Letter: In Amherst, Can Good People Agree to Disagree?
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A version of this letter was also submitted to the Daily Hampshire Gazette and the Amherst Bulletin.
The Daily Hampshire Gazette has recently published personal denunciation, by leaders of Amherst’s Jones Library, directed at those who dare to criticize the plans for their demolition and expansion project (see here and here). It’s not the critiques of the expensive plans that bother those writers as much as the fact that, as they see it, the critics of their plans (and I am one of the critics) are bad people.
One writer, a former Jones trustee, calls us “NIMBYs” whose critical comments are “bad-faith actions”. His wife, a current trustee, says we are “the same vocal minority to block every project”.
The Library’s director calls us “stinkers” more than once in her email messages. And a former trustee proudly wears a tee shirt that says, of one of us critics, “[Name deleted] is a Bozo”.
The Library’s paid fundraiser used profanity when telling a former president of the library board of trustees that “You are such a [profanity deleted] nuisance….so why don’t you shut the hell up”.
I suppose that the state of national politics today has made some of us forget the long-held notion that good people can have fair and honest objections to what leaders have proposed. That people on both sides of an important matter may disagree, while still being fine citizens who want the best for their community.
We who live here like to say “In Amherst only the ‘H’ is silent”. I remain hopeful that my fellow townspeople who happen to be leading the Jones Library will come to accept that people who disagree with their plans do so because we share their love of the Jones and want only the very best for it in the future.
Ken Rosenthal
Ken Rosenthal lives on Sunset Avenue in Amherst. He was Chair of the Zoning Board of Appeals and of the former Development and Industrial Commission, and was a member of the Select Committee on Goals for Amherst. He was a founder of Hampshire College and its first Chief Financial Officer.
Ken, there is one place where I disagree with you here. I do not think the current plan to destroy the Jones Library that we know and love is motivated by a love of the Jones Library. We are not having civil, open minded, considerate discourse on this matter because there has never been any reasonable attempt to craft a plan that is inclusive of the diversity of ideas and perspective on the future of the Jones Library. It is so ironic that those who shower insults on others are usually describing their own behavior more that the behavior of the other person. The break down of dialogue, collaboration and inclusion on the national level is unfortunately mirrored in our governing practices in our home town. Language and demeanor that formerly was considered unacceptable has become almost commonplace.