Freedom and Neutrality: Reframing the Debate

Abstract

Neutrality is library science’s ultimate ethicalbogeyman. It is our enemy, our goal, our Achilles’ heel. Often portrayed either as an indispensable boon or an illusory bane, this contentious and contested concept haunts our literature, acting as a cartoon barometer for the disciplinary mood. Some commentators view neutrality as a democratic lynchpin, an essential stance; others see it as an ironic tool of insidious oppression. From the nineteen-sixties to today, an urgent question has echoed: is impartiality a necessary precondition for protecting intellectual freedom? 

Contemporary incarnations of this historic debate are sometime scharacterized as moot, or needlessly unproductive, in the eyes of external observers. These complaints, however distressing, are well founded: our discourse doestend to lack a solid semantic substrate. Although some recent contributions have sought to calm the epistemological storm, many authors remain unwilling or unable to overcome key communicational roadblocks. Essential philosophical considerations are frequently omitted, insufficiently examined (and articulated), or simply considered unimportant. Terms are left undefined, often assuming so many different ideological valences that their usefulness is diminished. Most interventions are made in good faith, and participants generally speak from the heart—but what are they truly speaking of? 

Is our current approach one which might create real change, or has an uncareful discourse produced “manufactured controvers[ies]” and “meaningless [...] battle[s]”?3 Does our disciplinary lexicon—and the organization or ‘grouping’ of ideas/ideologies that it implies—mask underlying commonalities or possibilities for agreement? Does it obscure real routes toward resolution?  

This paper argues that a new framework—a new lens for viewing the tension between neutrality, social values, and intellectual freedom—is not only necessary but possible and productive.