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> existence of a book Wait, sorry, is someone confiscating the book? Burning it? Requiring it be burned? Arresting people who have it? Arresting the people who
by ericb 6y ago
> existence of a book
Wait, sorry, is someone confiscating the book? Burning it? Requiring it be burned? Arresting people who have it? Arresting the people who wrote it? Legally compelling the publisher to edit it? Legally compelling distributors not to distribute it?
As far as I can tell, everyone complaining is upset that distributors don't want to tarnish their brand with certain content, and authors and stakeholders have decided that certain content doesn't match their modern brands. None of these are censorship!
As an author, you are free to write dumb things. As a bookstore, I am free to not sell the the dumb things you wrote. That's not censorship.
As a publisher, I am free not to publish the dumb stuff you wrote for you. That's the metaphorical megaphone, in case that is unclear, and no one can force a publisher to give you one.
- mancerayder 6y agoAgain, everything you're saying is legitimate, but it completely ignores the elephant in the room, the big elephant, the monopoly power, the concentrated distribution and unprecedented centralization over the flow of information and broadcast media. Whether it's YouTube, Google search results and playstore access, Facebook, and many more, we are all concerned when a new one is added, such as Ebay. Yes, we won't be sending people with the naughty Dr. Seuss books to the gulag. No one is saying that. We're concerned about monopoly power combined with wokist ideology.
- anatoly 6y agoI wish to see just once someone who makes that argument try to turn it around and apply to something else they don't like to see censored. I'm yet to see it. The Hollywood Blacklist was completely voluntary on the part of the movie studios which enforced it, a decision of certain private companies not to -- how did you phrase it? -- "tarnish their brand" by collaborating with people suspected of Communist tendencies. It is held to be morally repugnant today, and somehow I doubt you would defend it with the same argument you use in the Dr. Seuss case.
- ericb 6y agoI do defend their right to do that, so let me fulfill your wish, friend. I see a massive distinction between "things I don't like" and "things that should be legally compelled." I worry about the authoritarian leanings of anyone who doesn't draw this distinction.
- anatoly 6y agoThe point is the terrible ease of applying a double standard in how you approach an issue. Some private actor X performs an action Y which other people Z find reprehensible. The action Y is within X's legal rights to perform. You can focus on how reprehensible Y is and how Z are right to condemn it. Or you could focus on how X should be totally free to do Y if X so desires, even if we don't like Y. What usually happens is that if you feel Z are right or you wish to support Z or you wish to not be seen as supporting "enemies" of Z, you will focus on condemning Y. It won't even occur to you to emphasize that doing Y is legal; if pressed you'll freely admit it is, but to you focusing on how Y is legal will look like hypocritical attempts to evade the real issue, which is the terribleness of Y. On the other hand, if you dislike Z or like the "enemies" of Z, you will focus on how Y is legal and how Z's dangerous rhetoric about Y poses a real danger of conflating Y with actually illegal acts. You might or might not agree that Y is terrible, but to you it will seem a decidedly minor concern compared to the dangerous rhetoric issuing from Z.