[tom hyle]

Sorry, Wolviex; I think the orphanage comparison was very accurate. Museum curators may (I say "may"; it is certainly not required) be passionate, concerning usually only a certain specialized area, and not usually every thing under their care. Moreover, the importance of that passion is considerably diminished, as, acting within a social institution, they are not allowed to act upon that passion, but must act according to rules and plans laid down by the group. This takeover of human activity from politics to production to interpersonal relations by the concepts and institutions of specialization/professionalism is not a minor issue, nor is there a single area of our lives to which it is not relevant. If you have a doctor in your family and one not, otherwise equal, who do you go to? Right. Why? Because he cares; the other is merely making a rules-bound social/economic transaction. Yes, people can care about their jobs and the affects on others/the world, but they don't HAVE to, and many don't. In a good orphanage the kids always get all their shots and plenty to eat, which is more than they'd get in many poor families, but (even assuming all orphanages being good ones) is that a substitute for love and family? Most would not say so. So the care and preservation of musea staff with, as has been pointed out, more to take care of than they properly can and impersonal rules about how to do it, is not the same as that of a loving individual. Heck, the ideal situation for a sword, where it most fulfills its spirituality and functionality, where it most interacts as it was meant to, and the only place where truly proper care is available, is to be owned by a person whose only sword it is, and who loves, respects, and depends upon it.......
Also, as usual when promoting control by social institutions, the wealth and power that can be brought to bear that so exceeds that of the individual is the promoted value, but there is inevitably (INEVITABLY) a loss of the personal, the passionate, and indeed, the real. It is only people who live with swords, for instance, as swords, who can really know them. In a museum you cannot do this. Try sharpening up one of the swords to do some test cuts (let alone because it wants to be sharp and ready to kill); how would your boss like that? Now, maybe if you could submit a paper, before and after, with all the proper tribal seals and such, and measure and quantify everything until you strip it of all spirit and feel, then maybe you'd be allowed.........as for private owners being less able to care for swords A/ that's known as life; some would rather live life in the world than in the various prisons of safety offered by society.....and B/ private owners are MORE able to properly care for swords, because we are able to treat them as swords, something musea and academic collections very rarely do, and indeed, try to prevent.
Don't take it like a personal insult; to say many professionals don't care and that the forces of professionalism and social institutionality can be counter to passionate stewardship are just facts of the world. These facts do nothing to discredit the good workers, though I can see where they might dishearten one somewhat. Social institutions, for good or ill, or whatever combination, are what we're stuck with, and will be increasingly stuck with: That much is clear. So I do not argue for stripping and destroying social institutions, but they have a condemnable way of making their way the only way, and of shutting out the individual, and I don't care to stand by and watch that justified.
And I will never get over those humans in England throwing the rennaissance swords into the melter because they'd studied them enough and had no room for them. That was not love.....I bet they'd say they hated doing it. I bet they'd say they hated HAVING to do it, but we don't have to do anything but die, and it's when we let Master/social institutions tell us how to live we somehow forget that.