The Quotable Anti-Neutrality
Let’s look at some of the quotes that I often see hurled around the internet when people argue about the evils of library neutrality.
The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.
-Dante Alighieri
I’ve also seen this one as the “hottest” places, and there’s a reason for this:
Dante probably never actually wrote this. So before you get too high and mighty with this one, look into it a bit, it’s a quote that’s been manipulated quite a bit.
Here’s what Dante wrote:
“Master, what is it that I hear? Who are
those people so defeated by their pain?”And he to me: “This miserable way
is taken by the sorry souls of those
who lived without disgrace and without praise.They now commingle with the coward angels,
the company of those who were not rebels
nor faithful to their God, but stood apart.
Here’s what’s really important, regardless of authorship: Hell is for individuals, not organizations. The library doesn’t have a soul that can go to hell.
And I choose to see acting in favor of library neutrality as not being an act of personal neutrality. I see it as an act of good.
Because what I’m trying to do is to give access to my friends, neighbors, and even people who think differently and wish me harm, because I think access to that sort of thing is a fundamental human right. I think there’s something Biblical about turning a cheek and how we treat our enemies and so on…
I think it’s critical for people to have the option to explore ideas, even bad ideas, and I don’t think reading a book that goes against my beliefs is a condemnable act. I don’t think stocking a book with morals I consider reprehensible is necessarily wrong.
There’s something about judging not…lest ye something…eh, who can remember all those Bible quotes anyway?
Those who really value Ukrainian sovereignty should opt for real independence and a positive neutrality: neither a plaything of the West nor Moscow.
Tariq Ali
I don’t have a lot to say about this one, but I DO think it’s interesting to see neutrality, in a war-adjacent context, talked about in a positive way.
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
Desmond Tutu
I would argue that an elephant stepping on a mouse’s tail for no reason other than to hurt the mouse is not about neutrality. Or: encouraging the elephant to lift its foot is restoring neutrality, not acting against it.
A more apt analogy, in the library, would be “Can an elephant read a book that advocates stepping on a mouse’s tail?”
I say Yes.
Why are we constantly going down the road of deciding what people can handle, what information people should have the option to access? That’s just…wrong. I did my Masters, I worked in a public library for 15 years, and at no point did those experiences make me feel like it’d be right for me to make judgments about what people could and could not read.
I got an interlibrary loan during grad school for a pamphlet that advocated and outlined steroid use. And I’ve never used steroids, I wasn’t convinced by this information to use steroids. But it was a topic of interest for me.
I would like the read the book about 3D printing firearms. I don’t own a gun, I’ve never owned a gun, though I’ve been shooting and got my hunter’s safety certification at 14. I’m curious, I’m interested in the implications of technology being turned loose into the world.
If someone who wasn’t me was deciding whether or not I could read those things, I would venture they would decide that I could not. And that’d be the wrong choice.
We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
Elie Wiesel
Although it’s been violated quite a bit in recent months, I think neutrality has been at the core of what’s worked for libraries who have managed to keep controversial books on the shelves. I think most folks would agree that this has protected the tormented.
Further: Is neutrality kind of taking everyone’s side as opposed to no one’s?
In the context we’re talking about today, library neutrality, we don’t take a side, and, at the same time, we take all sides. Taking NO side would mean a library devoid of books, not a library with books that represent various sides.
It would be a truly empty, silent library as opposed to a library full of ideas.
I also think it’s really important to draw a line here and talk about what “violence” is.
It’s not my opinion that stocking a children’s book that explores gender from a progressive point of view is an act of violence against people who don’t share that viewpoint.
It is ALSO my opinion that stocking a children’s book that explores gender from a heteronormative point of view is an act of violence.
Extending the idea of “an act of violence” to expression and exploration is a problem.
Last: stocking two opposing books does not mean taking one side or the other, nor does it really mean being personally neutral on a topic. It means providing options for people to explore topics.
People who demand neutrality in any situation are usually not neutral but in favor of the status quo.
Max Eastman
The societal status quo or the library status quo?
Because I’m not necessarily in favor of the societal status quo, but the library status quo, when it’s moving towards greater neutrality, good, IMO.
I think this is kind of shortsighted as well.
American society, as a whole, is progressive. What’s normal and acceptable will seem antiquated and conservative in 50 years, maybe less. And this has, so far, ALWAYS been the case.
The status quo is not static, and in order to maintain today’s status quo, one would have to push back against progress, being anti-neutrality, if you will.
Neutrality is for referees in a football game. You have to take a stand. The really, really good journalists always take a stand with those who have no power, with those who have no rights, and with those who have no voice.
Jorge Ramos
Right, yes, exactly! Neutrality is for professionals performing a task in which they should not be determining an outcome. Their job is to maintain some order and try to get everyone to play by the same rules.
A librarian’s job is to make sure that people have access to the work of journalists taking stands.
“how I despise neutrality, only countries should be neutral since they’re abstract entities, people cannot be neutral, a friend of mine cannot caress my hand and kiss my enemy, laugh when they mock me, this is my true belief, maybe I’m wrong, neutral people are the most dangerous, they sell themselves to the highest bidder, betray us for a plate of lentils”
― João Reis
“The Library” is more like a concept than a person. The Library doesn’t have an opinion because it’s not a person. It’s closer to being like a country than an individual, is it not?
I do think we should stop treating entities like a library as though they’re people. Same for corporations. We get mad when corporations are treated like people, get tax breaks, and so on, but then we turn around and expect them to act like individuals when it comes to taking a stand on this or that or supporting this or that.
The expectations we have for corporations are higher than the expectations we have for ACTUAL PEOPLE.
“One of the most important struggles of humanity is to ensure that our ‘fight against hate’ does not become ‘hate’ itself – while knowing that our neutrality in times of oppression is oppression itself.”
Adeel Ahmed Khan
Throughout these quotes, there’s a common thread: in times of oppression, in times of war, in times of conflict, in times of moral crisis.
Times without struggle, without conflict, and without problems do not exist. Not yet. We haven’t achieved that Star Trek future, and it seems unlikely we will. The whole “everyone on Earth gets along” part of Star Trek was more unbelievable than any sort of spaceship or living pile of goo that killed Denise Crosby.
Neutrality isn’t something we can think of as a luxury item, something to indulge in during good times, but something that’s unnecessary when things are tough.
I’ve experienced this quite often as someone who sometimes votes third party: “That’s fine to do in general, but not THIS time. THIS election is really important.”
If you’re a third party voter, you’ll hear this every single election, without fail. Each one is “the big one,” where a vote for anyone other than the candidate selected by someone you’re talking to is a vote AGAINST good things.
And if you listen to this logic, you never get to vote the way you want. Because you’ll never encounter an election where someone says, “You know what? Go for it!”
I refuse to see library neutrality as something that we can get to later, when everything has calmed down and there are no problems in the world. I refuse to see library neutrality as something we can shrug off and put back on when it suits the climate.