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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?
Last time I went in my local library they had a David Horsey exhibition. They'd thrown out all the books I wanted to read in an "equity-based weeding" process, as well as destroying their local history archive, including the only copies of our local newspaper. (I only found that out because the museum called asking if my mom's copies still existed. They were pissed, because they'd always used the library copies for research until this outsider with a library science masters came and took over the place)
In 2020 the head librarian decided the volunteer staff were too white, so she got a grant for replacing them with no-show equity hires. The old man who took care of the expensive computer system (also grant and tax funded) got the boot, and now the public wifi, meeting room projector, and several of the computers have been non-functional for several years.
All the new books are five copies of whatever schlock her Tumblr feed and the kirkus Diversity & Inclusion Digital Catalog tell her to buy.
They recently had an expensive rebuilding that more than doubled the size of the library, but have fewer books than before. Only half of one of the wings is now dedicated to the stacks, the same area as their DVD collection.
Now they're lobbying for a higher property tax levy so they can hire more librarians.
Pick out any decent books they haven't already destroyed, herd the board inside, bar the door, and torch the place. Guilt-tripping people to protect the guilty isn't going to work any more. I'm so fucking sick of everything I ever loved being murdered and turned into a skin suit for leftist brain parasites it's unreal.
I believe this is known as fed-posting.
This isn't good for being boo out group.
You have been on thin ice. Normally I'd just make this a warning, but this needs to stop. One week ban.
I agree with this mod action and I also agree with @SteveAgain's sentiment.
What would be a rules-compliant way of expressing violent disgust?
Probably with some introspection about why you feel violent disgust, so you can control that reaction I think. The below is my own interpretation and idea of the space.
The whole point of the space is I should want even (or especially perhaps!) the people I find violently disgusting to read what I say and want to respond to me so we can have a dialogue.
So if I am going to talk about something I find disgusting I have to take a distant view of it and try to be more dispassionate.
You'll note many people who catch repeated bans it's because they can't (or won't) disguise a seething anger that underlies their post. They aren't thinking first and foremost how do I write this in a way a progressive gay librarian (for example!) would want to engage with. They are writing from emotion first and foremost.
I could rant for days about the damage the Christian "brain parasite" does, and have in other places, but here if I post about it, it has to be with the idea I WANT Christians to read and engage. And calling their faith, something they feel very seriously about a parasite is not going to optimise for light over heat. It's starting an argument not a discussion. Its already a steep ask for them to try and discuss their own heartfelt beliefs with criticism, so my job is to try and make that as easy as possible for them, by trying to remove as much heat as I can.
I rewrite my posts usually after thinking if I were an X, how would i feel about the language being used to talk about the principles and actions I hold dear? How do I alter it so we can engage in a discussion not a fight? Try to put myself in the shoes of whoever I think believes the things I hate or find disgusting and edit my wording to offend them the least possible to make my point. I'm not always successful I don't think, but I have never got a ban or even a warning (that I recollect), so I think I get reasonably close.
You have to want to actually communicate with the people whose ideas you hate and find violently dusgusting I think, to get the most out of this space. But of course for most people they don't want to communicate with people like that. So not everyone is a good fit for what the space is supposed to be. If you can't at least pretend you WANT to engage with someone whose ideas you hate viscerally and are critiquing and make some effort to aid that, you'll probably be picking up Mod actions sooner rather than later.
Edit - spelling
Several years experience and the fact we're on our... third? fourth? retreat location is indicative that there are, in fact, absolutely zero ways to write complaints in a way a progressive gay librarian would want to engage with. The door is shut, the conversation is closed, the person who objects to the librarian's choices has been locked in the cultural closet.
This is of course not to suggest that violent, vehement vichyssoise of verbiage is a valid or vigorous variant. Verily, we must vanquish such venal vexations, those vestiges of vanity!
And yet! You can't make them listen, and out here in this hive of scum and villainy there's so many invisible dog fences that they won't even enter the same state, much less zip code or conversation. There is no degree of openness or obsequiousness so extreme that would invite their consideration.
Avoiding expressions of hatred for the sake of some impossible imaginary reader is a fool's errand and a waste of energy. Most people trying that will burn out and find themselves worse off than before. Doing so for the sake of not corrupting your own heart, now there's an idea worth considering.
That does not follow. Just because there would not be many doesn't mean there are none. We are all unusual here in one way or another. After all I consider myself on the left and I am here. And we have had people farther to the left of me. Most white nationalists probably don't want to post here either. And very few Red Tribe normie conservatives. But we should want them as well.
And if that means hewing close to our mission statement and "writing as if everyone else is reading and we want them to be included." then I am more than happy to do it.
Otherwise we aren't doing anything here we couldn't do on Red State or Truth Social.
Well, yes, we're also more-or-less a closed ecosystem at this point.
I think that mission statement is good, it's the reasoning that irked me in the moment.
99.9% of the time, they don't want to be included, and writing in such a way to appeal to them is
debasing yourself for nothingexhausting and thankless. No amount of hedging and rephrasing and begging can overcome those gulfs, and it serves as fuel for resentment. I'm not trying to deny that goal, just shift the angle on it slightly.We should write in ways that do not feed the wolf of anger, as the old parable goes. We should write such that others are not explicitly excluded. But there's no way to avoid all the possible tripwires.
Nope, but we can get most of them. It's not that difficult, I don't think. And the main issue that gets people banned is they don't even try as far as I can see. It's just the same repetitive reflexive boo outgroup stuff.
But I disagree above, we can in fact overcome those gulfs. And in fact if you find it makes you resentful that is (in my opinion) part of the problem. It doesn't make me resentful when I have to rephrase something so I don't offend a Christian or a white nationalist. Why should it? I WANT them to read and engage. I want to hear from them, so spending a bit of time to hopefully increase their engagement is a positive thing in my mind.
Letting go of all of the emotional baggage of what people do outside of this space, is I think key. Treat it as its own world. Even if 99.9% of gay librarians or white nationalists would just yell or seethe, we are writing for those who come here and want to engage. Don't resent rewriting your words, that's the whole point of the space. See how well you can predict those you disagree with, if you have a good understanding of them, then you should be able to do well in reducing heat, if you don't, then that's the other thing this space is for!
I've been here and back when we were on Reddit for years, and I don't think I have ever even picked up a mod warning let alone a ban. I am sure I will at some point, but avoiding the most obvious boo outgroup stuff, and wording that is likely to enrage or annoy your opponents is fairly easy. You just have to want to spend the time and energy to do it. Regardless of (to go back to my original point) how much you hate or despise or think they will be ungrateful, or wouldn't do the same in reverse. Do it for you, not for them. Because you want the conversation that might result. Those moments when you can for a second connect with someone you think is entirely wrong about the world and might even be harming it, when you can see through their eyes for just a second. Even if they never see through yours.
What we do here has no impact on the outcome of the culture war, there are no stakes. It's just for the love of the game.
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