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/r/fednews is going wild about what's going on with the Institute of Museum and Library Services. This is in-line with this executive order. If this really does goes forward and a significant chunk of federal funding is cut from museums and libraries nationwide, I might really just start go kick a rock somewhere. I love libraries, I love museums, and I really don't think they're that wasteful either. I've read and somewhat understand where other posters are coming from with regards to institutional-ideological-capture, but on this I am struggling to see how that weighs so much compared to the good being provided.
Literally over the weekend on a day trip, my wife and I stopped at the local town's library for a midtrip break and I was absolutely astound at the many services this small town library provided. There was weekly notary service, children activities, a display of locally important quilts, a plethora of tax-season offerings, etc. Personally, in my childhood, my school library was open on Saturday and it was common for my mum to unload us kids there for the day and let us roam the stacks as we please. As a middle schooler, the library was great for a socially anxious kid. And in adulthood, on every exploration walk I've made, if there's a library open, I'm walking in.
For any trip to any world-class city, museums are the first thing on my list. The artifacts, the stories, the experience of seeing things you've only seen in books or through the internet with your own eyes, letting those electrons hit those retinas. Washington DC would be a lot less inviting or exciting without the many museums that dot its map. Even the small libraries can be a great experience as they often document a subject I've never thought of before.
The US greatest treasures are its national parks and forests and public land. Thankfully at least that nature would survive when there are less humans, though I still fear for the actual long term consequences. Not so the libraries and museums. Can someone explains to me why this is a good thing?
Probably for the best that the stuff in museums just gets locked up in some Indiana Jones esque storage somewhere given the current religious hysteria among that class of people. Otherwise they might end up throwing it all back in the dirt like in Australia https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-19/mungo-reburial/105014182
I would like to apologise for my people's barbarism.
What's the atmosphere like over there? I see all this weird culty phrasing like "return to country", but do people IRL just smile and nod at it all?
My experience has been that outside the small group of professionals and academics who live on the politics of deference, most people don't notice and don't care. I work in a role where I give weekly talks, and the organisation officially prefers an acknowledgement of country before every talk. I mouthed my way through them for the first couple of months, but then gave up, as nobody reacted or seemed to notice. I have since not done an acknowledgement for around a year and not once has anybody even mentioned their absence to me, much less complained. Likewise one of my managers once had a few compulsory seminars about reconciliation within the organisation, brought that to a team meeting, I offered to help (because I have had much more training with this nonsense), and I never heard a peep from her again, nor was any other thing actually done on the ground. The most we do in practice is put up posters and things during NAIDOC Week and similar events, but there is at least a 50% chance that when that happens, people will put up the Aboriginal flag upside down. (In their defence, it is really tempting because the Australian Aboriginal flag's correct orientation looks wrong. Intuitively you want the black on the bottom.) My workplace is heavily Asian so it may not be entirely representative - in my experience Asian migrants generally don't give a damn about Aboriginal people - but I would be shocked if it's completely off-base.
I think that the situation is basically:
A small group of intellectual and media elites like Aboriginal representation, deference, welcomes to country, and so on.
Elite or aspirational white Australians generally defer to this. They imitate the behaviour of the most prestigious class, the media, and so on. They will generally go along with or support any or all symbolic statements, but will get cold feet whenever it might affect their hip pockets.
Lower-middle and lower class white Australians generally find this all pointless, or they actively resent it. They will usually not sign on with it, though they will sit quietly in the back of a compulsory work meeting and zone out if need be.
Non-white non-Aboriginal Australians generally either do not understand these issues, or just don't care about them one way or the other. "What does this have to do with us?" is a common refrain. That said they won't get involved or do anything either - they seem to largely accept it as some weird thing that white Australians do.
Aboriginals themselves... genuinely poor Aboriginals either don't notice or don't care, because they have more pressing issues, but will be willing to do a smoking ceremony or a welcome dance if the whitefellas ask for it. Middle class or aspiring Aboriginals are more likely to see that they can benefit from the politics of deference. I think most see it as white hypocrisy, but it's generally not advantageous to point that out, so only a few do that. But pushing the politics of dfference can be a path to individual or career success, so some do use that.
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