Since 2003, Hangzhou Library has been open to all readers, including beggars and scavengers. The only requirement of the library for these special readers is to wash their hands before reading. Since the implementation of this measure, it has always caused dissatisfaction among some readers. "I have no right to refuse them to study in it, but you have the right to choose to leave." This sentence by Jun Shuqing, director of Hangzhou Library, was widely forwarded in Weibo two years ago. Many bloggers praised the director as a legacy of Peking University ... (Xinmin Evening News 65438+ 19)

This shouldn't have been news-since the library is open to the public for free, it should include beggars, scavengers or other vulnerable groups, but it happened to be news. If it is difficult for society to avoid division because of the difference in professional status and rich-poor status, then at least in the spiritual world, there is no gap between rich and poor and high and low. As the famous writer Borges, director of the National Library of Argentina, once said, "If there is a paradise, it should be like a library."

Their social identities are beggars, scavengers and migrant workers ... but their spiritual dignity and civil rights are equally inviolable. I can't tolerate the "reading" of the disadvantaged groups around me. This aggressive aristocratic arrogance is essentially a spiritual dwarf of myself-no matter how many books I read, I am still a cultural dwarf.

This not uncommon social mentality reminds me of a college entrance examination composition "They" in Shanghai a few years ago. "At the end of the city, there are no bustling streets and flashing neon lights ... At the end of the city, there are a group of people like them-what do you call them? Children of migrant workers? Farmers' children? Or the second generation of migrant workers? No, I don't want to call them by these cold names. I want to call them by their native baby names and bring their little hands into their lives. "Sincere words explain and express a subtle and embarrassing context-have we ever thought about" them "and" walked into their lives "and laughed as if they were members of our group?

The beggars in the library are shocking and dissatisfied and become news. The crux of the problem is that many people can't stand their eyes. Looking further, it is not difficult to find that there is not only a lack of acceptance of "them"-outsiders and vulnerable groups in the city; For all the strange "them", we also lack the humanistic consciousness of sympathy or care. Looking back, this simple word "they" has actually become very complicated in the context of modern society. How enthusiastic are we to hold their hands? How much trust can we walk with them? The relationship between the strong and the weak, the relationship between people, has become sharp and antagonistic in many cases, indifferent and numb, and "they" seems to be an unreachable illusion.

Obviously, public opinion's excessive concern about the incident of "the library accepts beggars and scavengers" can be understood as an emotional release. Behind this release, it actually reflects an emotional crisis of the public-the public is deeply worried about the lack of social communication and the growing indifference between people.