How do you define censorship?

[netmouse]

Someone commented in another journal the idea that censorship is something only governments can do.

I had defined it as something people with power do to people (publications, performances, etc) they have power over.

ETA: by power I meant institutionally-based authority, not merely physical force. "Institution" can include social institutions, such as clubs, churches, or families.

How do you define censorship?

Comments

[the-leewit.livejournal.com]

I take a longer, etymological view--- yes, I know you are shocked. Totally unlike me to bring in etymology or outdated word meanings. The original censors, of old Rome, were the men who decided, quite literally, whose vote would count-- the takers of the census. They controlled the budgets for public buildings and works and were also the guardians of the public morals--- not only who should be allowed to show what kind of skin (grin), but censuring those who, for instance, allowed their lands to go fallow in a manner that endangered one's neighbor's fields (in such a manner that pests were encouraged, for instance), were excessively cruel or indulgent to their wives or children, or generally made themselves a nuisance-from-within to Roman society.

I quite agree with you that it does not necessarily have to stem from government authority. There is, for example, self-censorship that stems from, "Is it responsible to run the Abu Ghraib photographs, where children, who are maybe not prepared to see images of sexually-charged psychological torture are likely to see them?" rather than, "We'll get in trouble with the government if we run this story or show nudity in this context!" And what do you call, for example, the actions of an editor who sends a script back requesting that be made compliant with the Comics Code, even though the CCA is not a government authority?

For me, I suppose, the classification of omitting information as "censorship" comes from the motivation--- it has to be viewed by the censor, whether rightly or wrongly, for the public good. The convenient thing about my definition is that it covers the almighty hand of the FCC pressing the bloop button when George Carlin broadcasts stand up routins as well as the WWII PFC scanning mail to make certain soldiers were not chancing inadvertently advertising the movement of their units, in case the mail should fall into enemy hands.

I don't think all censorship is bad, either--- but it's a very slippery slope.

[cannibal.livejournal.com]

I don't think you've clearly stated the role of Roman censors... I recently finished Rubicon: the last years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland because Asya checked it out of the library and I ran out of books. According to him, the censors were the two magistrates who decided precisely how much your vote would count (everyone had a vote, but the more money you had the more your vote counted) via the power to promote or demote you between the seven classes (from equestrians down to proletarii). In the early republic, your class depended purely on whether you could afford a horse or good weapons and armour. Later, your wife's name, number of children, land, money, slaves, and possessions all had to be collated by scribes and assessed by the censors. The best way to be demoted would be to lose your money, especially given bribery and dirty politics in the late republic. According to Plutarch, even "personal tastes and appetites should be subject to surveillance and review." The fact that the censor only reviewed each citizen once every five years doesn't tie well to what we now consider freedom of speech or the press.

Censure in the Roman Catholic Church was a punishment which did not allow anyone to communicate with the offending party. Certainly, Galileo is a good example, and this is probably the source of the modern usage. Most of us would agree that this was a bad thing, and that clearly was censorship, so I would argue that church censorship came before government censorship. The McCarthy blacklists are another example of this kind of censure.

Censors in the US Army in WWI and II were responsible for reading mail, whether sent home by soldiers or the press, and eliding anything which might give specific information on necessarily secret troop movements. We learned military censorship from the British, who started it in the Boer war. A famous example was the D-Day invasion of Normandy, when we ran a massive misinformation campaign to convince the Nazis that we were going to attack somewhere else. I think anyone would agree that this sort of censorship is necessary - although of course whether it is good or not depends on which side you're on.

Recently, some idiot named John Norman claimed that the Worldcon was censoring him because he asked them (Philcon, I believe) to invite him as a guest, pay for his room and membership, and put him on panels, and they responded, "not interested". He wrote a long letter to Locus about how awful the concom were for censoring him. I heard about this because Howard wrote a reply making fun of him for being an idiot (not to mention a plagiarist, since his first Gor book was a total rip-off of ERB's Princess of Mars). In my opinion, for the con to turn him down, or an editor to decide not to buy a story because it is crap, is not censorship. It may be an example of showing discriminating taste, but that is the subject for another post.