Defunding public libraries: Republicans' war on reading goes nuclear
Republicans in Texas and Missouri open up a new front in the war on public education
"...Libraries...but the real white whale for the GOP is the destruction of public education."
https://www.salon.com/2023/04/13/defunding-pu...s-nuclear/
. . .
Republicans behind the book-banning typically deny that they have a larger agenda against education or literacy, instead claiming their goals are limited to keeping a small number of books out of people's hands. But there's good reason to think there's a much larger goal afoot, of stigmatizing the very idea of reading and education. In Florida, the restrictions on books are so severe that many teachers were forced to deny kids access to any books, lest they run afoul of the censorship law.
. . .
The war on libraries is part of a larger GOP assault on the very concept of public provision of education in any form. Part of the reason is a larger right-wing skepticism of the concept of a "common good." In 2019 for the New York Times, journalist Monica Potts wrote about how her small community of Van Buren County, Arkansas had gone to war over the existence of the library. This was before the current book-banning craze, and so the anti-library forces in her community were more upfront about why they wanted the library gone: Because Republicans believed that it was a "waste of taxpayers' money" to provide that resource. In her interviews with residents, Potts discovered a deep hostility among conservatives to the very idea of learning and education, and a desire "to keep people with educations out."
"Call me narrow-minded but I've never understood why a librarian needs a four-year degree," one resident told her.
. . .
One can immediately understand, in the age of Donald Trump, how turning people away from books and towards the internet benefits the anti-democratic desires of the GOP. Books range in quality, of course — they let Ann Coulter write them, after all — but overall, there's a stronger chance of someone developing qualities of thoughtfulness and empathy if they actually read books. The internet has a lot of great stuff on it — you are reading this article there! — but it's also notoriously good at turning people's minds to mush. You're unlikely to join up with QAnon or become radicalized by incels at the library. The internet, however, is very good at turning otherwise normal people into blithering idiots who love Trump and hate democracy.
The end goal of "school choice" politics is crushing the concept of critical thinking, which tends to undermine the authoritarian grip on power.
As I've written about before, the philosopher Umberto Eco was writing in the 90s about how fascists have always cultivated a "distrust of the intellectual world. To the fascist, "thinking is a form of emasculation." Rationality and science, in this worldview, lead to "depravity." The paper-thin "porn" pretext has always been about this larger hostility to the very concept of thinking, studying, and reading.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217821929
9. These same conservative politicians will ensure their kids get a real education.
They desire a two tiered education/power/wealth system. Keeping the masses un, or undereducated, further consolidates power and wealth to the upper class with an ample supply of underclass to exploit and exhaust.
Republicans in Texas and Missouri open up a new front in the war on public education
"...Libraries...but the real white whale for the GOP is the destruction of public education."
https://www.salon.com/2023/04/13/defunding-pu...s-nuclear/
. . .
Republicans behind the book-banning typically deny that they have a larger agenda against education or literacy, instead claiming their goals are limited to keeping a small number of books out of people's hands. But there's good reason to think there's a much larger goal afoot, of stigmatizing the very idea of reading and education. In Florida, the restrictions on books are so severe that many teachers were forced to deny kids access to any books, lest they run afoul of the censorship law.
. . .
The war on libraries is part of a larger GOP assault on the very concept of public provision of education in any form. Part of the reason is a larger right-wing skepticism of the concept of a "common good." In 2019 for the New York Times, journalist Monica Potts wrote about how her small community of Van Buren County, Arkansas had gone to war over the existence of the library. This was before the current book-banning craze, and so the anti-library forces in her community were more upfront about why they wanted the library gone: Because Republicans believed that it was a "waste of taxpayers' money" to provide that resource. In her interviews with residents, Potts discovered a deep hostility among conservatives to the very idea of learning and education, and a desire "to keep people with educations out."
"Call me narrow-minded but I've never understood why a librarian needs a four-year degree," one resident told her.
. . .
One can immediately understand, in the age of Donald Trump, how turning people away from books and towards the internet benefits the anti-democratic desires of the GOP. Books range in quality, of course — they let Ann Coulter write them, after all — but overall, there's a stronger chance of someone developing qualities of thoughtfulness and empathy if they actually read books. The internet has a lot of great stuff on it — you are reading this article there! — but it's also notoriously good at turning people's minds to mush. You're unlikely to join up with QAnon or become radicalized by incels at the library. The internet, however, is very good at turning otherwise normal people into blithering idiots who love Trump and hate democracy.
The end goal of "school choice" politics is crushing the concept of critical thinking, which tends to undermine the authoritarian grip on power.
As I've written about before, the philosopher Umberto Eco was writing in the 90s about how fascists have always cultivated a "distrust of the intellectual world. To the fascist, "thinking is a form of emasculation." Rationality and science, in this worldview, lead to "depravity." The paper-thin "porn" pretext has always been about this larger hostility to the very concept of thinking, studying, and reading.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217821929
9. These same conservative politicians will ensure their kids get a real education.
They desire a two tiered education/power/wealth system. Keeping the masses un, or undereducated, further consolidates power and wealth to the upper class with an ample supply of underclass to exploit and exhaust.
