1) People who don’t derive pleasure from reading do generally see it as an affection, because they can’t understand the appeal outside of apparent status-signaling. Reading, and discovering new material to read, is in fact an intensely selfish pleasure, but it is not a natural pleasure; if you didn’t get hooked in childhood, it’s probably not possible to convince you, and so you will forever see someone offering you a free book as some kind of hostile, elitist signal.
2) There are a lot of reasons why LFLs may not always thrive in low-income neighborhoods (although there are quite a few in mine, and it’s no Beverly Hills), but I would suggest that it is not because the residents exist in some higher state of authenticity.
Ha, nice try on throwing shade. I read voraciously, and have done so since I could pick up my first book. I don't think there's any more or less dignity in being poor, but neither am I impressed with these weird things wealthy people do to appear socially responsible. It's not solidarity, it's not really mutual aid, it's just performative. It's charity, but only a tiny amount, in only the places where it's not needed. I guarantee you, if someone from my neighborhood walked through a neighbourhood with these things and tried to pick up a book, you'd have Aurora PD with a boot on their neck before they made it back home.
Honestly, ultimately it's not that I think these are bad, but the attention to them is just gauche. It's weird to draw attention to this thing that I've literally only seen privileged people put up infront of their homes.
2) There are a lot of reasons why LFLs may not always thrive in low-income neighborhoods (although there are quite a few in mine, and it’s no Beverly Hills), but I would suggest that it is not because the residents exist in some higher state of authenticity.