¿ªÔÆÌåÓý

Historian Kenneth Clark argued that, to survive, a civilization requires one thing above all: confidence. Confidence in itself; confidence in its culture and laws; confidence in the individual and collective capacities of its citizens to shape the future. But confidence is fragile. When shaken, it can shatter, taking civilization with it.  Only a pane of glass, a coat of varnish, separates us from chaos.

This fragility is increasingly clear in a society rattled by “fake newsâ€�, by efforts to censor phrases like “evidence-basedâ€� from official vocabularies, and by relentless demonization of “the otherâ€� to make America great again.  

I was reminded of this during a recent walk in New York City, when I chanced upon a sidewalk plaque inscribed with language from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass:

“When I use a word,� Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean � neither more nor less.�
“The question is,� said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.�
“The question is,� said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master � that's all.�

I was on East 41st Street approaching the New York Public Library. Here, on what’s called Library Walk, are forty-four bronze sidewalk plaques with inscriptions celebrating the freedom of the human spirit. The library itself, of course, is a monument to human aspiration and a beacon to large numbers of foreign visitors, who come to witness something many of them don’t have at home: the unfettered pursuit of knowledge by ordinary people.

That’s worth remembering in these troubled times. Those readers and researchers quietly working away in the main reading room are a collective rebuke to the arrogance of those who seek to impose their own version of truth on the rest of us.

“The question is,� said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master � that’s all.�

Libraries are a reminder that each of us has the power to be master â€� to learn the truth and use it rather than knuckle under to the Humpty Dumptys of the world.  What it takes is confidence: confidence in knowing â€� and acting on - something found on another sidewalk plaque, this one bearing words of artist Georges Braque:

“Truth exists. Only falsehood has to be invented.â€�