Populism, as is known, is a quagmire, and for that very reason those who play in it often slip. This is what happened to Gabriel Rufián at his event in Barcelona with Irene Montero and Xavier Domènech when he stated that he prefers “to fill TikToks rather than libraries”, with the argument that his son “mirrors TikTok”. Measuring public policies based on what relatives do places us close to Rajoy and his denialist cousin.In any case, Rufián's sentence (which he must consider good, because he has not apologized for it nor qualified it, despite the understandable discomfort it has caused) is a mess for several reasons. The first is that it poses a false dilemma between public libraries and social networks, a choice that at first glance is not presented to anyone. On the other hand, it is true that many politicians tend to want to burden the library, or the public school, with weights that do not correspond to them to bear (in Palma, to mention a case right now, PP and Vox want to inspect libraries to see if they find “too many books in Catalan”).Public libraries offer a fundamental service for any society that wants to be advanced and offer equal opportunities to citizens, especially to the children of families who, with all certainty, do not have (because they cannot) books or other forms of access to culture and knowledge. They are also excellent spaces for socialization, not virtual, but in person. Their public is usually local, but not precisely a minority, as demonstrated by the very high figures of users and loans. Catalonia is a country with a magnificent library network and, therefore, Rufián should know all this. He should also know that what a progressive politician should do (any politician, but a progressive one more than any other, and without excuse) is to defend the public library. Not to disparage it because it does not have the audience figures of a social network with an algorithm that seeks to create addictive behaviors among its users.Perhaps the greatest paradox is that public libraries are one of the most important tools a society has in the fight against fascism, which is what Rufián says he cares about. Public libraries are essential for building critical thinking and more cultured societies, and more cultured means better informed: on the other hand, what is promoted from TikTok and other large social networks is precisely disinformation, or information poisoning. Rufián, I have said this before, is right when he warns that Spanish politics (and this directly affects Catalan politics) is once again clearly confrontational. But it is not clear that the way to stop the anti-democratic front is to play on their field, with their rules and with their tools. More libraries, better resourced and equipped, and greater recognition and prestige for the people who work there would surely help us more than a thousand viral videos of people challenging each other to idiotic dares.
