I had my first brush with censorship in junior high school when I wanted to read Chinese Communist Chairman Mao Tse Tung’s “Little Red Book.” Everyone was talking about it and a few politicians wanted it banned from the United States.
I stopped in a local bookstore, picked up a copy and was going to buy it, but Madame Curdleface at the register refused to sell it. “It isn’t fit to be read,” she said.
An hour or so later, Mother marched me back to the store, picked up the book. handed it to me and told Curdleface to take my money and give me a receipt.
As we left, Mother told the old battleaxe, “Don’t you ever try to do that again.”
There are rare times when censorship is a good idea. Protecting military and industrial secrets come to mind; so do gratuitous violence and blatant pornography.
The rest of the time, it is usually a matter of one person or group trying to control others.
Top-down censorship means someone in authority, such as a publisher or editor, telling a writer without major changes their story will be killed because readers might get angry.
What they really mean is, “If I publish that I am likely to lose business, have the building ransacked or even get killed.”
Other times, it comes from a law or government agency telling a writer and publisher that their piece is a threat to national security.
Bottom-up censorship means that writers are forced to withhold what they think might help others. In many ways it amounts to fear and self-censorship.
Noel Coward’s World War II song “Let’s Not be Nasty to the Nazis — a satire about those (including the Archbishop of Canterbury) who did not want to upset the Bavarian corporal by standing up for freedom and democracy. Instead of a gun, he music and lyrics as his weapon. Listeners as a result laughed at Adolf Hitler, something the Germans never did.
Other writers carry on the tradition. They want to express a message they think is important but know what has happened to others who dared trying to speak the truth. Maybe they’re worried about losing their jobs, being beaten up or killed.
In fact, anyone in the arts can find themselves facing the wrath of the censors. The French Academy refused to exhibit paintings by Monet, Manet and van Gogh, claiming they were decadent.
Picasso’s famous work “Guernica” incurred the wrath of the Nazis. One day a German officer pointed to the painting and demanded of the artist, “Did you do this?” to which Picasso replied, “No, you did.”
When Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” was criticized for portraying bankrupt Oklahoma farmers moving to California only to find hard times, he replied, “I am impelled not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.”
The long line of other Americana daring to speak up runs from Thomas Paine through Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sinclair Lewis and a host of contemporary writers. All have incurred would-be censors’ wrath.
Now we have sensitivity editors who remove or change any word that some person might find traumatic because it is politically incorrect. Sometimes they get a bit carried away.
When going over a book for such words, one removed “scalpel” because he or she found the surgeon’s tool too close to “scalped,” a derogatory reference to Native Americans. Then again, it might mean getting cut and someone might find it a trigger word.
Sensitivity editors often make fictional characters gender neutral or go so far as to balance out the number of male and female characters, plus make sure all genders and races are represented. After all, we must uphold Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity at all costs.
Near the end of February Great Britain’s Queen Camilla of Great Britain held a literary gathering at Clarence House to celebrate the first anniversary of her book club.
“Please remain true to your calling,” she implored writers, “unimpeded by those who may wish to curb the freedom of your expression or impose limits on your imagination.” Good for her.
I’ve heard many demands in recent years to protect our Second Amendment rights, but less about the First Amendment. That’s the one about freedom of speech, the press and religion. Without the latter, freedom to bear arms may mean almost nil.
