Protecting Libraries and Our Imagination

A card my daughter made for National Library Week

I started my latest newsletter writing about fictional heroes. It was going to be a slightly philosophical exploration of why writing and reading about them is important. I was looking forward to it too. But then Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at destroying the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the federal agency that provides funding to libraries and museums. This newsletter has always been a pretty positive place, a celebration of the art and craft of storytelling. But I gotta admit, I’m pretty angry right now.

I take my kids to the library multiple times a week, not just for the children’s group activities provided, but so that they can pick out books to stimulate their imagination. Every week, my kids find new things that interest them or expand upon their current interests. For example, after my daughter saw Sonic the Hedgehog 3, she wanted to learn about hedgehogs, so we went to the library and got a book about hedgehogs. While we were there, we picked up a new Pete the Cat book she hadn’t read before. Then her younger brother handed me a board book about pirates and went “Arrrgh!” so we got that one too. And we did all of this without spending a dime. The next day, while my daughter was at school, my son and I headed back to the library for Baby Story Time, where he engaged with other toddlers his age. They read stories, sang songs, and played games. The day after that, my son fell asleep in his stroller while we were taking a walk, so we went to the library and I got some work done on my laptop while he napped. On our way out, I stopped by the front desk and picked up a few books that my wife and I had put on hold. These regular, weekly routines at the library are an invaluable resource for my family and so many families across America. And if you’re thinking, “Nick, chill, this executive order won’t shut down libraries. They rely on other funding sources, like local taxes and donations,” then tell that to the libraries in small, rural towns, like in Kansas and Utah, that rely on federal funding to keep the doors open or their staff working full-time.

Libraries aren’t just a place to borrow books. They aren’t just community spaces. They aren’t just a place where you can make copies when your home printer is out of ink. Libraries are society’s investment in free and easy access to ideas; they’re our investment in the imagination. But Donald Trump doesn’t want you to use your imagination. That’s why he is trying to destroy libraries. Because people who have their own ideas are harder to control. Trump wants to destroy our libraries so that our imaginations wither and die. And that should make us all very angry. Because a society without an imagination is a docile one, one reminiscent of the society depicted in John Carpenter’s film They Live, where people are subliminally conditioned to OBEY those in power.

In Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451, about a world where firemen don't put out fires, they start them, there’s a scene in which the firemen Captain Beatty explains to the protagonist Montag why all books must be burned:

We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone made equal . . . A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind.

The irony of this scene is that Beatty admits to having read many books himself. And his admission exposes the hypocrisy of authoritarians like Trump: they say that they're trying to protect people from the so-called “loaded gun in the house next door,” when what they really mean is that they want to be the only ones with ideas; when Beatty says “we must all be made alike,” what he really means is YOU must all be made alike, so WE can control you. The rules apply to everybody but those in charge.

One interpretation of Beatty’s character is that he doesn't really mean what he's saying, that he actually laments the destruction of books. And while I think this latter part might be true, his personal feelings about books are outweighed by his desire for power. He decides that it's better to be the one holding the flamethrower than the one being burned. In this way, Beatty is just like so many Republicans in Congress right now who, even if they don’t like Trump, are willing to debase themselves by supporting his agenda and apologizing for or even spouting his rhetoric, just so they can stay in power.

Democracy is on shaky ground when those with the ability to make change act against their own values and morality out of fear, and are rewarded for their cowardice, while those who do not obey are punished severely. Just watch this video of masked government agents detaining and abducting a Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk, because of her political views expressed in an op-ed published in the school’s newspaper.

When questioned about Ozturk’s abduction, Senator Marco Rubio confirmed that the Trump administration has revoked hundreds of visas like Ozturk’s, saying, “Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.” Let that sink in. This is America. And a student was abducted by the government because of words they had written. Trump’s attacks on libraries and the revoking of student visas are both part of his administration’s effort to suppress free thought, to suppress people’s ability to speak out against injustice and imagine alternative paths forward.

The scene in Fahrenheit 451 that made Montag realize something was seriously wrong with his world was when an old woman, whose secret library was discovered by the firemen, chose to be burned along with her books rather than live a life without them. Montag, moved and disturbed by her suicide, saves a few of her books from the fire and, after reading them, wonders:

Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damn insane mistakes!

This is the question you have to ask yourself, when you read about Trump trying to defund libraries, the places where our children read Goodnight Moon with other kids their age or learn about hedgehogs and pirate ships, the places where you go to have a quiet study break or answer emails without distraction or check out that new book you’ve been hearing about but didn’t want to buy because grocery prices are still through the roof:

Who does defunding our libraries benefit? Because it certainly isn’t us.