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Refitting our libraries to be more like community centers would help. Having visited a few libraries abroad, I think ghis is whats missing in the US.
by chapium 7y ago
Refitting our libraries to be more like community centers would help. Having visited a few libraries abroad, I think ghis is whats missing in the US.
- fjsolwmv 7y agoThis is happening a lot across the US, but should happen more. And doing so doesn't put the books part at risk, as some fear; and it might turn people on to books by proximity.
- tathougies 7y agoI don't think this helps. It's not just having a space to meet. It's having a reason to meet. Without the unifying force of religion or another philosophy, we invariably devolve into family-based group identity, which is another word for ethnonationalism or identity politics.
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- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bilbo0s 7y ago>which is another word for ethnonationalism or identity politics... To be fair, so is "religion" in practice.
- tathougies 7y agoIdentity politics, perhaps. Ethnonationalism, I don't think is an inherent part of it, as is seen in the universal audience of certain major religions, like Islam and Christianity
- jtmcmc 7y agothe obvious counter example to this is people who meetup and create subcultures - the array of which are vast.
- zbentley 7y agoThat's a good direction to work towards. However, there's a lot of what engineers would call "tech debt" in that area. Make libraries more like community centers, and you have to deal with an inrush of people who have been rejected by other parts of the failing social safety nets in their lives. In the process of trying to pay that debt, many libraries are judged (ignorantly, I believe) as havens for the crazy or hostile. It's a MUCH bigger problem than just "make $x space better/safer/more accomodating", though that is part of it.