We discount censorship when its motives are “good”
It doesn’t take much to persuade us that censorship is good, when it aligns with what we fear or who we want to protect from harm.
We tend instinctively to call things censorship primarily when we perceive those involved to have bad intentions. But we tend to excuse or discount censorious actions when we perceive the motives to be good. To understand how real censorship works, we need to thank Orwell for the tools that he’s given us, but push back as well and reintroduce the fact that most censorship is not motivated by a sinister will to power, but by other motives including the desire to protect, a sense of crisis, fear, patriotism, even love. —Ada Palmer, Tracing Censorship of Radical Ideas Across Centuries
- previously: tools for thinking about censorship
- see also: real censorship is often plural, private, and popular — not necessarily the Orwellian Ministry of Truth
- see also: the most hideous ideologies are the ones we believe without realizing it — beware the authoritarian school of social change!