The libraries in our homes are populated by endangered cultural relics. But we cling to it. On paper, the fragile utopia of universal dialogue seems to triumph. Neither partitions, nor origins, nor eras, nor genres predominate savagely. The works of yesteryear and the stories of today rub shoulders in all civility. And the covers of the works use a thousand charms in the hope of seeing their content rediscovered soon by the masters of the place.
Far from the purity and the ideals of feng shui, these obsolete furniture, overstuffed, too cumbersome for today’s tastes, would however be messy, we hear everywhere. In fact… who still wants to recover tons of volumes after the death of their owners? Look for it to see.
The times are changing. Many pipeheads, frightened at the thought of browsing through hundreds of tightly packed pages, prefer to glean information on their smartphone. And why do you let these large volumes gather dust like this? ask these flabbergasted faces. Crazy, then, are the lovers of libraries but happy guardians of the temple.
Oh, the book! No more people open it. Without losing his astonishing function as a Seven Hours man. Strange paradox! Thus, each camp, right or left, claims to ban it, shear it, put it in its hands, brandish it as a weapon of mass destruction. History to prevent it from conveying harmful ideas. Those of others, of course. Rather than fight censorship itself, which came from the dawn of humanity, reinvigorated by the air of the times under many flags, we argue over our apples. Not famous!
In nightmarish visions, this all-terrain cancellation culture evokes the burnings of past and present totalitarian regimes. In our inner cinema, we watch thousands of so-called dangerous pages being consumed, flying away. It’s scary, of course. People’s ignorance makes them so manipulable.
It is also easy for anyone to devalue mythical cultural objects that are losing ground. Dematerialized, sources of information. Outdated, the waltz of words. Either ! But in this sad light, why consider the essay, the novel, the history textbook as public enemies number one? What if the book still carried within it ancient symbols constantly carried around by humanity? At a time when words are bursting out especially online, it almost makes lovers of literature feel like velvet to see extremists granting it such a capacity for nuisance. This is to say their dismay…
On the right, therefore, many accuse the woke reformers to wield the ax of censorship alone. At the center too, we are irritated to see these activists seeking to ban works that espouse yesterday’s mentalities without wanting to decode them. Blind and deaf factions slip easily. Even when based on sound principles of equity. Wise concern!
But let’s stop shooting at one side. So many arsonists feed the blaze. And the book, tossed about by the currents of right or left, becomes a hostage on all fronts. As under Stalinism, Nazism, the Holy Inquisition, Maoism and other ferments of unique thought. Rebel today.
In the United States, a country that sets the tone and the flavor, it smells bad. Republican Ron DeSantis, the far-right Governor of Florida — and possibly future President of the United States — is working hard to stifle leftist discourse. After prohibiting racism and other scourges of the nation from being addressed in early schools, it aims, through an upcoming reform of higher education, to eliminate programs on diversity. There is no longer any question of questioning white supremacy there, which nevertheless has many skeletons in its closet.
While this curator launches a declaration of war on public libraries, schools, colleges and universities, to reformat them according to the old tradition, in the ranks woke, armadas block access to works advocating opposing theories. We don’t get out.
It is as perverse to impose the sole teaching of Western civilization as to illuminate above all the culture of civilizations born outside the Greco-Roman cradle. ” In medio stat virtus “, as the Romans said when praising the merits of the golden mean. Here is the poor book, already undermined under the reign of tweetdemonized by the secular churches of the XXIe century in total confrontation. Help !
So, we take out of a shelf of his library the work of an ancient philosopher, a novelist of another age, believing that he is waving his little flag of dissidence very high. Everyone comforts themselves as they can.