"No more censorship!" (part 1)
Pornography for kindergarteners? Yay!
For a variety of reasons, the word “censorship” has re-entered the world of American political discourse. (Actually, there’s only one reason: Leftists want to restrict the free speech of anyone who disagrees with them.)
When I became an English teacher in the 1990’s, censorship was presented to me as perhaps the greatest enemy of our time. My veteran colleagues loved to tell stories about evil, racist, boogeymen who wanted to ban great literature because … well, they were evil, racist boogeymen. (Duh!)
Not surprisingly, most of these colleagues were liberal. Spending the vast majority of one’s time with your nose in a book, enraptured by make-believe lands with no basis in reality is perfect training to enter the no-basis-in-reality world of the Left. It was not at all unusual to hear anti-censorship proclamations in the faculty lounge.
Because the term “anti-censorship” seemed reductive to me, I found myself in a number of conversations like the one below:
Liberal teacher friend: “I’m totally against censorship!”
Me: “Totally?”
Liberal teacher friend: “Totally. Censorship is bad. There should never be any censorship!”
Me: “I just finished writing my lesson plans for tomorrow, and I’m planing on showing hard-core pornography to the morning kindergarten class. That’s cool with you, right?
Liberal teacher friend: “You can’t do that!!!”
Me: “Oh, so you’re censoring me?”
Liberal teacher friend: “Well, that’s different.”
Of COURSE it was different. Banning a book from a high school reading list because of controversial content was not the same as banning content from a kindergarten class because it was inappropriate for children of that age. But using the term “anti-censorship” grouped both examples together, thus weakening the speaker’s intent.
Fast forward 30 years. Unfortunately, the Lunatic Left’s obsession with sexualizing small children has made my previous argument untenable. If I hypothetically offered to show pornography to a kindergarten class today, Leftists would celebrate, perhaps offering to bring “non-binary” pornography of their own. Therefore, I’ve had to modify my argument a little bit.
Liberal teacher friend: “I’m totally against censorship!”
Me: “Totally?”
Liberal teacher friend: “Totally. Censorship is bad. There should never be any censorship!”
Me: “Cool. I’m working on my lesson plans for tomorrow. My sophomores are going to read The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump, my juniors are writing a persuasive essay about why abortion should be illegal after 10 weeks, and my seniors are writing a rhetorical analysis of Ann Coulter’s latest column.”
Liberal teacher friend: “AHHHHHHHHH!!!!! FASCIST!!! TRUMP IS A HITLER!!!!!”
Obviously the discussion ends there, but my point is the same: Claiming to be “against censorship” is a statement so general that it’s essentially meaningless. Back in the day, the lunatics on the Left loved to paint themselves as anti-censorship (good) and everyone else as pro-censorship (bad). It was a gross and inaccurate oversimplification, of course, like so much of the Left’s corrupted language.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the 2024 presidential election. Elon Musk bought Twitter, and all rhetorical hell broke loose. Suddenly, Leftists weren’t using the word “censorship” the way they did back in Ronald Reagan’s time.
(To be continued … )