"No-Thing will come of No-Thing. Think again."
May 16, 2012 7:48 AM Subscribe
"This is the final victory of the censor: When people, even people who know they are routinely lied to, cease to be able to imagine what is really the case." Salman Rushdie, On Censorship.
I'm so tempted to flag this post just for the irony.
posted by wolfdreams01 at 8:10 AM on May 16, 2012 [4 favorites]
posted by wolfdreams01 at 8:10 AM on May 16, 2012 [4 favorites]
Thank you Salman. I will try to encourage people to see "boat rocking" as an admirable thing, regardless of their personal distaste for it. And I will try to do the same myself.
posted by rebent at 8:11 AM on May 16, 2012
posted by rebent at 8:11 AM on May 16, 2012
Always a good reminder. I would say this essay strays a bit on the side of having to like everything to protect it. I do not think all of the art he mentions is worth anything, but free speech is worth having to protect worthless art.
No writer ever really wants to talk about censorship.
Haha. Okay.
posted by michaelh at 8:11 AM on May 16, 2012
No writer ever really wants to talk about censorship.
Haha. Okay.
posted by michaelh at 8:11 AM on May 16, 2012
Maybe not the 'final victory', but certainly a victory for the censor occurs when people defend calls for censorship and other repression as 'expressions of free speech' themselves. There are wide gray areas involved, but we seem to have gone way past the pale on that account.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:15 AM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:15 AM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
oneswellfoop: "Maybe not the 'final victory', but certainly a victory for the censor occurs when people defend calls for censorship and other repression as 'expressions of free speech' themselves. There are wide gray areas involved, but we seem to have gone way past the pale on that account."
I agree. I think a lot of people think that "If it exists, it's bad for me, because WHO KNOWS who could get their hands on it and turn into someone who hurts me / hurts someone I care about / hurts someone I don't care about / votes against my politics?"
I'm getting pretty sick of this viewpoint, actually.
posted by rebent at 8:19 AM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
I agree. I think a lot of people think that "If it exists, it's bad for me, because WHO KNOWS who could get their hands on it and turn into someone who hurts me / hurts someone I care about / hurts someone I don't care about / votes against my politics?"
I'm getting pretty sick of this viewpoint, actually.
posted by rebent at 8:19 AM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
I'm curious how broadly you define this gray area you imagine, oneswellfoop...
I take it you're opposed to popular boycotts of books as well? What about bad reviews? Is giving a book a very bad review and encouraging others to stay away from it censorship or defending a call for censorship/repression, because I kind of get the sense that sometimes, when you're on the receiving end of popular rejection of your book/ideas, it can feel an awful lot like censorship when in reality its just people making choices they have every right to make--indeed, a responsibility to make, considering that, presumably, it takes informed and conscientious consumers who are making discriminating and informed choices to create a quality marketplace of ideas. I don't think you mean to include that kind of thing in this scary "gray area," but I've seen it done by people with political axes to grind.
posted by saulgoodman at 8:27 AM on May 16, 2012
I take it you're opposed to popular boycotts of books as well? What about bad reviews? Is giving a book a very bad review and encouraging others to stay away from it censorship or defending a call for censorship/repression, because I kind of get the sense that sometimes, when you're on the receiving end of popular rejection of your book/ideas, it can feel an awful lot like censorship when in reality its just people making choices they have every right to make--indeed, a responsibility to make, considering that, presumably, it takes informed and conscientious consumers who are making discriminating and informed choices to create a quality marketplace of ideas. I don't think you mean to include that kind of thing in this scary "gray area," but I've seen it done by people with political axes to grind.
posted by saulgoodman at 8:27 AM on May 16, 2012
Well certainly there is a vast gulf of difference between "no one should buy this book" and "this book should not be sold," though I suppose either statement would have its defenders, using the same "freedom of speech" argument.
posted by El Sabor Asiatico at 8:36 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by El Sabor Asiatico at 8:36 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Maybe not the 'final victory', but certainly a victory for the censor occurs when people defend calls for censorship and other repression as 'expressions of free speech' themselves. There are wide gray areas involved, but we seem to have gone way past the pale on that account.
You can criticize all you want. You can decide not to read. You can tell others not to read or listen. Rush Limbaugh comes to mind.
Censorship is government limitation on free speech. I can say this guys' stuff sucks all I want.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:43 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
You can criticize all you want. You can decide not to read. You can tell others not to read or listen. Rush Limbaugh comes to mind.
Censorship is government limitation on free speech. I can say this guys' stuff sucks all I want.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:43 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
In other words, there's a pretty significant difference between not allowing a book to me made or sold and insisting that everyone should be encouraged to read or feel obligated to read every book made.
And if we believe in liberty, if we want the air we breathe to remain plentiful and breathable, this is the art whose right to exist we must not only defend, but celebrate. Art is not entertainment. At its very best, it’s a revolution.
There's a lot of lofty sentiment here, but I'm not seeing a whole lot of anything concrete to fasten onto, or much more than some breezy rhetoric to sweep readers along to the desired conclusions. If we believe in liberty, don't we also believe that our freedoms go both ways and are reciprocal? You have a right to write any book you want. And I--and anyone else who doesn't want to--has the right to choose not to read it. We also have the right to talk to each other and form different consensuses about what books/art we like or don't like, want to promote or criticize.
It's wrong to conceive censorship so broadly it simply means choosing not to consume or distribute somebody else's ideas or work of art--if that's censorship, Penguin Books, quit censoring my novel! I'm an artist, dammit!
the growing agreement that censorship can be justified when certain interest groups, or genders, or faiths declare themselves affronted by a piece of work.
I'm not sure there's any such "growing agreement" in the US at least, given that boycotts, the various anti-book clubs and the like are not censorship, but simply people expressing consumer preferences. If he really cared about this issue he would have focused on the various kinds of actual censorship going on in school boards and at the state level across the US. That's the only place I see any evidence of any such "growing agreement."
posted by saulgoodman at 8:48 AM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
And if we believe in liberty, if we want the air we breathe to remain plentiful and breathable, this is the art whose right to exist we must not only defend, but celebrate. Art is not entertainment. At its very best, it’s a revolution.
There's a lot of lofty sentiment here, but I'm not seeing a whole lot of anything concrete to fasten onto, or much more than some breezy rhetoric to sweep readers along to the desired conclusions. If we believe in liberty, don't we also believe that our freedoms go both ways and are reciprocal? You have a right to write any book you want. And I--and anyone else who doesn't want to--has the right to choose not to read it. We also have the right to talk to each other and form different consensuses about what books/art we like or don't like, want to promote or criticize.
It's wrong to conceive censorship so broadly it simply means choosing not to consume or distribute somebody else's ideas or work of art--if that's censorship, Penguin Books, quit censoring my novel! I'm an artist, dammit!
the growing agreement that censorship can be justified when certain interest groups, or genders, or faiths declare themselves affronted by a piece of work.
I'm not sure there's any such "growing agreement" in the US at least, given that boycotts, the various anti-book clubs and the like are not censorship, but simply people expressing consumer preferences. If he really cared about this issue he would have focused on the various kinds of actual censorship going on in school boards and at the state level across the US. That's the only place I see any evidence of any such "growing agreement."
posted by saulgoodman at 8:48 AM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
Well, to be fair, I guess he does briefly touch on some of those school board issues, but only as a point of contrast for the "more serious" problem which he identifies a second later as:
Even more serious is the growing acceptance of the don’t-rock-the-boat response to those artists who do rock it... [etc.]
I'm really not even sure what the more serious problem is, in Rushdie's view, because of how abstractly it's all worded.
posted by saulgoodman at 8:56 AM on May 16, 2012
Even more serious is the growing acceptance of the don’t-rock-the-boat response to those artists who do rock it... [etc.]
I'm really not even sure what the more serious problem is, in Rushdie's view, because of how abstractly it's all worded.
posted by saulgoodman at 8:56 AM on May 16, 2012
Censorship is government limitation on free speech.
Legally, yes; morally, the issues surrounding suppression of speech and communication are about the same whether it's the government or some other powerful entity.
I can say this guys' stuff sucks all I want.
You're confounding "saying this guy's stuff sucks" and "preventing other people from reading this guy's stuff".
If the US Government officially makes a statement that Wikileaks is bad, but doesn't prevent people from reading it, that's not censorship. If BoA gets major ISPs to blackhole all routing to WL and related sites, that's as close to censorship as makes no difference, even though all the actors are private.
posted by hattifattener at 8:58 AM on May 16, 2012 [3 favorites]
Legally, yes; morally, the issues surrounding suppression of speech and communication are about the same whether it's the government or some other powerful entity.
I can say this guys' stuff sucks all I want.
You're confounding "saying this guy's stuff sucks" and "preventing other people from reading this guy's stuff".
If the US Government officially makes a statement that Wikileaks is bad, but doesn't prevent people from reading it, that's not censorship. If BoA gets major ISPs to blackhole all routing to WL and related sites, that's as close to censorship as makes no difference, even though all the actors are private.
posted by hattifattener at 8:58 AM on May 16, 2012 [3 favorites]
The censor labels the work immoral, or blasphemous, or pornographic, or controversial, and those words are forever hung like albatrosses around the necks of those cursed mariners, the censored works. The attack on the work does more than define the work; in a sense, for the general public, it becomes the work. For every reader of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” or “Tropic of Capricorn,” every viewer of “Last Tango in Paris” or “A Clockwork Orange,” there will be ten, a hundred, a thousand people who “know” those works as excessively filthy, or excessively violent, or both.I think this is the key paragraph. Rushdie is saying that one need not eliminate access to a work to censor it - all one need do is to label it as uhnenjoyably in enough people's minds that it becomes so.
And it works! I've never seen A Clockwork Orange because I'm pretty sure it's just a horror film about some jerk who murders people.
posted by rebent at 9:05 AM on May 16, 2012
You're confounding "saying this guy's stuff sucks" and "preventing other people from reading this guy's stuff".
Can I call up a bunch of companies and say that I don't like Rush Limbaugh and he ought to apologize for calling a feminist a "slut?" and encourage them to dump their ads on his show?
posted by Ironmouth at 9:06 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Can I call up a bunch of companies and say that I don't like Rush Limbaugh and he ought to apologize for calling a feminist a "slut?" and encourage them to dump their ads on his show?
posted by Ironmouth at 9:06 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
I've certainly called Rush Limbaugh a piece of something but I don't think it's ever been "art".
posted by davidjmcgee at 9:08 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by davidjmcgee at 9:08 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Rebent, that's persuasion, not censorship. You can still see "A Clockwork Orange" if you want. Copies are still out there.
Ironmouth, of course you can. The advertisers can pay attention to your or ignore you as they see fit. If they dump the ads, Limbaugh is still free to talk and accept a smaller profit margin.
posted by Longtime Listener at 9:11 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Ironmouth, of course you can. The advertisers can pay attention to your or ignore you as they see fit. If they dump the ads, Limbaugh is still free to talk and accept a smaller profit margin.
posted by Longtime Listener at 9:11 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Well if that's, as you say, persuasion, not censorship, then what the hell is Rushdie talking about?!?
posted by rebent at 9:17 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by rebent at 9:17 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
I will try to encourage people to see "boat rocking" as an admirable thing, regardless of their personal distaste for it.
This (and the Rushdie line about originality) reminded me of an aphorism that was bouncing around Twitter the other day:
"Societies in decline have no use for visionaries” -- Anaïs Nin
Censorship doesn't protect a healthy culture; it accelerates the collapse of a dying one.
posted by gompa at 9:36 AM on May 16, 2012 [3 favorites]
This (and the Rushdie line about originality) reminded me of an aphorism that was bouncing around Twitter the other day:
"Societies in decline have no use for visionaries” -- Anaïs Nin
Censorship doesn't protect a healthy culture; it accelerates the collapse of a dying one.
posted by gompa at 9:36 AM on May 16, 2012 [3 favorites]
To give a less shitty response than I initially did (sorry), I'll say that the problem with Rush isn't that he's trying to rock the boat, it's that he's doing his goddamned best to keep the boat from rocking.
posted by davidjmcgee at 9:41 AM on May 16, 2012
posted by davidjmcgee at 9:41 AM on May 16, 2012
Well if that's, as you say, persuasion, not censorship, then what the hell is Rushdie talking about?!?
I think he was talking about official censors. I don't think he was talking about critics, or about your friend who warns you not to see [movie] because it sucked. If you don't go see the movie because you trust your friend's advice, is your friend a censor? If you tell someone "I haven't seen it; I heard it sucked," and they decide to go see something else, have you censored the movie?
posted by rtha at 9:48 AM on May 16, 2012
I think he was talking about official censors. I don't think he was talking about critics, or about your friend who warns you not to see [movie] because it sucked. If you don't go see the movie because you trust your friend's advice, is your friend a censor? If you tell someone "I haven't seen it; I heard it sucked," and they decide to go see something else, have you censored the movie?
posted by rtha at 9:48 AM on May 16, 2012
This seems like a subset of a broader theme: oppression co-opts its victims. The masses wept at Stalin's death, convinced they had lost their protector. And conversely, just try to convince an average American that naked Capitalism isn't the ultimate good. For a ruling class, distorting consensus reality is job one.
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:52 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:52 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
You're confounding "saying this guy's stuff sucks" and "preventing other people from reading this guy's stuff".
There's an entire paragraph where it seems like Rushdie is, too.
posted by Hoopo at 9:55 AM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
There's an entire paragraph where it seems like Rushdie is, too.
posted by Hoopo at 9:55 AM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
You're confounding "saying this guy's stuff sucks" and "preventing other people from reading this guy's stuff".
Depends upon who's saying this guy's stuff sucks and how much power they have over the potential readers. In some cases they are the same thing, unless you don't believe in subtext.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:04 AM on May 16, 2012
Depends upon who's saying this guy's stuff sucks and how much power they have over the potential readers. In some cases they are the same thing, unless you don't believe in subtext.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:04 AM on May 16, 2012
Well if that's, as you say, persuasion, not censorship, then what the hell is Rushdie talking about?!?
I think he's trying to stretch the definition of censorship to cover something else he wants to fight. Maybe "propaganda" is a more appropriate word than "persuasion." Real censorship is preventing the work from being distributed. If the work is allowed to exist and we have free access to it, we can't really say it has been censored. If we're shamed into not availing ourselves of it, that's something different.
I also have trouble swallowing his claim that certain labels hang like an albatross around the work's neck. How many articles have you seen hyped with phrases like "Read the shocking report that Big Government doesn't want you to see!" Marketers used to uses "banned in Boston" as a selling point.
posted by Longtime Listener at 10:15 AM on May 16, 2012
I think he's trying to stretch the definition of censorship to cover something else he wants to fight. Maybe "propaganda" is a more appropriate word than "persuasion." Real censorship is preventing the work from being distributed. If the work is allowed to exist and we have free access to it, we can't really say it has been censored. If we're shamed into not availing ourselves of it, that's something different.
I also have trouble swallowing his claim that certain labels hang like an albatross around the work's neck. How many articles have you seen hyped with phrases like "Read the shocking report that Big Government doesn't want you to see!" Marketers used to uses "banned in Boston" as a selling point.
posted by Longtime Listener at 10:15 AM on May 16, 2012
There's an entire paragraph where it seems like Rushdie is, too.
Only if you haven't read the preceding paragraphs, and even then it's a stretch. I don't see any ambiguity, he's clearly characterizing people who defend and empower particular acts of censorship; not just anyone who voices their dislike of a book.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:15 AM on May 16, 2012
Only if you haven't read the preceding paragraphs, and even then it's a stretch. I don't see any ambiguity, he's clearly characterizing people who defend and empower particular acts of censorship; not just anyone who voices their dislike of a book.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:15 AM on May 16, 2012
Originality is dangerous. It challenges, questions, overturns assumptions, unsettles moral codes, disrespects sacred cows or other such entities.
Fortunately there's none of that to be found in this piece — even The New Yorker's burgeoning Moral Self-Congratulation Department has never seen a more comfortable, unchallenging series of nostrums.
posted by RogerB at 10:24 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Fortunately there's none of that to be found in this piece — even The New Yorker's burgeoning Moral Self-Congratulation Department has never seen a more comfortable, unchallenging series of nostrums.
posted by RogerB at 10:24 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
not just anyone who voices their dislike of a book.
But I think it is implied he would include a popular call for stores not to carry a book written by, say, a war criminal whose using sales of a book to fund ongoing atrocities under his definition. Or am I misreading?
posted by saulgoodman at 10:25 AM on May 16, 2012
But I think it is implied he would include a popular call for stores not to carry a book written by, say, a war criminal whose using sales of a book to fund ongoing atrocities under his definition. Or am I misreading?
posted by saulgoodman at 10:25 AM on May 16, 2012
There are a lot of things we don't talk about with any honesty, especially not in the mainstream media; the debate around many issues has been framed (often from both "sides") as "this vitally important thing versus the crazy, militant people who hate freedom", to the point where most twelve-year-olds will repeat the party line. And yes, that's a problem. When there are things you can't say on Letterman (or in a bookstore) without risking the organized, politically-motivated destruction of your career, how is that "not censorship" just because the government isn't doing it? That's ignoring the actual censorship which is still going on due to obscenity laws, of course.
Our public discourse has become a never-ending series of minor witch-hunts amidst a minefield of shibboleths... while at the center stands the Status Quo, untouchable by design as long as both sides abide by the rules of engagement. The second-smartest thing the censors ever did is convince the common man to stand up to defend their petty little rules -- the smartest was to convince him to enforce them himself.
posted by vorfeed at 10:43 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Our public discourse has become a never-ending series of minor witch-hunts amidst a minefield of shibboleths... while at the center stands the Status Quo, untouchable by design as long as both sides abide by the rules of engagement. The second-smartest thing the censors ever did is convince the common man to stand up to defend their petty little rules -- the smartest was to convince him to enforce them himself.
posted by vorfeed at 10:43 AM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
But I think it is implied he would include a popular call for stores not to carry a book written by, say, a war criminal whose using sales of a book to fund ongoing atrocities under his definition. Or am I misreading?
I'm pretty sure Barnes & Noble is not going to drop Obama's book.
posted by grobstein at 10:48 AM on May 16, 2012 [5 favorites]
I'm pretty sure Barnes & Noble is not going to drop Obama's book.
posted by grobstein at 10:48 AM on May 16, 2012 [5 favorites]
well sure censorship is bad but do you really think this work i'm censoring at the moment is on the level of Nabokov or Vonnegut, (netspeak acronym for laughter directed at the interrogated and then the word "really")
Also, I thought of a way to (technically) abolish censorship, just make a communication-space completely owned and controlled by private entities and then nothing they do counts (because free market private enterprise), if only we had the technology to enact such a thing
since we don't though i guess we might as well do it the old fashioned way, via corruption
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 11:00 AM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
Also, I thought of a way to (technically) abolish censorship, just make a communication-space completely owned and controlled by private entities and then nothing they do counts (because free market private enterprise), if only we had the technology to enact such a thing
since we don't though i guess we might as well do it the old fashioned way, via corruption
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 11:00 AM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
There's nothing wrong with Rush Limbaugh that the term asshole doesn't explain. Let him rant.
I loved Salmon's reference to evolution. Oh, how I want to snark it up, but this is deep and troublesome water here.
In his "no word for the idea" offering, Rushdie seems to have picked up on the dynamic that created Winston Smith's job at the bureau of dictionary reduction. We are led by buzzwords that feed off our fears. In any case, I just ran across this rather astonishing essay, below, which indicates that we may be ready to throw ourselves into the arms of Big Brother.
This is about children born of a union between Big Brother and one of the Lords of the Flies....the real version, not the cautionary tale. One only can hope that sunlight kills germs.
enjoy:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/03/hunger-games-and-trayvon-martin.html
posted by mule98J at 11:02 AM on May 16, 2012
I loved Salmon's reference to evolution. Oh, how I want to snark it up, but this is deep and troublesome water here.
In his "no word for the idea" offering, Rushdie seems to have picked up on the dynamic that created Winston Smith's job at the bureau of dictionary reduction. We are led by buzzwords that feed off our fears. In any case, I just ran across this rather astonishing essay, below, which indicates that we may be ready to throw ourselves into the arms of Big Brother.
This is about children born of a union between Big Brother and one of the Lords of the Flies....the real version, not the cautionary tale. One only can hope that sunlight kills germs.
enjoy:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/03/hunger-games-and-trayvon-martin.html
posted by mule98J at 11:02 AM on May 16, 2012
But I think it is implied he would include a popular call for stores not to carry a book written by, say, a war criminal whose using sales of a book to fund ongoing atrocities under his definition. Or am I misreading?
I dunno, this reminds me of the Jack Bauer school of special case as categorical difference. If somebody is funding atrocities, go after that. Unprincipled criminals don't have to make us unprincipled.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:05 AM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
I dunno, this reminds me of the Jack Bauer school of special case as categorical difference. If somebody is funding atrocities, go after that. Unprincipled criminals don't have to make us unprincipled.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:05 AM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
I dunno, this reminds me of the Jack Bauer school of special case as categorical difference. If somebody is funding atrocities, go after that.
It's not illegal to fund atrocities if you're the ruler of a nation. It's not as far-fetched a scenario as you might think. Dictators very often publish their repugnant ideas and partly fund their operations using those revenues.
The whole conversation is ridiculous anyway though because what's censorship and what's editorial discretion? Decisions are made everyday to censor things for all kinds of reasons if not publishing or selling something is censorship.
Unprincipled criminals don't have to make us unprincipled.
Is it unprincipled to edit or reject bad poems from a literary journal? To not run a printing press and/or not publish any and all books that come across your desk for free?
I'm not arguing for being unprincipled; on the contrary, I'm arguing we should be clearer and more historically attuned regarding what our principles actually are, not just lazily and indiscriminately watering them down until they become nothing more than This just seems like cheap, empty moralizing to me--actually, in the worst interpretation, it's an argument for stifling one form of political expression (collective consumer action) in favor of protecting the publishing industry in the name of protecting free speech.
This watered down, overly-broad and generally unintelligible muddle of free speech rights, free press rights, and more nuanced issues like editorial selection, blackballing, official censorship, etc. on offer here doesn't clarify anything for me anyway.
posted by saulgoodman at 11:57 AM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
It's not illegal to fund atrocities if you're the ruler of a nation. It's not as far-fetched a scenario as you might think. Dictators very often publish their repugnant ideas and partly fund their operations using those revenues.
The whole conversation is ridiculous anyway though because what's censorship and what's editorial discretion? Decisions are made everyday to censor things for all kinds of reasons if not publishing or selling something is censorship.
Unprincipled criminals don't have to make us unprincipled.
Is it unprincipled to edit or reject bad poems from a literary journal? To not run a printing press and/or not publish any and all books that come across your desk for free?
I'm not arguing for being unprincipled; on the contrary, I'm arguing we should be clearer and more historically attuned regarding what our principles actually are, not just lazily and indiscriminately watering them down until they become nothing more than This just seems like cheap, empty moralizing to me--actually, in the worst interpretation, it's an argument for stifling one form of political expression (collective consumer action) in favor of protecting the publishing industry in the name of protecting free speech.
This watered down, overly-broad and generally unintelligible muddle of free speech rights, free press rights, and more nuanced issues like editorial selection, blackballing, official censorship, etc. on offer here doesn't clarify anything for me anyway.
posted by saulgoodman at 11:57 AM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
ach. trailing off and liberally sprinkling typos all over the place seem to be all I can do today. time to censor myself now.
posted by saulgoodman at 12:01 PM on May 16, 2012
posted by saulgoodman at 12:01 PM on May 16, 2012
The trailed off bit above should have been something like: "I'm arguing we should be clearer and more historically attuned regarding what our principles actually are, not just lazily and indiscriminately watering them down until they become nothing more than useful raw material for stirring up political controversies."
posted by saulgoodman at 12:04 PM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by saulgoodman at 12:04 PM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
rebent, "Well if that's, as you say, persuasion, not censorship, then what the hell is Rushdie talking about?!?"
I just bought a copy of "The Satanic Verses" by Rushdie for my visiting parents to read. It is still officially banned where they live, to avoid offending the Muslim minority. If you know anything about India's messy democracy and coalition governments with minority parties, this is not such a surprising thing. But I think Rushdie, of all people, has a right to talk about censorship and to complain about how "his choices will not be determined by his talent, but by fear. If we are not confident of our freedom, then we are not free."
posted by RedOrGreen at 1:56 PM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
I just bought a copy of "The Satanic Verses" by Rushdie for my visiting parents to read. It is still officially banned where they live, to avoid offending the Muslim minority. If you know anything about India's messy democracy and coalition governments with minority parties, this is not such a surprising thing. But I think Rushdie, of all people, has a right to talk about censorship and to complain about how "his choices will not be determined by his talent, but by fear. If we are not confident of our freedom, then we are not free."
posted by RedOrGreen at 1:56 PM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Is it unprincipled to edit or reject bad poems from a literary journal? To not run a printing press and/or not publish any and all books that come across your desk for free?
I think we can usefully distinguish between rejecting bad poems from a literary journal, and campaigning to prevent any literary journal from publishing a particular bad (or "offensive") poem.
If I reject your poem from my journal, I am not silencing your voice -- there are 1,001 other literary journals for you to try your hand at. When I rouse a mob of busybodies and convince them that your poems should not even exist, and that evidence of their existence must be suppressed -- that is censorship, even if the presses are cowed not by government but thousands of angry bloggers and retweeters.
posted by grobstein at 2:11 PM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
I think we can usefully distinguish between rejecting bad poems from a literary journal, and campaigning to prevent any literary journal from publishing a particular bad (or "offensive") poem.
If I reject your poem from my journal, I am not silencing your voice -- there are 1,001 other literary journals for you to try your hand at. When I rouse a mob of busybodies and convince them that your poems should not even exist, and that evidence of their existence must be suppressed -- that is censorship, even if the presses are cowed not by government but thousands of angry bloggers and retweeters.
posted by grobstein at 2:11 PM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
It seems like some people in this thread are reeeeeally expanding on Rushdie's essay to include things he didn't say and (IMO) didn't mean, so that they may disagree with it.
He laid out specific examples of actual, real, censorship and book bannings. Not "boycotts," not "critics hated it." Even in his Kansas example, people are actually working to *ban* certain works like Vonnegut in public schools...not boycott, not "discouraging." Making it actually unavailable to certain sectors or through certain means. And the "albatross" he refers to, refers to the authors that have underwent THAT treatment, as opposed to boycotted or saying the critics hated it. I think based on the examples he provided, this is the most fair interpretation.
Anyway, if you think he made some points that deserve to be interpreted beyond "making a work of art unavailable to a certain sector," please highlight that specific sentence or paragraph...maybe I'm wrong.
"The British humorist Paul Jennings, in his brilliant essay on Resistentialism, a spoof of Existentialism, proposed that the world was divided into two categories, “Thing” and “No-Thing,” and suggested that between these two is waged a never-ending war."
Dare I criticize the prosaic choices of Salman Rushdie? I feel like the last part of that sentence is awkward and would read better in the passive voice.
posted by mreleganza at 3:04 PM on May 16, 2012
He laid out specific examples of actual, real, censorship and book bannings. Not "boycotts," not "critics hated it." Even in his Kansas example, people are actually working to *ban* certain works like Vonnegut in public schools...not boycott, not "discouraging." Making it actually unavailable to certain sectors or through certain means. And the "albatross" he refers to, refers to the authors that have underwent THAT treatment, as opposed to boycotted or saying the critics hated it. I think based on the examples he provided, this is the most fair interpretation.
Anyway, if you think he made some points that deserve to be interpreted beyond "making a work of art unavailable to a certain sector," please highlight that specific sentence or paragraph...maybe I'm wrong.
"The British humorist Paul Jennings, in his brilliant essay on Resistentialism, a spoof of Existentialism, proposed that the world was divided into two categories, “Thing” and “No-Thing,” and suggested that between these two is waged a never-ending war."
Dare I criticize the prosaic choices of Salman Rushdie? I feel like the last part of that sentence is awkward and would read better in the passive voice.
posted by mreleganza at 3:04 PM on May 16, 2012
Partly defunding the National Endowment For The Arts (or trying to) because of Mapplethorpe's "Piss Christ" is not censorship.
The Smithsonian Institution removing a David Wojnarowicz video from an installation after they had already included it as an intrinsic part of the show... that IS censorship.
One is simply bemoaning the existence of something. The other is removing something from the possibility of public consumption.
The key to censorship lies in the "removal of possibility" part of the scenario.
(Thank goodness others have seen fit to put the Wojnarowicz video in the touring exhibition of the Hide/Seek exhibit. That undid the censorship enacted by the Smithsonian Institution.)
(And really, even that isn't truly censorship, because that particular video had been around for decades before that exhibit was assembled, and has been seen by and was available for seeing in other contexts and such. But still... removing it... THAT was censorship on some level.)
posted by hippybear at 6:57 PM on May 16, 2012
The Smithsonian Institution removing a David Wojnarowicz video from an installation after they had already included it as an intrinsic part of the show... that IS censorship.
One is simply bemoaning the existence of something. The other is removing something from the possibility of public consumption.
The key to censorship lies in the "removal of possibility" part of the scenario.
(Thank goodness others have seen fit to put the Wojnarowicz video in the touring exhibition of the Hide/Seek exhibit. That undid the censorship enacted by the Smithsonian Institution.)
(And really, even that isn't truly censorship, because that particular video had been around for decades before that exhibit was assembled, and has been seen by and was available for seeing in other contexts and such. But still... removing it... THAT was censorship on some level.)
posted by hippybear at 6:57 PM on May 16, 2012
Now, to me, this recent controversy around a particular (cancelled) TED talk might be considered censorship--it's politically motivated (motivated by a desire to appear politically neutral, which is itself a political posture)--and I can't speak with confidence about the merits of this particular case, but this is the kind of thing, granting the allegations are true for the sake of argument, that seems more like censorship to me than a bunch of ordinary people calling for a conservative-establishment Grand Duke like Rush to be fired...
When contradictory or unfavorable information is choked out by a small, powerful elite, that's censorship. Boycotts and the like (assuming they aren't only being stoked by a small powerful elite for their own political reasons) are democracy.
To my mind, that's the even more dangerous kind of censorship we need to be watchful for: with all the media consolidation in the wake of the FCC reforms we failed to push back in the 90s, it's easier than ever to edit the national narrative to exclude POV that are hostile to the interests with the most influence in the more consolidated than ever media landscape.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:58 AM on May 17, 2012
When contradictory or unfavorable information is choked out by a small, powerful elite, that's censorship. Boycotts and the like (assuming they aren't only being stoked by a small powerful elite for their own political reasons) are democracy.
To my mind, that's the even more dangerous kind of censorship we need to be watchful for: with all the media consolidation in the wake of the FCC reforms we failed to push back in the 90s, it's easier than ever to edit the national narrative to exclude POV that are hostile to the interests with the most influence in the more consolidated than ever media landscape.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:58 AM on May 17, 2012
When contradictory or unfavorable information is choked out by a small, powerful elite, that's censorship. Boycotts and the like (assuming they aren't only being stoked by a small powerful elite for their own political reasons) are democracy.
I don't see why you regard "democracy" as somehow in opposition to "censorship." It seems to me like popular opinion calls for the suppression of speech all the time, for example because it offends widely held religious beliefs. If it's "democratic" and not "censorship" to hound Rush Limbaugh off the air, is it also "democratic" and not "censorship" when conservative parents claim the heads of teachers who mention condoms, and eliminate "pro-gay" books from the school library? I see that you've left yourself an out here, "boycotts and the like are democracy -- assuming they aren't only being stoked by a small powerful elite for their own political reasons," but I think you are vastly underestimating the ability of ordinary people to be viciously mistaken, without also being the pawns of "a small powerful elite." I think this way leads toward a paranoid worldview, as you constantly search for the puppeteer behind people who disagree with you. For example, a seemingly popular movement on the other side must be "astroturfing," because if it was really "democratic" then it would be on my side.
In order to grant your opponents the dignity of being wrong, you need to abandon the commitment that something "democratic" must be good.
Now, to me, this recent controversy around a particular (cancelled) TED talk might be considered censorship--it's politically motivated (motivated by a desire to appear politically neutral, which is itself a political posture)--and I can't speak with confidence about the merits of this particular case, but this is the kind of thing, granting the allegations are true for the sake of argument, that seems more like censorship to me than a bunch of ordinary people calling for a conservative-establishment Grand Duke like Rush to be fired...
I don't see why TED is different from the poetry journal in your last example. They're a private institution with an editorial agenda, and although they have visibility most poetry journals would kill for, they are still just a tiny sliver of the larger media landscape. Although they declined to give a platform to the canceled talk, they did nothing to suppress the talk or prevent other venues from carrying it, and in practice they did not prevent it from coming to a very wide audience.
posted by grobstein at 8:29 AM on May 17, 2012 [2 favorites]
I don't see why you regard "democracy" as somehow in opposition to "censorship." It seems to me like popular opinion calls for the suppression of speech all the time, for example because it offends widely held religious beliefs. If it's "democratic" and not "censorship" to hound Rush Limbaugh off the air, is it also "democratic" and not "censorship" when conservative parents claim the heads of teachers who mention condoms, and eliminate "pro-gay" books from the school library? I see that you've left yourself an out here, "boycotts and the like are democracy -- assuming they aren't only being stoked by a small powerful elite for their own political reasons," but I think you are vastly underestimating the ability of ordinary people to be viciously mistaken, without also being the pawns of "a small powerful elite." I think this way leads toward a paranoid worldview, as you constantly search for the puppeteer behind people who disagree with you. For example, a seemingly popular movement on the other side must be "astroturfing," because if it was really "democratic" then it would be on my side.
In order to grant your opponents the dignity of being wrong, you need to abandon the commitment that something "democratic" must be good.
Now, to me, this recent controversy around a particular (cancelled) TED talk might be considered censorship--it's politically motivated (motivated by a desire to appear politically neutral, which is itself a political posture)--and I can't speak with confidence about the merits of this particular case, but this is the kind of thing, granting the allegations are true for the sake of argument, that seems more like censorship to me than a bunch of ordinary people calling for a conservative-establishment Grand Duke like Rush to be fired...
I don't see why TED is different from the poetry journal in your last example. They're a private institution with an editorial agenda, and although they have visibility most poetry journals would kill for, they are still just a tiny sliver of the larger media landscape. Although they declined to give a platform to the canceled talk, they did nothing to suppress the talk or prevent other venues from carrying it, and in practice they did not prevent it from coming to a very wide audience.
posted by grobstein at 8:29 AM on May 17, 2012 [2 favorites]
Censorship--as distinct from all the other things I might object to, including uglier aspects of populism like mobs and vigilante justice--is just not that though. The word "censor" wasn't coined by free speech activist as a catch all for all forms of repression under the sun. It was an official job title, describing one who sits on an official board of censors. Spontaneous public calls for public figures to be shunned from the spotlight due to their negative cultural influence are not remotely like cases of censorship, whether you approve of such calls personally or not. Communities have a right to police their own culture according to their own norms, vales and notions of community decency--that's well established in law and constitutional theory.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:34 AM on May 17, 2012
posted by saulgoodman at 10:34 AM on May 17, 2012
In the TED case, the talk was explicitly "edited out," after clearing the usual hurdles to publication, for expressly political reasons. That's the difference to me.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:36 AM on May 17, 2012
posted by saulgoodman at 10:36 AM on May 17, 2012
I don't see how the TED case fits into the SPQR Roman Censor notion you are defending in the comment above it.
Conversely, if a mob is hounding someone out of the public sphere, they often will apply pressure to some more or less "official" lever -- like school board officials, principals, media executives. I don't see why that is importantly outside the "Roman censor" idea.
posted by grobstein at 11:08 AM on May 17, 2012
Conversely, if a mob is hounding someone out of the public sphere, they often will apply pressure to some more or less "official" lever -- like school board officials, principals, media executives. I don't see why that is importantly outside the "Roman censor" idea.
posted by grobstein at 11:08 AM on May 17, 2012
Communities have a right to police their own culture according to their own norms, vales and notions of community decency--that's well established in law and constitutional theory.
Yes, but this does result in official censorship in practice (see above re: certain consensual acts in pornography), and IMHO this is still censorship whether it is legal/constitutional or not.
As for whether "spontaneous public calls for public figures to be shunned from the spotlight due to their negative cultural influence are not remotely like cases of censorship": these cases certainly are remotely like censorship, in that they have much the same effect on public debate. I would agree that they're not the same thing as official censorship, but to me censorship is the public suppression of speech -- the "by government officials" part of the definition is less important, especially since our would-be censors have clearly learned that government action is not needed to suppress speech.
For example, I think the MPAA is a major engine of censorship in this country, despite being a supposedly-voluntary standards group which is not part of the government. In some ways I think this kind of unofficial censorship can be more dangerous than official censorship, because the people have no legal redress against it. You don't have "democracy" without due process.
posted by vorfeed at 11:49 AM on May 17, 2012 [1 favorite]
Yes, but this does result in official censorship in practice (see above re: certain consensual acts in pornography), and IMHO this is still censorship whether it is legal/constitutional or not.
As for whether "spontaneous public calls for public figures to be shunned from the spotlight due to their negative cultural influence are not remotely like cases of censorship": these cases certainly are remotely like censorship, in that they have much the same effect on public debate. I would agree that they're not the same thing as official censorship, but to me censorship is the public suppression of speech -- the "by government officials" part of the definition is less important, especially since our would-be censors have clearly learned that government action is not needed to suppress speech.
For example, I think the MPAA is a major engine of censorship in this country, despite being a supposedly-voluntary standards group which is not part of the government. In some ways I think this kind of unofficial censorship can be more dangerous than official censorship, because the people have no legal redress against it. You don't have "democracy" without due process.
posted by vorfeed at 11:49 AM on May 17, 2012 [1 favorite]
Since we are talking about the TED thing, here is Chris Anderson's "side of the story," characterizing the whole affair as a petulant but calculated PR tantrum.
posted by grobstein at 12:40 PM on May 17, 2012
posted by grobstein at 12:40 PM on May 17, 2012
Yes, btw, I don't mean to say the TED thing actually is censorship--I don't know enough about the merits of that case. Could be the guy's talk just wasn't as good as they'd hoped. But the scenario as alleged is the kind of thing I might be willing to extend censorship to include. As much as I hate what some of those right wing boycotts have done, I accept them as one of the prices of liberty--they may have been fine examples of demagogery at its worst, but it's not accurate to call them censorship IMO.
posted by saulgoodman at 5:48 AM on May 18, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by saulgoodman at 5:48 AM on May 18, 2012 [1 favorite]
look, you aren't entitled to an audience or funding or hands
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 4:51 PM on May 19, 2012
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 4:51 PM on May 19, 2012
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Yup. We approve of originality, until we actually see it.
posted by El Sabor Asiatico at 8:09 AM on May 16, 2012 [2 favorites]