The political core of any movement for freedom in the society has to have the political imperative to protect free speech. – bell hooks
The last week of September is celebrated as “Banned Books Week”, a time not only to encourage the reading of books that busybodies (both official and otherwise) don’t want anyone to read, but also to remind people just how pervasive the urge to censor actually is. Nor is it limited to those traditionally labeled “social conservatives”, who use words like “obscenity” and “immorality” to describe the things they want to censor; nowadays, the most belligerent, aggressive and effective proponents of censorship are those who consider themselves “progressive” or “feminist”, and who describe their targets with words like “sexist”, “racist”, “homophobic”, “objectifying”, etc, etc ad absurdum, ad nauseam. You won’t see those excuses used as much in cries for the suppression of traditional un-illustrated print books, probably because the authorities these types follow have taught them that book-burning is something “conservatives” do. But widen the scope to include comic books and graphic novels, music videos, movies and computer games and you will be absolutely inundated with them. Furthermore, the promoters of this chic form of censorship very often don’t call for the direct government suppression of their targets; that would, after all, be censorship, and every thinking person knows censorship is bad. So instead, they just “critique” the things they want banned and sling ad hominems like “misogynistic” at their targets’ creators, hoping to make them so radioactive in the public mind that risk-averse corporations will refuse to fund them.
Yes, I understand that this isn’t technically censorship in the strictest traditional sense of the word, because it isn’t being forcibly executed by a political authority. Neither is Operation Choke Point direct criminalization of the businesses it targets; that doesn’t change the fact that those businesses are as effectively suppressed as if they had been criminalized. In our present fascist system, government and big business are as intricately and symbiotically interconnected as the components of a lichen; to say that a cartel’s blocking of some sort of information isn’t really censorship is as specious as saying that a soccer player isn’t “handling” a ball because he’s moving it around with his feet, knees and head. And if government, religion, academia or other respected “authority” figures spread lies in order to frighten even non-cartel businesses away from handling certain material, why that’s not censorship either. These forms of “censorship lite” are very much in vogue right now; one might call them “censor chic” if one had a taste for puns. And while they lack the violence associated with actual criminalization of forbidden ideas, they are still very effective in creating an intellectual soil highly toxic to free expression.
In last year’s essay for the occasion (which I republished yesterday in Cliterati), I wrote that…
…the desire to suppress knowledge and images of sex is so powerful that those afflicted with it are willing to devote tremendous amounts of money and manpower in a futile quest to that end; they are willing to deny millions of women income and freedom, to expose all women to much greater chances of rape, to risk the death of their children from disease, and to cripple the greatest tool of communication ever devised. This is not rational behavior; it is a mental illness, and for sane people to give in to the censors merely exacerbates their condition and locks all of us up into a vast Bedlam with them.
Thinking people must not let themselves be intimidated by these self-appointed guardians of the public morality; we must speak out against all forms of censorship and speech suppression, whether advanced by guns, threats, intimidation or appeals to nebulous “harm” to women and children, and fight for everyone’s right to have his say…even if what he has to say is vile and offensive. Bad ideas will eventually be shunned in the marketplace of ideas and die on their own; it is both unnecessary and wrong to try to keep others from hearing those ideas and making up their own minds about their quality.
Maggie, you are absolutely awesome. I never thought about the attempt to suppress what seems in bad taste as censorship but you are, of course, absolutely right. Reading your columns is mind blowing.
Thank you! 🙂
I went to a Jesuit High School. In addition to the hours of community service we had to perform, we had a summer reading list. Typical on the list were items like Huckleberry Finn, The Outsiders, Lord of the Flies, Cat’s Cradle, Catcher in the Rye, etc. Fast forward twenty years later and I was reading a blurb in the paper about the American Library Association’s most banned books in American and it was damn near my summer reading list. As a bonus, the Senior play was Jesus Christ Superstar, the heretical play my recent departed Seminole Presbyterian School just told me was offensive. I’m an Atheist-Agnostic now but I do have a soft spot for the Jesuits. Censorship was not never part of their agenda.
The nuns at my Catholic high school didn’t believe in censorship, either; my experience was very similar to yours.
There’s a line between censorship and critical rejection that you seem to be blurring hear- sure people can use critical rejection and smeer campaigns to “censor” things, but it’s [em]not[/em] censorship. It’s also not wrong if they are using valid criticisms to reduce the audience of an artist or writer who is popular- that is how you sway public opinions.
The only time it’s legitimate to vilify a critical “smeer” campaign is if it really is just a smeer campaign- where lies and misinformation are used to artificially undermine a creator.
You cannot condemn people for speaking criticism of offensive material any more than you can condemn people for writing offensive material in the first place. As long as there is a medium available for them to meet their audience- like the internet, I think you just have to leave it alone. Trolls with troll, afterall.
I’m not talking about mere campaigns of public opinion; I’m talking about campaigns using buzzwords that are specifically directed toward cartels in the attempt to get them to block things the busybodies don’t like without having to use “official” government censorship. You know, like the way the MSM won’t touch honest sex work stories for fear “feminists” will scream at them about “sex trafficking”, “paid rape”, “misogyny”, “violence against women”, etc. When a cartel controls most speech of one kind it cannot easily be differentiated from censorship; hence the Bradbury quote.
Hmm, that sounds more like a criticism of blatant yellow journalism that’s replaceing what should be a medium of free speach.
I certainly agree that big business owned media is about a separate from the state as congress is, I guess I just found your wording somewhat alarming
The root problem, it seems to me, lies in “critical thinking”.
Ad Hominems and crafted buzzwords are directly and indirectly effective when the individuals subject and exposed to them fail, for various reasons, to analyze the implicit claims and statements as objectively, rationally, and logically as they’re capable, if necessary even suspending any judgment or postponing conclusion until they’ve had adequate time to gather more data on the issues in focus. Critical thinking resists the seductions of rhetorical and logical fallacies; heck, if everyone could/would exercise critical thought, then any factually harmful or erroneous idea or claim would be effectually “banned” and “censored” by the simple recognition of either as such in the thought of each individual.
Regrettably, those who are agenda-driven (as well as too many of those with “bad ideas”) often succeed because much if not most of the public seems either unwilling, unequipped, and/or unable to critically evaluate claims, especially emotionally-laden claims.
Maggie, I ran into this elsewhere on the net and thought you might find it comment-worthy:
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21611074-how-new-technology-shaking-up-oldest-business-more-bang-your-buck?zid=319&ah=17af09b0281b01505c226b1e574f5cc1
More related to the post, I’m wondering what books might be appropriate to read for banned books week. Lolita, perhaps? Was that ever actually banned?
Too slow! That was over a month ago. 🙂
“Banned books” is in a way a misnomer, since few are ever actually banned in the US; more often they’re just challenged. If you click on the “Banned Books Week” link in the first line of the post, it will take you to a website that has (among other things) lists of the most frequently-challenged books.
Well, oops. I was sort of hoping for a second opinion on their economic analysis of the trade, rather than their editorial stance. I already know you approve of media outlets opposing criminalization. 🙂 (did they do a prostitution-themed issue, or something? Your TW3 link is to a different article for the same date)
Hrm. I thought bans were more common than that, at least until the latter half of the 20th century. I’ll check out the book lists.
talking about censorship…
I just love heavy metal, and how stuff like this pisses off all the femanazi’s (strange that how the love abortion so much) and conservative christians (strange that when they are a religion of the sword)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=26AlU5zM058
just because something ain’t in good taste doesn’t mean it doesn’t taste good…
http://thequietus.com/articles/08231-cannibal-corpse-lyrics
With you …
Buck Cherry’s “Crazy Bitch” elicits the same kind of reactions. But I watch people at the bars when this comes on the jukebox … and all the cool people LOVE it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ6pLKlU-8Q
Should add that to the list of “hooker songs” … he’s singing about a hooker if you read the lyrics carefully.
Nice song, not a heavy metal guy, let me know when the Goth version comes out, OK?
I like “Cory Doctorow,” and he said something interesting once in an interview, I’ll try to say it from memory since I think it gets to a similar point….
“My daughter will sometimes end up in a place on the internet she didn’t intend to go to, I just say ‘let me help you find what you’re looking for’ and get her to the right address.
So one time, I see her on youtube watching a (video) commercial for Barbie (dolls,) and I say ‘let me help you find what your’re looking for’ and I try to touch her keyboard and she pulls the laptop away and says ‘no, daddy, I want to watch this.’
I finally understood censorship.”