There’s so much one could say about the news of Ms. Earl’s departure. I could
mention her complete lack of understanding of the role of a main library, of reference,
of management, of how to motivate or work with people. I could mock the fractured
grammar with which she attempted to explain her equally fractured ideas. I could retell
stories of her nastiness towards those she supervised, or I could describe her Uriah
Heepishness – obsequious to those above her, obnoxious to those below her. But
when I think about the role played by Susan Earl in this whole disastrous story of the
last few years, what I really want to remember is the moral lesson I learned from her
behavior.
In some times and some places, people have had to face the big moral questions –
how to behave in the face of something as horrible as slavery, or how to live under
repression as during the Nazi occupation. But thankfully, for most of us our morality
plays out on a smaller scale, in daily choices of how to treat others and how to live our
lives.
These last few years some of those who work for the library unexpectedly came face to
face with some bigger moral issues. Illegal and wrong things were done, and people
in a position to do something about it had to decide what to do.
Some chose the path of least resistance, carrying out instructions they knew were
wrong and justifying it on grounds like “I need my job.” Others stood up in defiance
and saw their careers wrecked. A lot just stood on the sidelines and watched, and
salved their conscience by pretending it wasn’t their fight. And some actively
cooperated with those in charge. They saw it as their opportunity to go up the ladder,
and so they emulated their masters in their devotion to power, and in their methods
of divisiveness, of untruth, of creating a climate of fear and tale-carrying.
The irony, of course, is that “the mills of the gods grind slow, but they grind exceeding
small.” Hang on long enough, and the universe will restore balance. Uday and
Quasai were once the big men of Iraq – and where is their power now? In the end
what lasts is who we are, not what we have attained.
And so goodbye to Ms. Earl. Ms. Garnes fell, and now her protégé joins her in
ignominious retreat. The last of the gang still sits in her bunker on the 6th floor,
worrying about when she will join them. The climate of fear that they attempted to
create has been broken. They are not feared, they are loathed, and their legacy will
be one of failure and destruction.
Sic semper tyrannis.
--"A Survivor"
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