"Intellectual Freedom" by Samek

I am not really sure how this introduction fit in with the book that it was introducing, but I do know that it sparked in my mind some interesting things concerning neutrality versus social responsibility. First, it has always been unclear to me why social responsibility is not a neutral and universal value. What in the world is controversial about wanting others to be treated as you yourself want to be treated? For social responsibility not to be neutral it would take someone who does not believe in the idea of social responsibility, someone whose overarching worldview precludes any sense of justice or ethics except when it comes to ones’ self. Also, why are these two ideas put in opposition to each other? Enacting social responsibility and advocating for such things in the library like alternative periodicals is a part of getting back to a intellectually neutral place, one that accepts all kinds of opinions. If the “mainstream” library is traditionally conservative in nature, wouldn’t the inclusion of its opposite create a neutral ground for all parties? Logically that opposition between the two ideas doesn’t really make any sense to me. Also, one of my favorite words is ‘hegemony’ and I think it is used very well here. While librarians probably tend to think of themselves as intellectually radical, and maybe some of them really are, the entrenched authority behind libraries I would definitely characterize as a power-hungry hegemony, whether that be male-oriented, white-oriented, or upper-class oriented. One question that this article did not answer was why the social responsibility movements died out as quickly as they did. While some still live on today, the real tumultuous time of the 60s just seemed to flop into the drug-obsessed 70s and 80s, as if nothing had ever happened.