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Tuesday, May 28th, 2024

The assault on America’s libraries designed to foster ignorance and damage social and individual wellbeing

Author:     Stephan A. Schwartz
Source:     Explore
Publication Date:     27 May 2024 (used)
 Link: The assault on America’s libraries designed to foster ignorance and damage social and individual wellbeing
Stephan:  

All my life, beginning when I was five, I have valued and cherished public libraries. I understood even as a young boy how important they were. Libraries were the place you could go to learn about anything that interested you or that could entertain you when you were alone, or before you went to bed. I walked away from my career in government because after Watergate, having known most of the people involved, I realized I couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad guys, but I stayed in Washington another year because I didn’t want to lose access to the Library of Congress. Now the MAGAts, who realize libraries educate people to different points of view, are attacking public and school libraries to stop that. MAGAts want indoctrination not education; they want a semi-literate population easily manipulated by their misinformation.

Andrew Carnegie, a childhood immigrant, realized the importance of public libraries like this one in Pittsburgh and left most of his money to be used to build such libraries across the United States. Credit: Wikipedia

On the first of July 1731 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Benjamin Franklin and members of the Junto Club, an organization of civic minded Philadelphians that Franklin had founded and organized, carried out what they considered one of their most important actions to foster civic wellbeing. They founded a library. To quote the Benjamin Franklin Historical Society, “The idea to create a lending library started
during Junto Club gatherings where each member would bring books toshare with others and consult during debates, but bringing books back and forth became cumbersome. It was agreed by the members to keep the books in the meeting room so that all members would benefit from them. It was also of great benefit to borrow a book and bring it home to read, therefore the idea of starting a public subscription […]

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2 Comments

  1. Terri Quint on Tuesday, May 28, 2024 at 11:42 am

    The worst state for book-banning has to be Florida, thanks to a bunch of nutty women and Gov. DeSantis encouraging it! It just makes them stupider! Isn’t it bad enough that American schools rank lower and lower every year to an embarrassing level and now you want to make them lower? And often, the one who complains about a certain book only has to be ONE PERSON and the next thing you know, it’s off the shelves! We are slowly becoming a really terrible country in education, tolerance, attitudes toward those who aren’t White or Christian, and those who aren’t straight! Shame on us!

  2. sam crespi on Tuesday, May 28, 2024 at 3:17 pm

    The library has been a favorite haunt for as long as I can remember. The attack on a hub of learning is shameful!