The Plot to Turn The Library Into A Safe Space For Indoctrination
The Plot to Turn The Library Into A Safe Space For Indoctrination
Why The Philistine Culture Warriors Are Targeting The Library
In recent times, the Library has become the target of what I characterise in my new book, as The War Against The Past. The current project of dispossessing Western society of its historical legacy has gained a powerful influence over the institutions of culture. That is why the Library – a repository of the knowledge and wisdom gained through the past – has become the target of cultural vandalism.
The promoters of the culture war in the Library often justify their action on the ground that their target is not so much the past – but the ‘racist past’. This is the argument used by the Government backed supporters of a campaign in Wales who wish to reorganise libraries along the lines of anti-racist principles[i]. These racially obsessed cultural warriors insist that Libraries throughout Wales must embrace the goal of becoming anti-racists if the devolved Labour government’s pledge to ‘eradicate’ systemic racism by 2030 would be realised. To ensure that libraries and the ‘racist’ buildings holding their collection are cleansed of the sin of ‘whiteness’, a £130,000 project designed to indoctrinate local librarians in ‘critical whiteness studies’ has been devised.
The project of racial indoctrination pursued in Wales warns that staff training sessions will be necessary to ensure that libraries align with anti-racist principles. However, it insists that such training sessions should not take place in buildings with a ‘racist past’. From the standpoint of the authors of the document proposing ‘critical whiteness studies’, many buildings housing libraries must be avoided because they serve as symbols of racism. Do they presume that the buildings in question can contaminate members of the public with the racist plague? Or are they merely interested in tearing down the walls of racist buildings in order to rebuild them as temples to the doctrine of decolonization?
In a world, where the racialisation of every dimension of life has acquired its own imperative, it was only a matter of time before buildings became demonised as racist. There is now a veritable literature authored by academic racial entrepreneurs who insist that buildings can be racist. One enthusiastic social scientist supporting this thesis offers numerous ‘examples of buildings being racist’[ii]. The racialisation of building and the material properties used in their construction has acquired the character of a veritable fetish. ‘Concrete, steel and glass buildings are ‘racist’’ is the title of one contribution on this subject[iii].
The Welsh Government appears to be consumed by the quest of ridding its nations of racist buildings. A far back as 2021 it published an audit of all such buildings as well as, schools, streets, statues and pubs that it regarded as the product of Wales’ racist past[iv]. In effect almost any building, street name or pub whose name was linked with a historical figure was by definition racist. Gone are the days when a pub is allowed to call itself Admiral Nelson to the Duke of Wellington.
The policy of renaming a building, street or a statue is bad enough. What is far worse is when a library is forced to subordinate its book collection to the imperative of racialization. In the name of ridding the book shelves of their ‘whiteness’ and ‘racist past’, a library becomes a target of officially sanctioned cultural vandalism.
Throughout the Anglosphere. Cultural vandalism is justified on the ground of settling scores with colonialism, racism or white supremacy. For example, school libraries in Australia have removed ‘outdated and offensive books on colonialism’ from their collection[v]. The purge of a school library in Melbourne was guided by Dr Al Fricker, a Dja Dja Wurrung man and expert in Indigenous education with Deakin University. In the course of auditing all 7000 titles on its library shelves. Fricker showed little nostalgia towards the collection. He stated that some of the books removed were almost 50-year-old and were ‘simply gathering dust anyway’. He stated that ‘we wouldn’t accept science books being that old in the library, so why do we accept other non-fiction books to be that old, because nothing is static’.
There is something truly disturbing about the idea that a library ought to rid itself of old non-fiction books. In my discipline of sociology that would mean ridding libraries of the 19th century pioneers of the field. In effect the call to reject old non-fiction books constitutes the annihilation of the intellectual legacy of the social sciences and the humanities.
Once upon a time old books were treasured and treated with care by libraries. Today, many libraries cast a glare of suspicion towards old books. In the US, libraries have taken objection to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s depiction of Native Americans in her famous Little House On The Prairie novels. The American Library Association removed her name in 2018 from a lifetime achievement award it gives out annually[vi]. The removal of her name serves as a retrospective annulment of her achievement. How long before various other cultural institutions seek withdraw literary awards that were made to now ‘outdated’ texts decades ago?
Messing around with a library’s collection is dangerous business. Throughout the centuries the Library has served as a symbol of civilization. The integrity of a Library served as a guarantee that society’s intellectual legacy would be respected and preserved. Of course, there have always been attempt to subordinate libraries to the political interests of the day. Censors have frequently sought to prevent the public from gaining access to certain texts in a library’s collection. However, these attempts to control what people can read pale into insignificance to the contemporary project of dispossessing society from the intellectual legacy. Because that is what the project of ridding libraries of their racist past is all about. Under the guise of decolonising the Library, book collections become demonised for being too white, too racist or just too old. Ridding the Library of such ‘problematic’ texts serves to turn it into a safe space for indoctrinating members of the public.
The ‘very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man’ stated the conservative poet T. S. Elliot. His sentiment recognised that libraries possessed the crucial role of preserving the cultural legacy of the past in order to provide society with the intellectual resources necessary to guide its journey towards the future. Once a library becomes a site for indoctrination it loses its ability to provide the guidance it needs to face the future. That is why the attempt to decolonise the Library must be resisted.
My New Book Will be Published Very Soon
[i] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/19/avoid-meetings-in-racist-buildings-welsh-librarians-told/
[ii] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/soin.12478
[iii] https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2021/10/15/concrete-steel-and-glass-buildings-are-racist-claims-green-professor/
[iv] https://www.gov.wales/slave-trade-and-british-empire-audit-commemoration-wales
[v] https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/school-library-discards-outdated-and-offensive-books-on-colonisation-20230216-p5cky4.html
[vi] https://apnews.com/article/dr-seuss-books-racist-images-d8ed18335c03319d72f443594c174513
Although, in theory, nothing surprises me any more when it comes to acts of cultural vandalism, as you aptly call them, what you describe here made my stomach turn. It is clear that this insane ideology won t go away any time soon, as some of my (silent) friends are hoping, as if any totalitarian movement ever vanished on its own. Probably the most shocking part in your description is the one in which a librarian feels entitled to remove books simply because they are old. First of all, the entire raison d 'etre of a library is to preserve what is old. Second, we see here again the core idea that the past is in itself guilty simply for being (the) past. In theory, the claim is that the past needs to be cleaned of its " racism". In practice, though, we can see that now there is an equivalence between the past and racism. We can see here the pathology of the very concept of " progressivism," which by definition is a condemnation of any past, since no past can be " progressive." No matter how much you clean the past you can never clean it enough because it will always be old. A corollary to this insanity is the fact that the librarian in your example was of Indigenous origin, and such people should be more attuned to the past than "pure" Westerners. If they really had anything truly " native" about them. But we live in an upside down world. A world of absolute reversal.
I have two things to say about this post. The first is; "Wait! What? Laura Ingalls out of Little House on the Prairie, daughter of Little Joe out of Bonanza who later became the angel in Highway to Heaven, was REAL?" I put this to my wife earlier, who told me that I am an idiot who must never have read a proper book in his life. The second is that one of the saddest things in all of this is that decent regular people doing what they think is a jolly good thing, in Wales for example, have been unwittingly co-opted by government and the great corporate interests to fire off postmodern chaff in order keep everyones eyes away from the fundamentals of genuine societal progress.