The Maenadic Principles
These are the eight loose tenets by which the Library is organized. Within the bounds of the Library as a metaphysical space, they are a rough code of suggested conduct; Outside, they act as the positions with which we align ourselves in our critique of existing policy and advocate from in addressing the problems presented by the complexities of a rapidly changing global culture, one where information and how it is organized and accessed plays an ever-growing role. These are living philosophies, open to ongoing discussion, change, and adaptation as the Dionysian Public Library's mission adapts to meet the shifting demands of a changing cultural landscape. As it stands, these principles include:
1. Bread & Roses for all.
This means that everyone, regardless of class status, creed, heritage, sexual or gender identity, perceived moral standing, or any other qualifier of identification, deserves access to both Bread, that being necessities of life to nourish the body—water, food, housing, medicine—as well as Roses, that being some access to beauty and aesthetic pleasures to nourish the spirit.
2. Art, culture, and information belong to the People, and information technology exists to serve the People.
The Library, existing in both a physical and digital capacity, exists for the primary purpose of propagating a cultural shift towards an open-book approach to information congregation in the internet age, arguing that a well-organized absolute public domain is a far more common sense approach to organizing cultural artifacts than the current system of copyright and patent. We advise the establishment of a publicly-curated, collectively-owned creative commons as opposed to the highly-segregated systems now in place. This precludes the usage of cultural artifacts by so-called "generative learning algorithms", which reduce humans to passive agents in the production of cultural artifacts at the expense of exploiting labor from working-class creatives. In accordance with this stance, all works produced by the library are considered not under copyright, but collectively-owned by the public, and each contributor retains their personal rights to their individual work in its entirety.
3. Institutions may patronize art, culture, and information, but only the People may take ownership of its production.
A corollary to Item 2.—The sum total of human knowledge is a public utility and as such belongs to humanity, and the current system of producing, distributing, and storing information has wrought disastrous consequences on the public. While honoring and respecting the work that institutions do to feed the media-production landscape, we are also critical and skeptical of the idea of hierarchal legal authority in the labor of keeping and tending to the preservation of cultural artifacts and instead see these formalized entities—schools and academies, publishing houses, media networks, ect.—as avenues for pooling creative labor as opposed entities unto themselves, and believe that any work produced through a collaborative structure should be collaboratively owned. In short, creative laborers are entitled to their labor.
4. We do not abide guns or bombs within the Library, and question their use without.
While respecting the utility of firearms and other instruments of mechanized force as sometimes valuable in the defense of innocence, while visiting or working within the Library, we ask that your set aside your incendiary devices and artillery at the coat check. We maintain a position of enormous scrutiny and cynicism towards the role played by the arms industry in any liberatory movement, and request that regardless of your leanings outside of your visitation, that you refrain from carrying while on Library premises. Outside of our own walls, we advocate for the following positions: a) Total global nuclear disarmament. b) Mandatory de-escalation training for and disarmament of law enforcement officers who maintain public-facing roles worldwide. b) Common-sense censures on weapons manufacturers and distributors rather than gun legislation which focuses on public ownership. c) That inventions designed to make killing easy, automated, or remote should always be a matter of last resort, and even then, the decision to utilize them should be one treated with enormous gravity, caution, and consideration.
5. The Land is alive, we are of Her, and She may not be owned or tamed, merely communed with.
6. Play and party hard but play and party with grace, curiosity, and dignity.
7. No human being is illegal or belongs in a cage, and no one beyond redemption should they seek it.
8. The greatest lesson there is to learn is love and be loved in return, and Creation is love in action.
The Golden Rule. Love thy neighbor. You should know the drill. All other principles are subservient to this rule, though Stricture 1. acts as the most useful measuring stick we have for love in action.
