Censorship is what people say when they don’t want to address the actual issue…for reasons
The other day, I posted about the SFWA Bulletin Petition thing. I’m not going to rehash that debate here, though you’re welcome to read it (there are links at the bottom of that post to other discussions). However, I do think it a good idea to take a moment to talk about the rhetoric surrounding this ordeal, because much of the anger and confusion is, if not deliberate, then certainly the product of a particular discourse which naturally stifles debate or discussion. The centerpiece of this rhetorical game is “censorship,” which many have already discussed at some length elsewhere. Here, I’m interested in how “censorship” is used in the service of the agenda at the heart of the petition and the debates that followed: I. Censorship is a Distortion First, I think it is worth reminding everyone that in discussions that begin with censorship, the charge itself is almost always not reflective of reality. The original version of Truesdale’s petition argues, for example, that the SFWA is “about to institute a policy of censorship based on political correctness in the organization’s public publication,” followed closely by the following: The search for a new Bulletin editor followed the Summer 2013 resignation (under pressure) of the then (lady) editor (for the use of an “inappropriate” cover among other alleged crimes), and the brouhaha involving two long-time and well respected Bulletin columnists whose use of the words “lady editors,” “beautiful,” and a few other innocuous descriptive words led, for the first time in the history of the Bulletin, to its suspension (as of this writing no editor has been selected and the Bulletin remains in limbo).[1] As has already been pointed out by many people (see the links in my original post), this charge not only misrepresents what censorship is, but also the events which led the SFWA to make the changes that it did. It is either a deliberate distortion, or a delusional one, but a distortion nonetheless. Much of this relies on fuzzy terminology, such as the idea of “political correctness,” which in one light might mean “respectful” and in another might mean “stifling,” though the latter is definitively not the intent nor the purpose of the acts that frequently fall under “PC” (a distortion in and of itself). After all, to ask someone not to call black people “niggers” in a professional publication is hardly “politically correct” (i.e., stifling of one’s speech), but really a request for common courtesy at the very least. “Politically correct,” in other words, is just a buzzword for “I want to be able to say whatever I want without getting called out for it.” In a civilized culture, that’s hardly a reasonable position to take. Back to the subject of censorship as a distortion: Truesdale himself lists the offensive aspects of SFWA’s editorial job description, none of which fit within the definition he provides by implication. Censorship, in his argument, must by necessity have a political agenda. Yet, when he pressed Steven Gould for an answer to this “agenda,” the response demonstrated the exact opposite. As Gould wrote, “We don’t have guidelines for “acceptable” articles, art, and ads other than content needs to serve the needs of the organization. Chief among those are our 5 core mission areas: to inform, support, promote, defend and advocate for professional writers.” Simple right? Since the job of an editor is quite literally to fulfill the mission of whatever publication they edit, and that editor is answerable to whoever pays to publish the works, it’s hardly censorship to request that an editor have to do any of these things, particularly given the context in which the SFWA has made its claims. So the argument that an editor doing what an editor does in the service of a publication with a specific purpose is “censorship” is merely a distortion of editorial duties, and one grounded in a perspective which neither acknowledges that mutual respect must fall on the grounds of language (because language matters), but also within the terms of a given space. In this case, the SFWA’s space has a specific purpose, and the SFWA, it appears, has taken steps to make sure the Bulletin is relevant only to that purpose. There’s no active attempt to prevent members within the SFWA’s borders from saying what they like, just as there is no requirement for the Bulletin to publish whatever gets sent to it, as is completely reasonable. That’s just reality. Ultimately, censorship is rarely used in situations where it actually applies in these debates, in large part because censorship almost never occurs in these debates. Real censorship looks like this: You’re threatened with or put in prison because of what you say or write by the government or someone working for that government. You’re threatened with or a victim of violence because of what you say or write by the same. You’re preventing from accessing avenues of speech by the same. For example: if you run an online newspaper and the government shuts down your Internet or destroys your computers. Or any other situation in which the government directly interferes with your ability to freely exercise your speech (setting aside, of course, cases of libel, etc.). Not surprisingly, none of this applies in SFWA’s case. II. Censorship is a Distraction Since this petition relies on casting not only its initial terminology (censorship), but also the events in question within a perspective which requires absolute adherence to the first and absolute rejection of the latter (on the terms of the author alone), there’s little room for an actual debate here. In fact, the distortion of censorship (applying it in a scenario where suddenly “editing” becomes “censorship”) is a distraction. In vociferously defending this notion of “free speech” in a context in which it definitely does not apply, those who hold this position betray not only their ignorance of the terms, but also a profound disinterest in debate about the actual issue. As I noted to Paul Levinson in the comments