What underlies much of the new enthusiasm for censorship is the rise of an intensely moralistic sensibility that hates the past for not conforming to the present and insists on complete conformity to certain values in the present. If you don’t conform to these values or question them, criticism is not enough. We should not be free to disagree. If we disagree we should be suppressed and possibly punished.It is a remarkably authoritarian mindset.The - do your own thing- mindset of the 60s has been replaced. Now it’s do our thing or shut up!
"What underlies much of the new enthusiasm for censorship is the rise of an intensely moralistic sensibility that hates the past for not conforming to the present and insists on complete conformity to certain values in the present."
That's called, "Presentism." Applying today's "standards," such as they are, to historical events and persons. It is used to rewrite history and is a basis of censorship. Stalin understood it well.
Jon, this is one of your best articles yet, and there have been a lot of remarkable ones published both here and elsewhere. What jumped out at me the most was when you said, "Whether these works of art are culturally insensitive is a subjective matter, as is the question of whether Hamlet is a morally subversive play."
It goes with that "beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder" axiom - I think I quoted it right. What may be sensitive to one group may not be to another, or even from individual to individual. This is one reason I've often scoffed when I've heard others close to me say, and I'm paraphrasing, "Twitter/X should be banned because its content is full of hate," (I'm personally a fan of what Musk has been doing at Twitter/X). I'm also sure those are the same people cheering on the arrest of figures like Pavel Durov or wishing to see podcasters like Joe Rogan censored for good.
But what those in the Censorship Mob, as I call them, are really saying is this: "I don't like it, so therefore, it should be censored." Such people are by far the biggest threats to free speech, especially when they use fear and coercion to further their censorship agenda.
What underlies much of the new enthusiasm for censorship is the rise of an intensely moralistic sensibility that hates the past for not conforming to the present and insists on complete conformity to certain values in the present. If you don’t conform to these values or question them, criticism is not enough. We should not be free to disagree. If we disagree we should be suppressed and possibly punished.It is a remarkably authoritarian mindset.The - do your own thing- mindset of the 60s has been replaced. Now it’s do our thing or shut up!
This is an insightful comment.
"What underlies much of the new enthusiasm for censorship is the rise of an intensely moralistic sensibility that hates the past for not conforming to the present and insists on complete conformity to certain values in the present."
I never thought about it this way, but it's true.
That's called, "Presentism." Applying today's "standards," such as they are, to historical events and persons. It is used to rewrite history and is a basis of censorship. Stalin understood it well.
Jon, this is one of your best articles yet, and there have been a lot of remarkable ones published both here and elsewhere. What jumped out at me the most was when you said, "Whether these works of art are culturally insensitive is a subjective matter, as is the question of whether Hamlet is a morally subversive play."
It goes with that "beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder" axiom - I think I quoted it right. What may be sensitive to one group may not be to another, or even from individual to individual. This is one reason I've often scoffed when I've heard others close to me say, and I'm paraphrasing, "Twitter/X should be banned because its content is full of hate," (I'm personally a fan of what Musk has been doing at Twitter/X). I'm also sure those are the same people cheering on the arrest of figures like Pavel Durov or wishing to see podcasters like Joe Rogan censored for good.
But what those in the Censorship Mob, as I call them, are really saying is this: "I don't like it, so therefore, it should be censored." Such people are by far the biggest threats to free speech, especially when they use fear and coercion to further their censorship agenda.
"Such people are by far the biggest threats to free speech, especially when they use fear and coercion to further their censorship agenda."
I agree 100%