This was interesting and illuminating. It’s distressing that the ideological capture of universities and schools has infiltrated the sanctuary of the library, but also hopeful that professionals like yourself are seeking ways to maintain political neutrality in libraries. There are already far too many gatekeepers of information.
This has actually been going on for years, if not decades. Most of the DEI rot flows from higher ed, and it's only natural that it would have swamped libraries long ago. I think they just felt empowered to be far more open with it than they used to be, egged on perhaps by the various teachers' unions.
Decades is an accurate timescale with which to measure these changes. Activism and politicization of the profession are, unfortunately, accelerating as a younger generation of librarians, trained and habituated to a progressive outlook, attain mid-career leadership positions.
Yep. Saw it in academia as well. They've also been habituated by a generation of less-than-enlightened professors to get ahead by going along. Don't question. Don't make waves. Crush anyone who does either.
It's sad that striving for neutrality in library services and collections has become something controversial. Thank you for drawing attention to what's been happening in our profession and for standing up for an ethic of neutrality, Kyle!
My late husband, who was at one time president of the ALA would be aghast at this turn from intellectual pursuits in libraries to propaganda for DEI, anti-racism, and LGBTQIA++++( drag queens for kids?).
What in the world does this have to do with the pursuit of ongoing learning, one of the main goals of libraries? This is purely anti-intellectual virtue signaling that has no place in a library.
Thank you for calling attention to this very negative occurrence within the ALA.
I can only think that the ALA has been corrupted with some so-called justice seekers, and I am glad that some librarians are alarmed at this turn of events.
Libraries should be neutral and not places for propaganda.
Thank you for reading and for taking the time to comment. I especially appreciate you sharing that your late husband would not have supported ALA's current priorities for libraries.
Ongoing learning, yes!!!! That is what libraries stand for and what a noble purpose. For that to happen, you have to have viewpoint neutrality. Just the other day, I was in a New York Public Library branch and all the political books on display went in one direction only!
Obviously, the trans virus, which is very anti-intellectual , has infected some libraries. Disgusting porn like “:Gender Queer” is offered to kids instead of literature . And drag Queens are considered entertainment for children!
Thank you for focusing on this topic. I did not realize the ALA had taken the step you described. There is a sort of intellectual hubris which operates in far too many people who believe that they and the institutions they shape can "manage" and "handle" the carving out of particular desired exceptions to intellectual freedom protections and curation neutrality, without "really" suppressing intellectual freedom But as sure as video killed the radio star, abandoning a principled commitment to curation neutrality, will indeed kill intellectual freedom in various orbits such as librarianship. I say this as a person who reveres libraries, wrote kids books featuring them as heroes,. and have assumed that librarians and their organizations still recognized the paramount importance of maintaining principled support for neutrality, in order that intellectual freedom survive and thrive.
As someone whose immediate family grew up in Europe under the shadow of the worst totalitarian regimes in history, the use of terms like “fascism” in this context is laughable and leaves one with second-hand embarrassment. There is simply a checklist of the worst terms in contemporary society and they are bandied around ad nauseum against anyone who doesn’t kneel before a far-left political agenda. Terms like “fascism”, “racism”, and ‘homophobic” simply have no meaningful context any more. A library is fascist for presenting views from every side? Huh?
Our library recently circulated a diversity survey, which is the confessional booth in the church of wokeism. Most bizarre is that our own library has not had an issue with diversity shortfalls in the last 35+ years. In fact, representation has been quite the opposite. Yet the rhetoric we are fed is that of amplifying traditionally marginalized voices, and confronting white privilege. These problems simply haven’t existed within the library world for at least 2 generations. Does anyone remember how transphobic libraries were back in the 1990s or 2000s ?
There are clear lines which can be crossed and something determined to be too far to the right, but there is no established parallel on the left. In the library world that line must be drawn when neutrality is breached. The activism needed must come from the side supporting neutrality, and this will probably only gain momentum when libraries which prioritize social activist agendas start to face defunding, and are replaced with more moderate leadership. Rational thinking people must begin to unite and collectively hold these bad actors to account.
Thanks for taking the time to read and reply here, and for mentioning your experience "gr[owing] up in Europe under the shadow of the worst totalitarian regimes in history." As a student of history, I've often wondered what happens when the people who remember are gone? We are now losing the last few adults with memories of WWII and the Holocaust.
I really appreciated this point that you made: "There are clear lines which can be crossed and something determined to be too far to the right, but there is no established parallel on the left."
I totally agree with you. We all know what the Nazis did to books, but unfortunately, the education system has been into social engineering for so long that it "forgot" ;) to educate kids on what the Marxist version looks like. Marxists hate free thought just as much as Nazis do, and the Soviets absolutely burned and purged books on a massive scale. The only difference is that while Nazi bonfires were loud and public, the Soviet apparatus perfected the art of the quiet, institutional purge. They set up massive state departments to issue secret blacklists, pull millions of books from shelves, and feed them into furnaces or paper mills to be destroyed. (Non-compliant librarians faced severe political repression, imprisonment, or execution during periods like the Great Purge.) Because our school system skipped this history, people today have no idea that the far-left parallel operates through the exact type of administrative machinery we are seeing right now.
The most clever part of the Soviet strategy wasn't just destroying the books, but destroying the Dewey system itself. They realized that a standard decimal sequence makes censorship completely visible because a missing number leaves an obvious gap on the shelf. To fix this problem, they threw out the neutral system entirely and invented their own ideological classification framework. By forcing the library structure itself to mirror Marxist-Leninist theory, they could completely hide their "curation" ;) and ensure that no one could even see what was missing. By physically organizing human knowledge so that Marxist-Leninist philosophy was the literal foundation for every other subject, anyone walking into the library had that specific political viewpoint constantly revalidated. They were trapped in a closed loop designed to ensure their beliefs were never questioned and any book that could do so had already been purged.
This modern push for diversity surveys, collection audits, and mandatory identity metrics is just that exact Soviet playbook in modern dress. When administrative bodies try to replace the neutral, mechanical Dewey sequence with active curation, they are replicating the same trick to mask thought control. The goal of the far-left has always been to eliminate individual neutrality, lock everyone into rigid group identities, and turn libraries into propaganda mills. To stop this, librarians don't need to become activists; they just need to do their actual job. They need to go back to the strict Dewey system, stamp the book, shelve it by its number, and keep the arena of free thought completely neutral so conflicting ideas sit side by side where everyone can see them. More than that, they need to care about people, freedom of thought, and freedom of speech. They must protect the freedom of individuals to develop their own character without being socially engineered into the corner of a Marxist worldview. Librarians must adhere to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and stand proudly behind the neutral humanist values that stop totalitarianism in all of its forms.
Yes, well said, thank you so much. I especially appreciate your first sentence, I too am familiar with the shadow of real totalitarian regimes. More power to everything you said. It is a relief to hear your views expressed, and yes, your solution might be a start. I wish I knew how so many intelligent people in a free country could be so captured by one ideological view. It's a relief to read what you have to say after interacting with so many "woke" views in educational circles. (I'm an educator.)
The Purge of the Librarians and Destruction of the Shelves
During the Soviet and Maoist purges, both regimes targeted neutral library workers who resisted ideological mandates. Librarians tried to maintain objective bibliographic standards, hid blacklisted literature, and refused to replace the neutral sequence of books with party-line classification metrics. Independent library professionals used the international Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) system, publishing standard schedules in 1924 and 1930, to keep cataloging tied to an objective framework instead of a Marxist hierarchy. When they failed to bow to the state compliance inspectorates, they were subjected to public humiliation, stripped of their livelihoods, sent to forced labor camps, or killed. The state labeled this work "bourgeois objectivism," and professionals were killed in 1938 during the Great Purge, completely destroying the professional class of independent library guardians.
And yes, you are guardians! You are guardians of the free mind against totalitarian ideologies. You are the guardian to keep information free from 'curation' (AKA state capture and social engineering; you should love people enough to give them the freedom to develop their own character, have their own mind, and to protect them from ideologies that strip them of all)
With the resistance crushed, the physical destruction of the libraries followed. Millions of books were pulled from shelves to be shredded, burned in public squares, or locked away in restricted-access vaults like the Soviet spetskhran, completely erasing centuries of historical, philosophical, and scientific thought. Rather than maintaining a complete repository of human knowledge, libraries were structurally gutted and rebuilt as state-run propaganda mills designed solely to promote the party line.
libraries and the importance of the Dewey system cannot be overstated... the Dewey System Highlight censorship. Missing sections show up! Dewey system stops 'curation' you no longer need 'curation'. You just need a librarian to put the book on the shelf then to leave their ideology at home...
Thanks, NV, for commenting at length and including a link to the article "Perestroika in the Stacks." Suddenly, I find myself becoming intensely curious about the experience of librarians in Mao's China and the USSR.
Marxist critics label neutrality as "white supremacist" to shame people into abandoning the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the only document to stop totalitarianism in all of its forms. Fascism, communism theocratic technocratic...
The west is moving into totalitarianism and we need librarians to be a little bit brave make a bit of noise. and go back to using the Dewey system. Don't allow curation!! The job of a librarian is to stamp the book, shelve it, and protect the neutral arena of free thought.
Academic debate hides this reality behind bureaucratic bullshit. The ALA chants that fascism is bad, yet they use DEI and Marxist totalitarian ideology to police bookshelves—submitting to an ideology that killed over 100 million people— never once created a utopia but always created gulags, labour camps and oppression. I'm not one for coincidences...
Marxists hate freedom of thought and freedom of speech. If you are a Marxist librarian, you do not protect information; you run a propaganda mill to purge dissenting ideas and destroy illicit materials. (because nothing screams "guardian of knowledge" quite like a well-organized bonfire) They hate neutral language because neutrality is the language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—the only document designed to stop totalitarianism in all forms, whether Nazi, Communist, theocratic, or technocratic.
How is this related to Dei? You might ask...
The ALA’s enforcement of DEI replicates the administrative machinery invented by Joseph Stalin through 'Korenizatsiya' and deployed by Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution
That's right. Stalin created DEI and it's all been done before in *two brutal regimes
Creating a registry of state-approved identity categories, ethnic quotas, and group-based resource distribution. Mao copied this design, using the Hukou registry and the "Five Black Categories" to lock individuals into permanent groups to persecute dissenters, freethinkers, and anyone reporting corruption. (*actually many more, identity politics is very versatile in oppressing people and genocides we can include the Nazis here and any other civilisation that weaponised identity in its Inevitable Outcome - identity politics never creates freedom, peace or compassion but it always creates atrocity... as I said, I'm not one for coincidences...)
The ALA implements this exact framework. By revising its Code of Ethics to mandate 'critical theory', the ALA forces libraries to categorize books and audit collections based on identity metrics and books that 'promote party line' in a war of social engineering, thought control and Marxist propaganda. (The humble Dewey system returns It forces every ideology—including Marxism—into a specific, contained subcategory. Stopping any single political framework from restructuring the entire library and that's personally where I prefer to keep my Marxists.
By placing conflicting theories on the same shelf bad ideas cannot easily be isolated or hidden and because its a sequence hidden info shows as a missing sequences itself.
Soviet authorities encountered exactly this problem: standard decimal classification systems made their interventions entirely too visible. Because a missing sequence on a shelf exposed censorship, the Soviet state had to systematically alter or bypass standard library layouts to hide what they were removing. They achieved this by abandoning Western classification frameworks entirely and inventing the Bibliotechno-Bibliograficheskaya Klassifikatsiya (BBK)—a system that forced libraries to abandon numerical neutrality and physically arrange books to mirror Marxist-Leninist ideology. 👍💯🎯
The ALA does the exact same thing today. By enforcing institutional curation instead of just maintaining the neutral Dewey sequence, they allow a Marxist ideology to dictate what goes on the shelves and completely take over the structure of the library.
... I know the stench of totalitarianism when I come across it
Civilization is in a fight: anti-universalists versus universalists who demand dignity for each person equally based on their common humanity. By forcing librarians to act as ideological gatekeepers, the ALA transforms centers of information into tools for censorship. Libraries must return to absolute universalism immediately or they will cause their own destruction.
Consider this food for thought: both Soviet Russia and Maoist China eventually scrapped their versions of DEI. If these identity-enforcement systems are successful, why dump them? The answer lies in the millions of fatalities they caused. (it turns out that when your agricultural policy relies on ideological purity rather than good science and competence, people stop breathing).
When the state gains the power to cancel one universal right based on group identity or collective benefit, it sets a legal example for canceling others. Totalitarianism does not need to violate all 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at once to gain control; it only needs the power to decide which rights no longer apply to certain individuals.
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was made as a response to the Nazis, the Communists, theocratic States, and technocratic so that totalitarianism could never exist again... https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights and be aware the UN has been overrun by DEI think of that also yet more institutional overrun... an ideology fundamentally, against its founding principles of Equality of all humans simply because they're humans and worth the equal dignity and compassion they deserve.
"Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty."
The ALP defended a librarian who was fired for refusing to (or expressing an intent to refuse to) use a coworker's preferred pronouns. Since when are cruelty and exclusion defensible? This is not a matter if "religious liberty"; no religion asks its followers not to call people what the prefer to be called.
Kyle, well done. Thanks so much for this. It strongly needs to be said. I was in a New York Public Library branch the other day and all the political books on display went in one direction only. As commenter Gerda Ho below points out, ongoing learning is the purpose of libraries and it is a noble goal. That can't happen without viewpoint neutrality. If the only books available (or easily available) go in one direction only, that smacks more of indoctrination than ongoing learning which has to take multiple viewpoints into consideration. I remember bookstores in the German Democratic Republic before the wall came down. They even had Marxist cookbooks! I also remember when the Scholastic Book Club had cheap paperbacks I could buy with fascinating well-written stories with characters and events (both fiction and nonfiction, both classics and new authors) that all young people relate to. That got me hooked on reading and now I read everything. Nowadays the Scholastic book list (last time i checked) was all about gays, trans, differently abled, sexual abuse, racial injustice, and dark dystopian fantasies. What I really wonder is, is this a diet that makes a person a life-long reader?
This was interesting and illuminating. It’s distressing that the ideological capture of universities and schools has infiltrated the sanctuary of the library, but also hopeful that professionals like yourself are seeking ways to maintain political neutrality in libraries. There are already far too many gatekeepers of information.
This has actually been going on for years, if not decades. Most of the DEI rot flows from higher ed, and it's only natural that it would have swamped libraries long ago. I think they just felt empowered to be far more open with it than they used to be, egged on perhaps by the various teachers' unions.
Decades is an accurate timescale with which to measure these changes. Activism and politicization of the profession are, unfortunately, accelerating as a younger generation of librarians, trained and habituated to a progressive outlook, attain mid-career leadership positions.
Yep. Saw it in academia as well. They've also been habituated by a generation of less-than-enlightened professors to get ahead by going along. Don't question. Don't make waves. Crush anyone who does either.
It's sad that striving for neutrality in library services and collections has become something controversial. Thank you for drawing attention to what's been happening in our profession and for standing up for an ethic of neutrality, Kyle!
My late husband, who was at one time president of the ALA would be aghast at this turn from intellectual pursuits in libraries to propaganda for DEI, anti-racism, and LGBTQIA++++( drag queens for kids?).
What in the world does this have to do with the pursuit of ongoing learning, one of the main goals of libraries? This is purely anti-intellectual virtue signaling that has no place in a library.
Thank you for calling attention to this very negative occurrence within the ALA.
I can only think that the ALA has been corrupted with some so-called justice seekers, and I am glad that some librarians are alarmed at this turn of events.
Libraries should be neutral and not places for propaganda.
Thank you for reading and for taking the time to comment. I especially appreciate you sharing that your late husband would not have supported ALA's current priorities for libraries.
Ongoing learning, yes!!!! That is what libraries stand for and what a noble purpose. For that to happen, you have to have viewpoint neutrality. Just the other day, I was in a New York Public Library branch and all the political books on display went in one direction only!
Obviously, the trans virus, which is very anti-intellectual , has infected some libraries. Disgusting porn like “:Gender Queer” is offered to kids instead of literature . And drag Queens are considered entertainment for children!
A sad time for libraries !
In NYC? Shocking.
Thank you for focusing on this topic. I did not realize the ALA had taken the step you described. There is a sort of intellectual hubris which operates in far too many people who believe that they and the institutions they shape can "manage" and "handle" the carving out of particular desired exceptions to intellectual freedom protections and curation neutrality, without "really" suppressing intellectual freedom But as sure as video killed the radio star, abandoning a principled commitment to curation neutrality, will indeed kill intellectual freedom in various orbits such as librarianship. I say this as a person who reveres libraries, wrote kids books featuring them as heroes,. and have assumed that librarians and their organizations still recognized the paramount importance of maintaining principled support for neutrality, in order that intellectual freedom survive and thrive.
As someone whose immediate family grew up in Europe under the shadow of the worst totalitarian regimes in history, the use of terms like “fascism” in this context is laughable and leaves one with second-hand embarrassment. There is simply a checklist of the worst terms in contemporary society and they are bandied around ad nauseum against anyone who doesn’t kneel before a far-left political agenda. Terms like “fascism”, “racism”, and ‘homophobic” simply have no meaningful context any more. A library is fascist for presenting views from every side? Huh?
Our library recently circulated a diversity survey, which is the confessional booth in the church of wokeism. Most bizarre is that our own library has not had an issue with diversity shortfalls in the last 35+ years. In fact, representation has been quite the opposite. Yet the rhetoric we are fed is that of amplifying traditionally marginalized voices, and confronting white privilege. These problems simply haven’t existed within the library world for at least 2 generations. Does anyone remember how transphobic libraries were back in the 1990s or 2000s ?
There are clear lines which can be crossed and something determined to be too far to the right, but there is no established parallel on the left. In the library world that line must be drawn when neutrality is breached. The activism needed must come from the side supporting neutrality, and this will probably only gain momentum when libraries which prioritize social activist agendas start to face defunding, and are replaced with more moderate leadership. Rational thinking people must begin to unite and collectively hold these bad actors to account.
Thanks for taking the time to read and reply here, and for mentioning your experience "gr[owing] up in Europe under the shadow of the worst totalitarian regimes in history." As a student of history, I've often wondered what happens when the people who remember are gone? We are now losing the last few adults with memories of WWII and the Holocaust.
I really appreciated this point that you made: "There are clear lines which can be crossed and something determined to be too far to the right, but there is no established parallel on the left."
I totally agree with you. We all know what the Nazis did to books, but unfortunately, the education system has been into social engineering for so long that it "forgot" ;) to educate kids on what the Marxist version looks like. Marxists hate free thought just as much as Nazis do, and the Soviets absolutely burned and purged books on a massive scale. The only difference is that while Nazi bonfires were loud and public, the Soviet apparatus perfected the art of the quiet, institutional purge. They set up massive state departments to issue secret blacklists, pull millions of books from shelves, and feed them into furnaces or paper mills to be destroyed. (Non-compliant librarians faced severe political repression, imprisonment, or execution during periods like the Great Purge.) Because our school system skipped this history, people today have no idea that the far-left parallel operates through the exact type of administrative machinery we are seeing right now.
The most clever part of the Soviet strategy wasn't just destroying the books, but destroying the Dewey system itself. They realized that a standard decimal sequence makes censorship completely visible because a missing number leaves an obvious gap on the shelf. To fix this problem, they threw out the neutral system entirely and invented their own ideological classification framework. By forcing the library structure itself to mirror Marxist-Leninist theory, they could completely hide their "curation" ;) and ensure that no one could even see what was missing. By physically organizing human knowledge so that Marxist-Leninist philosophy was the literal foundation for every other subject, anyone walking into the library had that specific political viewpoint constantly revalidated. They were trapped in a closed loop designed to ensure their beliefs were never questioned and any book that could do so had already been purged.
This modern push for diversity surveys, collection audits, and mandatory identity metrics is just that exact Soviet playbook in modern dress. When administrative bodies try to replace the neutral, mechanical Dewey sequence with active curation, they are replicating the same trick to mask thought control. The goal of the far-left has always been to eliminate individual neutrality, lock everyone into rigid group identities, and turn libraries into propaganda mills. To stop this, librarians don't need to become activists; they just need to do their actual job. They need to go back to the strict Dewey system, stamp the book, shelve it by its number, and keep the arena of free thought completely neutral so conflicting ideas sit side by side where everyone can see them. More than that, they need to care about people, freedom of thought, and freedom of speech. They must protect the freedom of individuals to develop their own character without being socially engineered into the corner of a Marxist worldview. Librarians must adhere to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and stand proudly behind the neutral humanist values that stop totalitarianism in all of its forms.
Yes, well said, thank you so much. I especially appreciate your first sentence, I too am familiar with the shadow of real totalitarian regimes. More power to everything you said. It is a relief to hear your views expressed, and yes, your solution might be a start. I wish I knew how so many intelligent people in a free country could be so captured by one ideological view. It's a relief to read what you have to say after interacting with so many "woke" views in educational circles. (I'm an educator.)
The Purge of the Librarians and Destruction of the Shelves
During the Soviet and Maoist purges, both regimes targeted neutral library workers who resisted ideological mandates. Librarians tried to maintain objective bibliographic standards, hid blacklisted literature, and refused to replace the neutral sequence of books with party-line classification metrics. Independent library professionals used the international Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) system, publishing standard schedules in 1924 and 1930, to keep cataloging tied to an objective framework instead of a Marxist hierarchy. When they failed to bow to the state compliance inspectorates, they were subjected to public humiliation, stripped of their livelihoods, sent to forced labor camps, or killed. The state labeled this work "bourgeois objectivism," and professionals were killed in 1938 during the Great Purge, completely destroying the professional class of independent library guardians.
And yes, you are guardians! You are guardians of the free mind against totalitarian ideologies. You are the guardian to keep information free from 'curation' (AKA state capture and social engineering; you should love people enough to give them the freedom to develop their own character, have their own mind, and to protect them from ideologies that strip them of all)
With the resistance crushed, the physical destruction of the libraries followed. Millions of books were pulled from shelves to be shredded, burned in public squares, or locked away in restricted-access vaults like the Soviet spetskhran, completely erasing centuries of historical, philosophical, and scientific thought. Rather than maintaining a complete repository of human knowledge, libraries were structurally gutted and rebuilt as state-run propaganda mills designed solely to promote the party line.
libraries and the importance of the Dewey system cannot be overstated... the Dewey System Highlight censorship. Missing sections show up! Dewey system stops 'curation' you no longer need 'curation'. You just need a librarian to put the book on the shelf then to leave their ideology at home...
https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/libraries/article-abstract/3/2/199/198786/Perestroika-in-the-Stacks-Independent-Library?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Thanks, NV, for commenting at length and including a link to the article "Perestroika in the Stacks." Suddenly, I find myself becoming intensely curious about the experience of librarians in Mao's China and the USSR.
Marxist critics label neutrality as "white supremacist" to shame people into abandoning the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the only document to stop totalitarianism in all of its forms. Fascism, communism theocratic technocratic...
The west is moving into totalitarianism and we need librarians to be a little bit brave make a bit of noise. and go back to using the Dewey system. Don't allow curation!! The job of a librarian is to stamp the book, shelve it, and protect the neutral arena of free thought.
Academic debate hides this reality behind bureaucratic bullshit. The ALA chants that fascism is bad, yet they use DEI and Marxist totalitarian ideology to police bookshelves—submitting to an ideology that killed over 100 million people— never once created a utopia but always created gulags, labour camps and oppression. I'm not one for coincidences...
Marxists hate freedom of thought and freedom of speech. If you are a Marxist librarian, you do not protect information; you run a propaganda mill to purge dissenting ideas and destroy illicit materials. (because nothing screams "guardian of knowledge" quite like a well-organized bonfire) They hate neutral language because neutrality is the language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—the only document designed to stop totalitarianism in all forms, whether Nazi, Communist, theocratic, or technocratic.
How is this related to Dei? You might ask...
The ALA’s enforcement of DEI replicates the administrative machinery invented by Joseph Stalin through 'Korenizatsiya' and deployed by Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution
That's right. Stalin created DEI and it's all been done before in *two brutal regimes
Creating a registry of state-approved identity categories, ethnic quotas, and group-based resource distribution. Mao copied this design, using the Hukou registry and the "Five Black Categories" to lock individuals into permanent groups to persecute dissenters, freethinkers, and anyone reporting corruption. (*actually many more, identity politics is very versatile in oppressing people and genocides we can include the Nazis here and any other civilisation that weaponised identity in its Inevitable Outcome - identity politics never creates freedom, peace or compassion but it always creates atrocity... as I said, I'm not one for coincidences...)
The ALA implements this exact framework. By revising its Code of Ethics to mandate 'critical theory', the ALA forces libraries to categorize books and audit collections based on identity metrics and books that 'promote party line' in a war of social engineering, thought control and Marxist propaganda. (The humble Dewey system returns It forces every ideology—including Marxism—into a specific, contained subcategory. Stopping any single political framework from restructuring the entire library and that's personally where I prefer to keep my Marxists.
By placing conflicting theories on the same shelf bad ideas cannot easily be isolated or hidden and because its a sequence hidden info shows as a missing sequences itself.
Soviet authorities encountered exactly this problem: standard decimal classification systems made their interventions entirely too visible. Because a missing sequence on a shelf exposed censorship, the Soviet state had to systematically alter or bypass standard library layouts to hide what they were removing. They achieved this by abandoning Western classification frameworks entirely and inventing the Bibliotechno-Bibliograficheskaya Klassifikatsiya (BBK)—a system that forced libraries to abandon numerical neutrality and physically arrange books to mirror Marxist-Leninist ideology. 👍💯🎯
The ALA does the exact same thing today. By enforcing institutional curation instead of just maintaining the neutral Dewey sequence, they allow a Marxist ideology to dictate what goes on the shelves and completely take over the structure of the library.
... I know the stench of totalitarianism when I come across it
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
Civilization is in a fight: anti-universalists versus universalists who demand dignity for each person equally based on their common humanity. By forcing librarians to act as ideological gatekeepers, the ALA transforms centers of information into tools for censorship. Libraries must return to absolute universalism immediately or they will cause their own destruction.
Consider this food for thought: both Soviet Russia and Maoist China eventually scrapped their versions of DEI. If these identity-enforcement systems are successful, why dump them? The answer lies in the millions of fatalities they caused. (it turns out that when your agricultural policy relies on ideological purity rather than good science and competence, people stop breathing).
When the state gains the power to cancel one universal right based on group identity or collective benefit, it sets a legal example for canceling others. Totalitarianism does not need to violate all 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at once to gain control; it only needs the power to decide which rights no longer apply to certain individuals.
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was made as a response to the Nazis, the Communists, theocratic States, and technocratic so that totalitarianism could never exist again... https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights and be aware the UN has been overrun by DEI think of that also yet more institutional overrun... an ideology fundamentally, against its founding principles of Equality of all humans simply because they're humans and worth the equal dignity and compassion they deserve.
"Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty."
The ALP defended a librarian who was fired for refusing to (or expressing an intent to refuse to) use a coworker's preferred pronouns. Since when are cruelty and exclusion defensible? This is not a matter if "religious liberty"; no religion asks its followers not to call people what the prefer to be called.
When this runs its course the result will be the usual one. Doctrinaire imbeciles will run all “libraries.”
In every case the adults in the room, who knew better, acquiesced. Shame!
Kyle, well done. Thanks so much for this. It strongly needs to be said. I was in a New York Public Library branch the other day and all the political books on display went in one direction only. As commenter Gerda Ho below points out, ongoing learning is the purpose of libraries and it is a noble goal. That can't happen without viewpoint neutrality. If the only books available (or easily available) go in one direction only, that smacks more of indoctrination than ongoing learning which has to take multiple viewpoints into consideration. I remember bookstores in the German Democratic Republic before the wall came down. They even had Marxist cookbooks! I also remember when the Scholastic Book Club had cheap paperbacks I could buy with fascinating well-written stories with characters and events (both fiction and nonfiction, both classics and new authors) that all young people relate to. That got me hooked on reading and now I read everything. Nowadays the Scholastic book list (last time i checked) was all about gays, trans, differently abled, sexual abuse, racial injustice, and dark dystopian fantasies. What I really wonder is, is this a diet that makes a person a life-long reader?
An example:
https://jersessays.substack.com/p/social-justice-dominates-at-duke