That Concordia St. Paul librarian would be me, Nathan Rinne,
the author of this blog post (as they say, “shameless self-promotion”).
Recently, I read this book written by the Princeton
librarian, blogger (“The
Academic Librarian”), and Library Journal contributor Wayne
Bivens-Tatum.
I had wanted to read this book when it was published a
couple years ago, but I became particularly interested in it when Bivens-Tatum
published an article on Library Journal’s website provocatively titled
“Librarians as Indoctrination Mills” (read it here)
That web article drew a response from me at the time, and
after reading “Libraries and the Enlightenment”, I felt compelled to respond
again in the form of a short article. I
called the article “Should libraries ever be ‘neutral’? Can any
library? One Christian’s perspective” , and sent it to Bivens-Tatum
himself.
His response? “We
seem to be the perfect foils for each other.”
Although I would have rather persuaded Wayne, I take that to be about
the best complement I could have received from him! (also, please note that Bivens-Tatum, like
myself, does not believe that there is any true neutrality).
In any case, the article strikes me as a bit long and heady
in its present form, and so here I am going to provide a brief summary of its
contents. For those who are interested
in reading the more dense and developed argument, you can read parts
I, II,
and III
at my well-intentioned but perpetually neglected philosophical-theological
blog. Please note that all of the points
I make do not necessarily respond to points that Bivens-Tatum made in his book
or article.
In
part I I note that although libraries are defined by their missions or the
missions of the institutions they are a part of, Bivens-Tatum is right to
highlight the appeal of a “universal library” where any learned and reasoned opinion
has a place in the “conversation”. This
is a dream I think Christians can certainly share, and even as some kinds of
materials are always unconsciously or consciously passed over (and even
deliberately “censored”), Bivens-Tatum notes that the desire for such an
extensive and all-encompassing collection has actually been reached in part through
the miracle of interlibrary loan. That
said, what does “any learned and reasoned opinion” really mean anyways? Citing the influence of the Enlightenment in
libraries, Bivens-Tatum notes in his web article that academic libraries in
particular indoctrinate students “into methods for how they should form
beliefs about the world”. For him, this
means that views formed by religious beliefs are inevitably marginalized due to
a lack of grounding in evidence and reason.
On the contrary, I contend with the Christian philosopher Alvin Plantiga
that belief in God is a “basic belief” – meaning that it is a belief one
argues from and not one we argue to.
In
part II I further explore this issues of religious faith, knowledge, and
“neutrality”. As 20th century
thinkers like Michael Polanyi, E.F. Schumacher, and Charles Taylor have
demonstrated in spades, much of our real knowledge is “personal” and so “subjective”
in this sense. Therefore, it cannot always
be demonstrated, articulated, made explicit, etc… contrary to the hopes of many
Enlightenment thinkers. In any case, if
we think we may indeed gain at the very least some interesting knowledge from
feminist or Marxist perspectives, for example, we certainly can say the same
for religious views (if one objects here, note the Christian librarian Gabriel
Naude, 1600 – 1653, said: “God permits us to profit from our enemies”). All this said, concerns for the “objectivity”
of knowledge – and the efforts to suppress our personal biases that go with
this concern – are certainly justified.
Interestingly, when Bivens-Tatum claims “the burden of proof
is on the person without [the publicly available] evidence, not the skeptic”, the Christian in particular can respond by
saying that the Biblical writings not only presume that just such evidence
exists, but that Christian claims are largely based on such evidences. For example, when the Apostle Paul
writes of the crown of God’s interventions in history – the resurrection of
Jesus Christ – he speaks of it in a way that completely undercuts modern
secular understandings of what “religion” is all about (see Acts 17 and 26 in
particular).
In
part III, the idea of neutrality in libraries
is explored in more depth. I maintain
that “neutrality” is both desirable and impossible. It is desirable in that “neutrality”
can simply mean giving a voice to persons who attempt, by their learning and reasoning,
to persuade others regarding issues that are very important to them and
others. On the other hand, the reality
that evidence which is public, relevant and convincing is (evidently) important
to many of us cannot change the other reality that we are all either hard or
soft idealogues – for there are always some things unique to this person or
that group which are not readily doubted.
This means neutrality in this sense is impossible. Again, the current reality of interlibrary
loan helps address both of these issues.
Of course, given the fact that some knowledge is dangerous in the wrong hands and some knowledge is simply dangerous,
all will desire in certain circumstances to place at least some limits on any
desired library neutrality. From the
Christian perspective, we can add three more points: 1) while persons pursue knowledge for reasons
of power and curiosity, the greatest reason is to better love one’s neighbor
with knowledge ; 2) those influenced by more secular views may “dislike or even
fear freedom and autonomy” as much as religious persons ; and 3) saying persons
should be convinced something is true and “beating [persons] over the head with
[one’s] version of reality, truth, beauty, or goodness” (p. 79, Christenson,
Tom, The Gift and Task of Lutheran Higher Education, Augsburg Fortress, 2004)
are two very different things!
The final conclusion: libraries – and perhaps “Enlightenment
libraries” most of all – are a wonderful gift of God.
