Need a new word for non-violent-censorship
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I often have the same difficulty when speaking with Objectivists. They define "censorship" as "silencing the speaker by force", which is a fine and useful definition, but suppose we want to talk about a similar phenomenon which does not involve force? For example, the magnate who owns all the newspapers, television stations, bookstores and movie theatres in a small town decides that never again will homosexuality be publically mentioned in any of these venues. Force? No. "Censorship"? Not by _that_ definition, but what _is_ it? We need a new word, or else we have to continue using "censorship" to mean both of those things. I sometimes use "violent-censorship" and "non-violent-censorship" in conversation. As long as we continue to try to overload "censorship" we will waste much of our dialogue energy on semantic quibbling or pure misunderstanding. Regards, Zooko -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2i Comment: Auto-signed under Unix with 'BAP' Easy-PGP v1.1b2 iQB1AwUBMoMarEjbHy8sKZitAQGzZQL+OuobcXVKg8bU1FIgdIZl/0i2QZ/5McmC W//HUMtT+5D4sejWstVqkk2taB+jD9ctyKtgFIjIXOJdddsAAbd/Tbjr0TjuCMC4 FmagUDtrDD3tQOwiIXnb2rDit+GrfGPB =X6N3 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
I often have the same difficulty when speaking with Objectivists. They define "censorship" as "silencing the speaker by force", which is a fine and useful definition, but suppose we want to talk about a similar phenomenon which does not involve force? For example, the magnate who owns all the newspapers, television stations, bookstores and movie theatres in a small town decides that never again will homosexuality be publically mentioned in any of these venues. Force? No. "Censorship"? Not by _that_ definition, but what _is_ it?
"Monopoly", or editorial policy and it is solved by buying a press of some kind, from a letter press to a photocopier, and printing all the news he does, and doesn't.
We need a new word, or else we have to continue using
No, we just need to use the words we have properly.
"censorship" to mean both of those things. I sometimes use "violent-censorship" and "non-violent-censorship" in conversation.
"Violent-censorship" is when you [shoot beat kill] the speaker, "non- violent" is when you imprison, or consficate the means of speech/replication of speach, or otherwise "silence" without physcial force. Then you have censorship by intimidation, which is a little harder to qualify. If I threaten to burn your press if you talk about Crypto, or print Crypto algorythms, is that censorship? IMO, yes. If you _choose_ not to discuss Crypto because you understand (or are afraid of) the implications of it, that is NOT censorship, any more than my refusal to discuss sports because I can't understand the appeal or because I think that sports are generally a bad thing. Choice is not censorship, removal of choice is. Petro, Christopher C. petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff> snow@smoke.suba.com
Bryce wrote:
I often have the same difficulty when speaking with Objectivists. They define "censorship" as "silencing the speaker by force", which is a fine and useful definition, but suppose we want to talk about a similar phenomenon which does not involve force? For example, the magnate who owns all the newspapers, television stations, bookstores and movie theatres in a small town decides that never again will homosexuality be publically mentioned in any of these venues. Force? No. "Censorship"? Not by _that_ definition, but what _is_ it? We need a new word, or else we have to continue using "censorship" to mean both of those things. I sometimes use "violent-censorship" and "non-violent-censorship" in conversation. As long as we continue to try to overload "censorship" we will waste much of our dialogue energy on semantic quibbling or pure misunderstanding.
I don't see how you can say this. I was brought up by this wonderful system (U.S.) to believe that censorship was necessarily non-violent. It was only when I became conscious of "Assassination as the Ultimate Form of Censorship" that I saw the broader connections. Seems to me you'd want to come up with different words for violent censorship instead, but then again, as in the above paragraph, we already have those.
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Bryce -
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snow