Madame:
My, my, we have been
flitting from subject to subject. How
odd we are! We can take a year on a
single book and then change to three different subjects in a single post!
Your mention of the return of virulent anti-semitism and other
hatreds we thought were on their way to fading out: have you noticed that they may be fulfilling
Toynbee’s famous warning with just a
slight modification—that when the last survivors, the last direct rememberers
of a horrible mass evil have departed this life, the next one begins to form. Or even the departure of rememberers of “just” a systemic injustice.
It’s so easy to be cynical and revel in our supposed helplessness,
to give ourselves permission that nothing can be done.
That’s what the status quo’ers want.
But we don’t have to play, and particularly, don’t need to use
their playbook.
We can instead choose a little pushback, or a determination to do
good, to be a positive light; to be, as you remind us, our own little
light.
Like this person:
For those who can’t read the sign, it says
“Welcome Young Readers! This is a ‘Little Time
Library’ Please take a book and return it for another book. Read often!
Read every day!”
Ah, libraries.
The mission of one near me is “to preserve yesterday, inform today,
and inspire tomorrow.”
A good mission.
Whether it’s a public library, or, like above, a private one opened to
the public!
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