I'm sure the headline was chosen carefully, however, this is a misrepresentation of my argument on the previous post. I am not saying that there is any transitive property to books. Reading a particular book does not necessarily make any particular person anything--racist, empathetic, homophobic, or anything else. As Jessie Shera wrote we do not know what reading does to people. This is why we can be agnostic as to what is on our shelves. It is naive to say, however, that reading never changes people's minds. We just don't know how any individual person will react to the text on the page. We all bring our own baggage to texts. For some people, reading about Jesus or climate change or how Black people are lazy or how we should treat everyone with respect will lead them to have those beliefs. Louise Robbins described this tension in her book on Censorship and the American Library (1996): "librarians are in the peculiar position of saying that reading matters, that it entails risks, and, at the same time, resisting any restrictions on access to books and other library materials" (p.156)
I agree with you that books/media could potentially lead to harm but also, in the large scope of all the media that exits, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reach a consensus on which media is harmful and under what circumstances (I think we are also somewhat in agreement there). To me the title of the series is a critique of the trend of people making the claim that they can determine what constitutes harmful material.
I believe that the Freedom to Read Statement (1953) offers the best response to the tension perceived by Robbins: "We do not state these propositions in the comfortable belief that what people read is unimportant. We believe rather that what people read is deeply important; that ideas can be dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas is fatal to a democratic society. Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours." The willingness of the FRS authors to embrace the danger of reading is based on their "faith in free people." They "trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe."
My concern is that the increasing anxiety about the harms of reading reflects a growing distrust of American democracy. Of course, librarians who do not trust Americans to make good decisions about what to believe will be much more worried about exposing them to books that may cause harm (either to themselves or others). To me, this sense of dismay about democracy is the deeper issue at stake in debates about harm or trauma-informed librarianship.
Yes, that's it! Many people have a deep distrust of their fellow citizens. This trend is born out in the increasing polarization of society, wherein one side sees the other as literal nazis. The ability to recognize a common humanity in one another is subsumed by fear and loathing. Thus the percieved moral duty to police information in the name of protecting the good people against the deplorable masses, and protecting the deplorables from themselves. Ironically, those who would police information are many of the same who would seek to defund the actual police.
Thank you for publishing these lists. Sometimes it is hard to know what is authoritative when it is coming from certain viewpoints. There are multiple perspectives to any issue. The idea that there's right, wrong, and the truth is an oversimplification of what actually happens when humans are involved in issues and events. What is truth to one is not truth to another depending on the personal reality any given person is living in. That makes choosing books incredibly difficult in this time of immediately available mis/disinformation.
British Columbia Library Association's work/stances on climate change can be viewed with the link shared here. Rob, I would say that examples like this support the general statement "we visit the idea that "climate science has been settled", if it was not a direct quote. https://bclaconnect.ca/cag/cac-documents/
I just learned of this book today and haven't read it, so I can't say for certain whether it belongs on this list, but it might be similar: The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World s Top Climate Scientists https://www.amazon.com/Great-Global-Warming-Blunder-Scientists/dp/1594036020
>>> we visit the idea that “climate science has been settled,” <<<
Who is making this claim? (I couldn't find a source for the quote.)
I'm sure the headline was chosen carefully, however, this is a misrepresentation of my argument on the previous post. I am not saying that there is any transitive property to books. Reading a particular book does not necessarily make any particular person anything--racist, empathetic, homophobic, or anything else. As Jessie Shera wrote we do not know what reading does to people. This is why we can be agnostic as to what is on our shelves. It is naive to say, however, that reading never changes people's minds. We just don't know how any individual person will react to the text on the page. We all bring our own baggage to texts. For some people, reading about Jesus or climate change or how Black people are lazy or how we should treat everyone with respect will lead them to have those beliefs. Louise Robbins described this tension in her book on Censorship and the American Library (1996): "librarians are in the peculiar position of saying that reading matters, that it entails risks, and, at the same time, resisting any restrictions on access to books and other library materials" (p.156)
I agree with you that books/media could potentially lead to harm but also, in the large scope of all the media that exits, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reach a consensus on which media is harmful and under what circumstances (I think we are also somewhat in agreement there). To me the title of the series is a critique of the trend of people making the claim that they can determine what constitutes harmful material.
I believe that the Freedom to Read Statement (1953) offers the best response to the tension perceived by Robbins: "We do not state these propositions in the comfortable belief that what people read is unimportant. We believe rather that what people read is deeply important; that ideas can be dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas is fatal to a democratic society. Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours." The willingness of the FRS authors to embrace the danger of reading is based on their "faith in free people." They "trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe."
My concern is that the increasing anxiety about the harms of reading reflects a growing distrust of American democracy. Of course, librarians who do not trust Americans to make good decisions about what to believe will be much more worried about exposing them to books that may cause harm (either to themselves or others). To me, this sense of dismay about democracy is the deeper issue at stake in debates about harm or trauma-informed librarianship.
Yes, that's it! Many people have a deep distrust of their fellow citizens. This trend is born out in the increasing polarization of society, wherein one side sees the other as literal nazis. The ability to recognize a common humanity in one another is subsumed by fear and loathing. Thus the percieved moral duty to police information in the name of protecting the good people against the deplorable masses, and protecting the deplorables from themselves. Ironically, those who would police information are many of the same who would seek to defund the actual police.
Thank you for publishing these lists. Sometimes it is hard to know what is authoritative when it is coming from certain viewpoints. There are multiple perspectives to any issue. The idea that there's right, wrong, and the truth is an oversimplification of what actually happens when humans are involved in issues and events. What is truth to one is not truth to another depending on the personal reality any given person is living in. That makes choosing books incredibly difficult in this time of immediately available mis/disinformation.
British Columbia Library Association's work/stances on climate change can be viewed with the link shared here. Rob, I would say that examples like this support the general statement "we visit the idea that "climate science has been settled", if it was not a direct quote. https://bclaconnect.ca/cag/cac-documents/
Thank you for this series and for the thoughtful explanation of the idea behind its creation.
I just learned of this book today and haven't read it, so I can't say for certain whether it belongs on this list, but it might be similar: The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World s Top Climate Scientists https://www.amazon.com/Great-Global-Warming-Blunder-Scientists/dp/1594036020