Who Misunderstands Intellectual Freedom?
As I mentioned in my last Intellectual Freedom post, it was the general consensus of the Spotlight on Intellectual Freedom panel at this year’s OLA Superconference, that critics of the dominant conception of Intellectual Freedom don’t understand it (rather than disagreeing with it), either becuse they are young and inexperienced, or because library schools haven’t indoctrinated us sufficiently.
However, I’m by no means convinced that the defenders of IF adequately understand what they are even defending. In the context of academic libraries, the question of information so outdated as to be dangerous was raised, in particular outdated medical information. The academic librarian on the panel noted that academic libraries would, of course, retain that material, but provide suitable contextual information to let library users know the information was dangerously out of date.
Similarly, many academic libraries are adding content warnings to their institutional repository, understood as a practical and progressive response to the fact that much of our digitized content contains language and descriptions that are offensive and harmful. No one on the panel disputed the propriety of adding contextual information to outdated medical information, and I don’t think many people would argue against the legitimacy of adding harmful language statements to our institutional repositories.
Both these things violate Intellectual Freedom as defined by the American Library Association [1].
The ALA’s Intellectual Freedom manual states that while “Viewpoint-neutral directional aids facilitate access by making it easier for users to locate resources”, “prejudicial labels… [are] used to warn, discourage, or prohibit users or certain groups of users from accessing the resource” (9th Edition, p. 140). The contextual information we place on outdated medical information and the harmful language statements we include in our institutional repositories are kinds of warning labels, which the ALA sees as prejudicial. An older version of the IF Manual states: “The American Library Association opposes labeling as a means of predisposing people’s attitudes toward library materials” (Seventh Edition, p. 171). This statement has been removed from later editions - a point I will come back to below.
I’m not pointing this out to score points off the panelists with a “gotcha”, but to show that despite the lack of analysis of IF among its defenders, despite the insistence that it is a monolithic, pure concept, disagreements already exist even among those who stand by it. Why not, then, open the whole thing up for question and challenge? Obviously the violation just identified doesn’t amount to censorship (though the ALA absolutists would disagree), so perhaps other ways of departing from IF absolutism can also be considered and accommodated.
Not only are various interpretations and understandings of Intellectual Freedom permitted even within those who defend the traditional view of IF, but it is hypocritical to dismiss critics of that view as simply misunderstanding it. Furthermore, it shows that even the ALA’s characterization of Intellectual Freedom shifts over time (slowly, but it shifts), depending on social and political realities. IF is not and can never be some pure and static concept, the “foundation of our democracy”, but has to be flexible and adapt to changing contexts.
But perhaps more importantly, by not disputing the library’s right to add contextual labeling to particular kinds of material, the OLA Spotlight panel itself advocated a violation of the ALA interpretation of IF. In other words, the panel themselves became critics of the dominant conception of Intellectual Freedom. The difference between, say, me and Jim Turk is not whether we subscribe to the ALA’s conception of Intellectual Freedom (because clearly neither of us do), but how far and in what ways we depart from it.
And this isn’t to say that, if we add contextual information to outdated medical books or harmful language statements to institutional repositories, that we necessarily have to add content labeling to everything. There are well-founded concerns that adding, say, LGBTQ+ stickers to YA books could prevent queer or questioning kids from reading those books, for fear of being outed to their parents, teachers, or peers. This is a very real concern, and a more nuanced vision of “intellectual freedom” (for want of a better term), one that doesn’t try to be black-and-white or monolithic, would allow us to make different choices in different contexts. This requires real understanding of different situations and, more importantly, real relationships with the communities we want to serve. IF is a ruleset that imagines library workers can make these decisions in a vacuum (Marika Prokosh used the expression “vacuum idea of fairness” which I think is really apt). When defenders of traditional IF ask the disingenuous question “who decides?” the answer has to be, not “me” or “you” or “them”, but us. We decide, but only as part of a community or set of communities [2].
The idea that there is a single, univocal, correct and unquestionable version of Intellectual Freedom is exposed as the power-play that it is. The concept itself changes over time, as it must, and according to particular social situations. Once we recognize that, once we recognize that even the defenders of the dominant conception of IF find the ALA’s formulation too absolutist, then the door is open for a re-evaluation of Intellectual Freedom itself. We can put aside this nonsense about IF critics being ignorant of IF or crypto-censors or both, and we can come together as a profession oriented towards social justice to figure out what kind of collections and room booking policies we want to have and should have.
I use the expression power-play, because the presentation of IF as a simple, indivisible concept, an inviolable plank of liberal-democracy (“the worst form of government except for all the others”) serves to maintain the hegemonic legitimacy of liberalism itself. If IF is admitted to be contestable and contested, historical, and situational, then liberalism is called upon to defend itself against its critics, threatening bourgeois hegemony. In my PhD research I argue that Intellectual Freedom is a multivalent and multifaceted tool, operating from one perspective, as Alan Harnum wrote on twitter, “as a marketing angle and a means of realpolitiking with conservative governments and board members”, while from another perspective playing into the manufacture of consent through moral panics when aimed at (some) members of the public (“taxpayers”).
What I want to demonstrate in this brief post is not only that IF serves different situational purposes (as opposed to being a simple, inviolable principle of democracy), but that despite insistence to the contrary, IF is already contested. The pure form of IF maintained by the ALA is too much even for the defenders of IF. All of us, in practice, accept deviations from the absolutely pure Intellectual Freedom promulgated by the ALA. To hold to the idea that there’s a single, sacrosanct version of Intellectual Freedom then becomes a political act, a political stand, rather than the “neutral” upholding of a sacred liberal principle.
The fact that IF is not monolithic, despite assurances from Jim Turk, Vickery Bowles, and others, opens up room to discuss and decide for ourselves what our policies should, can, and do mean. The defence of the dominant conception of IF - a conception which is incoherent and unfeasable - simple reinforces professional hierarchies and makes libraries complicit participants in the worst political forces in our society. We have seen over the past week in Ottawa, and across Canada, how the liberal ideal of making spaces safe for all is a pipe dream: admitting self-described Nazis and white supremacists into a space automatically excludes others. IF has to be selective, it already is selective, it is up to us to decide where to draw the lines.
Critics of the dominant view of IF are not advocates for censorship. We are advocates for abandoning the all-or-nothing, one-size-fits-all liberal “tolerance” of Intellectual Freedom which is so easily co-opted to oppressive ends antagonistic and antipathetic to social justice.
[1] This violation in the Canadian context is not mysterious: the difference between the Charter of Rights regime and the absolutist First Amendment regime in the US explains it.
[2] The dominant conception of IF, coming out of social contract and liberal political theory, can only understand decision-making from the standpoint of constituted power (the state, scientific authority, proceduralism). What I argue for is a reorientation of decision-making according to the constituent power of the community itself.