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June 15, 2008
The eyes of the past itself
From Vincent in Buckinghamshire (taken from his own blog)
Later in the morning... I went out on an errand. On my return, I passed the Public Library, which has just reopened at its grand new premises. After striding through its three floors of offerings, with more staff visible than visitors, I left incoherent with rage. It was hard to formulate what I found so offensive. I’m glad I resisted the urge to accost one of the librarians, for I would have put myself in the wrong and upset them pointlessly. I don't want to rant about the details, only enough to give you the gist. The computer terminals seemed more important than the books. The music CDs and DVDs were displayed as proudly as the meagre selection of books. I couldn't see anything of interest: only political correctness in every set of shelves. The gay and lesbian magazines were prominent, and the books in Urdu and Chinese. The proportion of “ethnic minorities” who cross the threshold, along with the other “minority groups” (if they could be identified as such) must have been major tick-boxes on their mission-statement-conformance audit forms. Most of all they seemed to feel that empty space was more important than lots of books, having got rid of all the old ones over the years. Now you can see only what they allow you to see. Classics? Oh yes, we have those---in new editions with instructive notes; as long as they are fully on-message. Joseph Conrad? Oh yes, we have Heart of Darkness: that’s what the kids read in school, so as to write essays on whether it is racist or anti-racist.
“So what would you do, Vincent?” To me, a library is a citadel of learning and literature, an open door to the past. Nothing would be thrown away. The stock would simply increase forever, so that you could discover not just the past through the politically-correct lens of 2008, but through the eyes of the past itself. So there would be books from the 1930s about the Victorian age (and not just Lytton Strachey’s 1918 Eminent Victorians, included “because it is a classic”).
End of rant. Trying to pick up the threads of where I left off before that, about emotions as friendly messengers, I wanted to study what “appropriate action” my unquenched fury was demanding. Should I go, like blind Samson in Gaza, to the temple that the Philistines had built to their god Dagon? Should I grasp its pillars and use my renewed strength---not residing in my hair, but in my words---to pull the whole abomination down around their ears?
No, not directly. I shall not protest to the librarians or the County Council. I shall not organize a candle-light protest march of outraged citizens, if any. My anger just made me realize how important learning and literature are to me: where “learning” includes in particular how people thought yesterday, and the day before that. For I don’t see today as any better. I worry that we are losing something, and I worry that I am not doing enough myself, being lazy about fulfilling my own destiny: a foolish worry of course, but I’m working on becoming wise.
My anger, if it’s a “friendly messenger” as I believe, isn’t to warn me that my life is in danger, but something equivalent: what I hold dear is being trampled upon. Till now, I never knew I held it so dear.
I shall endeavour to get my local library to ban my next book, by including a little rant like the above. They already have several copies of my last: it meets their criteria par excellence, being about a black immigrant who became the town's mayor. The last time I checked, no one had borrowed it.
Nature too is a great library. In the leaves of trees we can read the past. These trees, these nasturtium flowers outside my window, the different kinds of bees and wasps: they are like books preserved from long ago, the companions of our distant ancestors. If the librarians are guilty of wanton destruction, then so is civilization itself, for jeopardizing what Nature has taken so long to create. Most of today’s species were here before my own; just as most of the extinct ones were wiped out before man came along.
Posted by Perkins at June 15, 2008 6:06 PM
Comments
Good of you to post this (I wouldn't have come across it otherwise) but, aside from Vincent's own points, what is the point of posting this without commenting on it yourself?
Unless the point is just to highlight his post and if so, fair enough.
And just as a bonus side point, the library of which Vincent speaks (High Wycombe) has actually increased its book stock since reopening.
Posted by: Paul Capewell at June 15, 2008 6:57 PM
This is like one of those hilariously cranky letters that gets sent to the Daily Express. Political correctness gone mad, blah blah blah.
Posted by: Patrick at June 15, 2008 9:40 PM
I posted it because of his comment below in response to Andy from Hertfordshire. It seemed to explain what he had said there. One also recalls that among the arguments that were used by Bucks CC for closing many of their village libraries, it was said that this would allow them to improve their large ones. Such attempt at improvement, in High Wycombe, has obviously not impressed Vincent. Thus, it seems a legitimate and interesting part of the discussion. For those who were not around at the time, enter Buckinghamshire in the search box on the right, for earlier entries. For those not in the county, there is also some debate about the introduction of RFID in the libraries.
Posted by: perkins at June 16, 2008 12:25 PM