Editor*s Co tmnIt is in everyone’s interest for libraries to make available thenwidest diversity of views and expressions, including thosenwhich are extreme, distasteful . . .n-Kathy Russell*nWhat do librarians have in common with fascism? Aren’tnthe words jarringly at odds with each other? Unless we makenit clear that they are opposites in our perception—as a matternof fact, librarians are the victims of fascism—their merenjuxtaposition becomes unfair, suspicious, quite reprehensible.nAfter all, fascism comes from that corner of our consciousnessnand our vocabulary where we store the mostnadverse connotations. And librarians? Aren’t they thosenwonderful, always-smiling, hard-working, mild-mannerednpeople who exert themselves to bring us pleasures of thensoul, cerebral improvement, enlightenment of mind andnheart? Aren’t they in the forefront of the effort to makenthe society, ourselves, the entire world better?nXes, they are, or at least their social image is formednaccording to that reasoning and has been consistently projectednas such for the last couple of centuries of Westernncivilization. Lately, however, we may have difficulty whennassuming that all librarians are the proponents, defendersnand stalwarts of not only gentle and courteous reasonablenessnbut the very notion of freedom as it has been conceived andncultivated in America. A number of them, nowadays, seemsnto have fallen prey to some forces of ideological irrationality,nand we begin to wonder whether they are on our side—thensideof the citizenry—at all. Indications abound (for instance,nthe current insistence of many librarians that Show Me, anchild-pornography photo album, is a suitable, even necessarynitem to offer to their patrons) that they have opted for annavid doctrinairism and intend to champion some speciousnshibboleths whose emptiness offers nothing for the people’sngood—there is only room for the hollow ring of self-righteousnorthodoxy. And this is where fascism comes in—every totalitarianismnbegins with transmuting feelings of abuse into annattitude which proclaims to the world: Because I am questioned,nscrutinized, objected to, that means I’m victimizednby some sinister and unnamed forces, and therefore I’m betternthan my opponents. I’m right, just, noble, pure and entitlednto do whatever / alone consider proper and moral. In a word:nThey, those who oppose me, are a priori bad and I am a prioringood. Therefore, I may exert as much power as suits me andnmy self-proclaimed values—which in itself is justification tondo to my censurers whatever I consider right and to suppressnby any means their evil machinations.nWe are afraid that this rationale has recently invaded then*Quoted in an article by Nat Hentoff in Village Voice, Februaryn11-17, 1981.nChronicles of Cultttrennnpsyches of many American librarians. What many of themnvoice in the media as their postulate is nothing short ofnwhat we would not hesitate to call cultural fascism. The warnhas started. The point of contention: What should be channelednthrough the public and school libraries into the mindsnand sensitivities of the reading public, which includes multitudesnof juveniles? In general, librarians assume the positionnthat they, and only they, should decide that. Any propositionnor attempt to share this prerogative, or even to discuss it,nis branded with the frightful, paralyzing word censorship.nYet, the citizenry, who fund public libraries with their taxnmoney, respond that the issue is not that simple and thatnother concerned parties, like the parents, for example, ornteachers, or social activists of all persuasions, or the clergynof a//denominations (that is people who, for millennia, havenbeen involved with the shaping of characters through reading)nalso deserve to have a say. Nonsense, claim the librarians, ornat least that portion of them which subscribes to the rigidnliberal orthodoxy: everything should be made available toneverybody, for no one forces anyone to read—choosing a booknis sacrosanct and any interference with this principle andnformula spells oppression, repression, reaction and slaverynof mind—that is, censorship. However, as the librarians ofnthe liberal faith are in the majority and hold sway overnlibraries all around the country, the net result of their hegemonynis quite different from their sanctimoniously preachednlaissez-faireism: children in Long Island public libraries arenunconditionally free to drink at the font of what many peoplenwould see as vicious pornographic wisdom, but Mary Poppinsnhas been evicted from some libraries in California as irrelevantnto the proper vision of childhood. What this means isnthat there are forces, like unsavory fashions, which are moreneffective than any open directive in compelling people tonread—so the so-called “free” choice is very much a manipulatednoccurrence.nX he local press plays a major role in the confrontationnbetween librarians and citizens. The provincial press is repletenwith punk liberals who practice a sort of punk-yellowliberalnjournalism, and who, with punk-liberal self-righteousness,nhave quickly caught the enthusiasm for brandishingn”book-burner” slogans and banners. No moral sensibilities,nsubtleties or emotional shadings of this issue for punknliberals: the First Amendment rolls out of their typewritersnas some sort of football with which they can score somenraucously greeted touchdown. These journalists are the FirstnAmendment’s sports fans and pompon girls. Those who pointnout the Amendment’s sociomoral ambivalences are just an”gang of moralists” in eyes dimmed by mindless, cheeringnfury. Of course Time magazine, that infallible stockpile ofnwell-preserved, all-occasion hypocrisies, can afford a morenmiddlebrow approach to the problem: it recently publishedn