics that aren't exclusive to any particular race and no constituency for those of us who definitely want it to be well understood that group disparities have racism/oppression as part of their origin story, but might have downstream effects that are no longer dependent on it. Where is the political party that wants to say no both the conservative head in the sand denialism as well as the critical theory obsession with simplistic identity disparitarianism? Where is the party that wants the New Deal as the model for the future of leftist politics and opposes both the party that attacks it as "socialism" and the party that erroneously "problematizes" it as racist. Where it the party for those of us who agree with Cedric Johnson, Adolph Reed, Barbara Fields, Toure Reed, Ariella Thornhill, Jen Pan, Adaner Usmani and other left materialists on this stuff? Where is the party for those who want to say NO to both the assholes on the Right who thinks trans people are icky sinful degenerates but also NO to the people on the left who think gender identity is what makes a person male or female for every possible situation and that gender is just a pure matter of introspection? There is not a bit of difference between what assholes in my state of Florida like DeSantis are attempting to do to push their simplistic moral certainties and what the most ideological DEI activists in academia are doing. Where is the party for people who object strenuously to both?
Hello Kyle. Thanks for your sincere interest.
I am one of the signatories and speak only for myself here, so those who drafted and edited the document may have perspectives at variance with mine. (I mainly provided some of overviews cited of recent scholarship on limitations and liabilities of empathy, suggesting it's a motivated and selective process which can subserve and exacerbate pre-existing intergroup biases and prejudices -- features, that is, of our evolved political, interpersonal and coalitional psychology that aspirational commitments to neutrality in our public institutions are designed to counter in liberal democracies.)
I should also perhaps take the opportunity here, in order to correct some misperceptions I've seen floating around, that we are all politically conservative: my "social justice" political sympathies align most closely with the likes of materialist Leftists such as Adolph Reed, Cedric Johnson, Toure Reed, and, as I've recently discovered, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò. Moreover, I don't even have a firm grasp of precisely where all the rest of my co-signatories' respective politics lie -- which, frankly, I think is great, and in keeping with the spirit, as I understand it, of Heterodox Academy, its librarians subgroup in which we exchange ideas, and of this forum.
To your particular concern: I can see how what you quote might lend itself to the interpretation you are suggesting, but I understand it to mean that abandoning neutrality as an aspirational principle for the proposed alternatives *risks* politicizing institutions in a manner which could invite perceived and actual partiality of a kind incurring backlash from conservatives in power. The erosion of trust in higher ed in particular over the past several decades is well-documented:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/03/14/public-opinion-higher-education-takes-turn-better
So I don’t take the paragraph of concern to be justifying or endorsing anything analogous to the alarming developments currently underway in some Red States under overzealous legislatures.
Thanks, Rob. I do sympathize to *an extent* with you and co-authors who are most likely being immediately pinned down as conservative zealots. Part of the problem, as I see it, is our hot take society willing to express a "critique" in 280 characters or less. But it's also your responsibility as authors for not being clear about your political positionality in such a politically charged piece. (As much as you may want this to be an academic writing, its material is too political to free itself from those chains.)
Adding "risks" to the part I quote would soften the blow, and that's quite a different statement than the one currently written. Still, you and your co-authors are arguing that the "polarization and partisan wrangling" are legitimate issues. To my eye, they are fabricated by the right. Look no further than the CRT—or better put, "CRT"— debate to get an idea of my position. This is especially true in K-12 education (and their libraries).
I'm going to push back on your citation of the "erosion of trust in higher ed." Look deeper into that post and follow the data to its source, which is a survey of college and university presidents (1,2). This is not a general public survey about the perception of higher ed. These are administrators with financial and political interests, many of whom I assume work in institutions where they must work with Republican legislators because they are employed by public institutions. So, to "express," as 80 percent did, "concern about Republican skepticism regarding higher education," is arguably a statement about working with conservatives with these views who have power over the financials and construction of their institution.
Out of fairness to you, the same report goes on to write that "A growing plurality (44 percent) agree that the 'perception of colleges as places that are intolerant of conservative views is accurate.'" Without access to the actual report (it's behind some kind of form), it's difficult to say how this statement breaks down across institution type or state geography (here I am assuming some correlation with political leanings of the state). Regardless of the data breakdown, if the major, dominant conservative view is to deny a liberal democracy that is inclusive, then why should that view matter to begin with? There are many ways to express conservatism in the United States, but the dominant strain these days is to push toward homogeny in extreme ways.
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1: Post about the source: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/college-presidents-confident-finances-upbeat-about-race-relations
2: The source: https://www.insidehighered.com/booklet/2022-survey-college-and-university-presidents)
Hi Kyle.
Perhaps some of the data featured in psychologist Lee Jussim's inaugural Substack post, published today, will be more persuasive to you:
https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/the-radicalization-of-the-american?s=r
This is an excellent, well-reasoned letter! I hope this discussion continues throughout the profession. From conversations I've had with fellow public librarians, I believe there are many of us who still believe that neutrality in library services is a goal towards which we should be striving. Thank you for sharing this!
This is an excellent letter (which I stumbled upon only recently). I tried to find out what actually happened with the Intellectual Freedom and Social Justice WG proposal, but the trail seems to have gone cold. Was the effort simply dropped?
"Despite a general agreement on the importance of empathy, there is little scientific consensus as to exactly what empathy is."
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/09637214221131275
This letter contains such a rich discussion of the democratic sensibilities American libraries are built on! I've often marveled at how open-minded and welcoming librarians are in responding to my questions and requests. I'm sure there are clunkers out there, but the standard of neutrality has given me the confidence to ask about nearly anything over the years. This letter points out that the insidious drive to change one of the true strengths of our culture is also at work in some of the "quiet" corners of society. Yikes.
I view these issues through a developmental lens. We usually start out looking for information confirming out current views. Traditionalists might come to the library looking for justification for their views and stumble on a book about the awakening of a former white nationalist. A Modernist might discover a writer who captures a Traditional religious view that is consistent with their thinking. A Postmodernist could find a book about the Civil Rights movement reminding them of one of the great achievements of the Modern movement. Finally, the Post Progressive shakes off these natural, parochial worldviews and takes an overall developmental approach so we can meet the individual where they are now and trust that friendly professional service will help them learn and grow. If libraries are forced to force a viewpoint, we demonstrate that we don't trust people to grow.
Yikes! Great 2-year-old position statement about librarian neutrality, which I am now reading against a cultural backdrop of AAUP's recent decision to rescind it's position on boycotting academic institutions (they're fine with it now) and HxA's recent advocacy efforts to promote neutrality on academic campuses. But I am also disappointed to see "trauma-informed" practices thrown into the hopper with other bad library approaches. Trauma-informed practices, when properly administered, are the epitome of neutrality because they accept all people as they are and do not judge people for the beliefs they hold. A colleague of mine often says, "people do things for a reason." Trauma-informed approaches accept those reasons without judgment. People who strive to view the world through trauma-informed lenses may disagree with others, but they don't cast those others down for the beliefs that those others have landed on, perhaps with the recognition that people don't always get to choose their beliefs, let alone how they are allowed by their culture to express them.