The worst thing about censorship is
This short, one-line poem could be mistaken for half a poem. This poem may leave the reader wondering what I, the author, consider to be the worst thing about censorship. This poem may even beg the reader to fill in the blank, the censored blank, for themselves. Part of the point of the poem is that we will never truly know what we are missing when our ability to express ourselves in censored.
There are at least two types of censorship: self-censorship, and being censored by another. Most often censorship refers to the latter, typically in objection to censorship as an unjust social relationship. This type of censorship is important to identify and address because it is a direct threat to free speech. This type of censorship creates a climate of fear among those whose expressions may be threatened, and a mistrust of authority among those who question the legitimacy of such censorship. Censorship stands in almost direct opposition to free speech. No doubt, some expressions should not be considered free speech, such as the proverbial shouting “fire” in a crowded theater. Nonetheless, I suspect that such cases are quite rare. The fear and social control generated by direct censorship ripples far beyond a person’s expression being squelched, and beyond potential recipients of that expression losing out on that expression. The fear of some social sanction leads to countless forms and incidents of self-censorship. This is the insidiously successful child of direct censorship.
If those in a position of power to censor can cow us to become sheep, then their mold of our culture will grow more pronounced in our silence. I suspect self-censorship accounts for much, if not most, of the seemingly miraculous hold that the powers that be have over the masses. Self-censorship allows the illusion that power comes from above, top-down, rather than power being derived from the consent of the people. Of course, power from above, in the form of sheer force, is a scary reality. Social sanctions for simply speaking out can be large. In fact, the presence of a disproportionately large social sanction merely for speaking out is perhaps the surest clue that the underlying reality is unjust. After all, talk is cheap. But if questioning power structures is not dealt with early enough on, then the precarious illusion of top-down power masquerading as authority, and the seeming futility of bottom-up power, will continue unabated. A little shock and awe is sometimes needed to remind people of who is in control. Learned helplessness will do the trick the vast majority of the time.
Overcoming self-censorship is a necessary condition for a free society. We can only deal well with reality if we know what that reality is. This requires liberal self-expression. Heavily redacted realities make poor citizens and sick societies. This may be the best single reason for either avoiding most of popular media, or consuming it with a high degree of literacy, to see it for the spectacle that it is. The images and messages, both overt and subtle, in media have a powerful effect on how we view reality. The simple fact that there is a whole genre of “reality” television that has little to do with reality is probably the best illustration of how far afield we have become. TV is a poor representation of reality.
Overcoming self-censorship requires courage and sacrifice. As Amelia Earhart said, “Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.” We can flow with the idolatrous, heavily redacted realities that invade our consciousness unrelentingly through media and advertising. Though such illusions are unsustainable in many ways, there is a lot of force applied to maintain them. Adding your consent to those forces may benefit you in many ways. Or, we can freely and courageously express our own realities which often differ profoundly from the heavily promoted narratives around us. This may exact a price, but, at least it is a price paid in homage to reality, not illusion. Who knows, we may very well find that the realities of the vast majority of humans on this planet have more in common with one another than the dreams foisted upon us. This is the making of peace. As Gandhi so simply and profoundly stated, “Peace is possible.” This reality is so routinely obscured. You can be a living expression of this reality. You are the channel.
Silence Will Not Protect You
Your Silence Will Not Protect You – Pink Triangle–Gay Pride Rainbow Shop BUTTON
Your Silence Will Not Protect You – Pink Triangle–Gay Pride Rainbow Shop BUTTON
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This gay pride design is a classic that was popularized during the gay community’s struggle to combat HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s. There is a mode of being that is very common in life that if we just quietly get along everything will be alright. This may work much of the time. This definitely does not work all the time.
While this design is specifically geared to the gay community, with its issues of coming out, speaking out, and dealing with all the crap that comes with that, this design and saying is universal for all of humanity. You might even say that breaking out of that common mode of just quietly getting along hoping that everything will be all right is what it means to be queer! And one queer reality is that we are all queer in one way or another. What I mean by this is that we are all minorities in one way or another. We are all disenfranchised in one way or another. We were all put down in one way or another, for who we are. It is out of this universal queer experience that speaking out becomes necessary.
Silence is not enough. We need to communicate and assert who we are to others, particularly when who we are is different from others. Otherwise, who we are will never be adequately taken into account by others, that is by the majority or so-called norm for any social group. How could we expect otherwise? This is just the groundwork and footwork that needs to be done for us to live in community, which is inherently diverse, no matter how much we may try to homogenize things. Communicating who we are with one another is the only way that we can live together in a way that truly honors one another. Otherwise, while we may be technically living together, we are just in the same vicinity, living in our own little realities. Doing the hard work of speaking out and communicating with one another leads to a lot of disillusionment, that process of shedding our illusions. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that we have a choice in this matter. Living authentically, that is, in consonance with reality, demands that we learn about the reality of others and communicate our own reality to others. The difficulty in this is rooted in the fact that in those areas of our life where we experience fitting into the dominant norm, we have little built-in incentive to do the work of learning about minorities, those ways that others are queer. Thus, the incentive, or burden, falls to those who are in the minority, the queers. This will always be an uphill battle, with the less powerful doing their duty to inform the more powerful. Fortunately, acting in consonance with reality is ultimately the most powerful way of being. In this case, the less powerful are doing double duty by serving their own palpable interest and the less recognizable but equally important interests of those in a particular dominant norm. If this seems somehow unfair, please remember, again, that we all have areas in our life where we are living into the dominant norm, and we all have areas in our life where we are living into a queer norm. Thus, by recognizing this, there is a solid basis for compassion toward one another and ourselves. In this sense, we are all in the same boat. Normal is not normal. We are all queer. The seeming paradox of a queer norm is only paradoxical if we don’t recognize that we all experience one or another queer norm. It’s just a matter of doing the hard work of sorting out our experiences of difference, and truly appreciating that difference, diversity, is as valuable as it is inescapable. I do not believe that reality is cruel. There is a beneficence to reality that favors the beneficent. May we heed this reality and live into it joyfully whoever we may be. Let the process of self and other discovery continue!
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