Tag: ownership

Curating against anti-intellectualism

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I’ve been thinking more about curation.

The last few years, I have hoarded more and more books, only to find myself stepping into my home library and not knowing what I want to read. On Google, I have pulled up a random number generator, selecting first a range from 1 to the number of bookshelves I have, and then within that shelf, selecting a range from 1 to 30 or so, to narrow down to a single title. Rarely, which is to say, never, have I pulled that book off its shelf and actually read it.

Instead, I would find myself back at the bookstore, searching for some book to read that suited my mood. I’d come home, either read the book, or end up setting it atop a pile and choosing something else to read.

This cycle has continued on to the point of a certain fatigue, and, if I’m being honest, frustration at not knowing what to read or how to choose.

My home library has traditionally numbered in the hundreds, sometimes rising to 600+ books, which I’ve always taken pride in. There’s a certain comfort in surrounding myself with the written word, being inspired by others’ thoughts, and always aspiring to read every book I own.

These physical books are besides the audiobooks and digital copies I have bought over the years.

The past few weeks though, in a fit of early spring cleaning, I have purged about 200 physical books, over the span of several weeks, donating many to my local library.

And the more I do so, the more books I want to let go of. It’s been surprisingly easy to do, something I’ve rarely, if ever, experienced before. I still have books piled atop books, and on my bookcases, and crammed in piles surrounding the space, but the gaps are beginning to show.

Some of the books I have had for well over a dozen years, having never opened them once to read. Others I thought I would enjoy, only to find myself tossing it aside. Still others I enjoyed at one point in my life, but have grown away from them.

Now, my shelves are taken up by books I have yet to read, but have a higher likelihood of being selected in the coming months and years. I have saved stories I have enjoyed, ones I would recommend to someone. In other words, I have curated something of a proper library, one that represents who I am and who I am becoming.

Books that I once revered have been removed; stories I once thought I “should” enjoy have been replaced by ones I will. I am growing far less concerned about having “classics” on my shelves that I do not enjoy, though I have tried to.

Which brings me to something I have been thinking about more and more recently: literary colonialism.

When thinking about the books I grew up reading in the United States, in school or simply through exposure, most have been Eurocentric, written by white people, mostly male. They have been excellent reads, and have provoked thought and consideration. But rarely has my formal education expanded beyond these identities. Even in world literature classes, anything outside that identity was pulled from more ancient epics, like that of Gilgamesh, or snippets here and there from other works, but mostly, even our global narratives were pulled from England (Shakespeare), Germany (Beowulf), Italy (Dante’s Inferno, Divine Comedy), Greece (Homer’s works), and the like, i.e. Eurocentric, white, male. I don’t recall reading a single Black author in school in any meaningful way, not Toni Morrison’s works, Octavia Butler’s, the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s, even MLK Jr’s. Not a single Black American author, not a single brown author, and limited female ones.

Why is that?

I am certainly not the first to argue this literary limitation, and certainly not the first to do anything about it, nor am I the most educated voice on this. But as I grow more into myself and into who I want to be, I am learning to lean less on what I have been told is worthy of being read, and more on what I think is deserving of my energy.

This is important. Stories we read shape what we think people should be and how they should act. They tell us what to value, what to reject. They tell us how to be. And that is a powerful and dangerous power.

In curating my library, I am not seeing the loss of 200 books; I am seeing the gain of the space I am making for other voices to be heard. I am creating opportunity to listen to those I have not historically listened or paid attention to, or the ones I wasn’t exposed to in my education. In essence, I am curating not just a library, but my own curiosity. And that is one of the greatest things I can do in developing my mind.

There also seems to be a metaphor in here about stepping back, narrowing focus, and being more deliberate. While my shelves are being cleared off, I’m seeing more of the titles I already own, books that I want to read being more visible because they’re no longer hidden by other titles. A reversal of paralysis by analysis, I suppose.

With our society’s descent into a defanged intellectualism, that is, anti-intellectualism, by way of book bans, whitewashing of history, erasure of voices, and the like, this has become all the more pressing. It feels almost like survival in its urgency.

I plan to continue this curation, centering voices I have not historically given space to, and educating myself the best way I can. I am also retaining physical copies of works, something I touched upon in another blog post, access is not ownership. When reality can be manipulated, media updated or deleted, it is that much more important to house physical copies when and where possible, and to support those institutions that allow us access, like libraries.

By: Rania Hanna

Access is not Ownership

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Something I’ve been thinking quite a lot about lately is the impermanence of things. I don’t mean that in an existential way, but in a tangible, physical domain manner.

Some years ago, I was surprised to learn that with an Audible (owned by Amazon) subscription, we do not own the audiobooks. Audible can, and has, removed titles at will, though once purchased, you should be able to access that title forever in the platform. But this leads me to several other questions, including, is something actually yours when it exists in “the cloud” in non-tangible format (at least, non-tangible in that it cannot be manipulated as an object by you) and could, theoretically, be removed at any point by someone other than you? Is it ownership, or is it permission to access that these platforms offer us?

And does it matter?

I’m sure this brings up many counterpoints and philosophical questions, but I’m more curious about what effect this has on our psychology, to feel so disconnected from the very things we interact with, and the very things which we purport to “own.” If a mega-conglomerate can control what I have access to, do I have, truly, access to those things? If the gate can be opened and closed without my control, do I control that gate?

I worry of the sense of impermanence this creates in our psyches, the idea that attachment is a risk, that nothing is real or stable. To me, this goes beyond the more philosophical “nothing lasts forever,” and more into the territory of a constantly shifting floor. I wonder if this will transfer not just to our perceptions of how media exists, but to our relationships, our sense of belonging and community, and the more important things in life. I wonder then: does this lead to more individualism and a further erosion of our communities and societies?

This, of course, leads to the natural concern of censorship. With book bans galore, too many to list out here, any opportunity for powers to remove or restrict access to books is a concern. When you do not physically retain something, it becomes that much easier to “disappear” it from your possession, doesn’t it?

This doesn’t just end with books.

In May 2023, before the October 7th attack on Israel, and before Israel’s current genocide of Palestinians, Mohammed Assaf, a Palestinian singer, claimed his popular song, Ana Dammi Falastini (My Blood is Palestinian), released in 2015, was removed from both Spotify and Apple. Assaf said he’d received “an official email about it, on the pretext that the song incites the Zionist enemy, …”

I know this song well, having listened to it for years, and not once does it mention, even implicitly, Zionism, never mind violence. The song is simply one that shows pride in, and honors, Palestinian heritage.

Spotify denied having removed the song, but claimed that “availability may vary over time and by country.” They further added that though they themselves did not remove the song, the song’s distributor did.

None of this makes sense to me given Assaf’s claim on receiving the email that specifically called out a Zionist-centered reason for the song’s removal. And while the song was unavailable on Spotify and Apple, it remained streaming on Arabic-music platform, Anghami.

The song was eventually relisted on Spotify following backlash, and after “a new license agreement was signed.” This apparently is not that new or unusual, though, with songs disappearing due to expired agreements, and reappearing once new ones are signed. But this still harkens back to my earlier point in this article: who owns the very things we consume? And what power can, and do, they wield over us because of this?

What’s interesting to me, besides the removal at will of media is the changing of media.

After watching the movie Sinners, I found the movie soundtrack on Spotify and quickly added my favorite songs to my “Liked” list.

But some weeks ago, when relistening to one of the songs, Pale, Pale, Moon, I was surprised to find the song sounded different from my memory of it. I listened again, and again, replaying the beginning segment in particular. Had the song been updated or changed since I’d last listened to it? It didn’t seem like a remix.

I quickly wondered if I was losing my mind.

A quick review of Spotify, and I realized that there were two versions of the song, one by singer Jayme Lawson, which was the one I knew first, and another by singer Brittany Howard, which was the one I’d heard that sounded different to me. I enjoy both, but one is more familiar to me.

This instance had a simple, and innocuous, explanation, but it did get me thinking: media can be so easily and subtly updated without our noticing and control, can’t it? What does this mean, then, for our sense of shared reality? Our sense of truth? How do we retain veracity when our entire realities can be force-changed like an operating system pushing out updates? When reality can be updated, how do we keep trusting our senses and each other?

Ownership does have a certain feel to me, more of a consumerist or capitalistic mentality, and may not be what we are all after. But for me, it’s not so much the ownership, as the continued and promised access, without change, to media, especially books, music, and art. What happens to a society if what it is exposed to can be changed without permission and without explanation?

With the change of US TikTok from Chinese ByteDance to US control, entire accounts have seen plummeting views and even banning. Emmy-winning Palestinian journalist surviving in Gaza Bisan Owda, with her 1.4 million followers, has been permanently banned from Tiktok after the change to US hands. According to an Al Jazeera article, “Hours after Owda shared her video, an account that appeared to have the same username was still visible on TikTok in Australia – but not in the Middle East, when Al Jazeera checked in different geographies.” When platforms control so much of our access to information, to thought, to clarity, what kind of reality is being created for us?

It concerns me, this thought, because it connects to power structures, to propaganda, censorship, suppression, and, ultimately, to loss of freedom. Intellectual identity and access is inherent to freedom, to education, and the reliable access to it is an integral foundation of a healthy society. When that access can be interrupted or outfitted with a new texture, we no longer have education; we have redirection, misdirection, and ultimately, de-education.

I am hardly the first to point all of this out, and I don’t have answers to most of the questions I’ve posed above, but I do wonder about them. I wonder what type of society is being, and has been, created when reality, especially art, can be so easily updated, turned on or off at will, and subject to outside powers.

By: Rania Hanna

Let me know what you think, whether you’ve had the same thoughts, or different ones, and whether this all bothers you as much as it does me.