Journal Marxist Hacker 42's Journal: Censorship is NEVER valid 11
An ethical hacker point of view of the cancel culture:
First they came for the conservatives- banning their posts and videos, canceling voices they could not stand.
Then they came for the statues and paintings and works of art- the Iconoclasm. Every hint that the past ever existed, must be destroyed.
Next they will come for the books, burning any that give a hint that any other way of life than theirs existed.
After that they'll be writing memory hole worms to edit the internet to their liking so that no post can be made without approved speech and thought codes applied.
At what level of historical revisionism are you comfortable with?
Because I am not comfortable with any of it.
If you must practice historical revision, add data, don't delete it.
Write your own point of view on a plaque to attach to the base of a statue or the frame of that painting so that future inhabitants of the city can get both sides.
Don't burn books, write books!
Don't edit the internet, start your own web page or social media service.
Censorship is NEVER valid.
Only kind of censorship I'd accept (Score:2)
The only kind of censorship I'd accept is cut out of gore and privacy-intruding pictures.
Platform? (Score:2)
You can say what you want, but they -- anyone -- don't have to give you a platform.
Write your own book easily translates to host your own website. You have no "right" to post anything you want on Twitter, Facebook, or anywhere else that isn't your own space. Feel free to stand on a corner and shout to the heavens.
The movements to pull down Confederate statues has been about their status as monuments, not erasing history. Several times over the years it was suggested to simply move them to museums, where the
Re: (Score:2)
For cyberspace that is true. For public art which is in a public space, it's significantly less true.
Monuments are an important part of history- after all, the Great Pyramids are just monuments.
So instead of pulling down that statue of the great Confederate Hero Fredrick Douglas (yes, I actually had an obliviot claim that Fredrick Douglas, the founding father of abolition, was a confederate hero!) why not just add a plaque with your interpretation to the base of the statue- and let future generations deci
Re: (Score:2)
Mostly because the statues and monuments can be see from a great distance away, whereas you have to be right up on them to read a plaque. The statues themselves dominate the space.
This is similar to the case in Alabama where the judge (Roy Moore?) was forced by the Supreme Court to remove the monument to the Ten Commandments that had been placed in the rotunda. It wasn't about it being a religious reference -- hundreds of courthouses around the country had and still have plaques and displays of the Ten Comm
Re: (Score:2)
Not in a city- maybe some of the mountain sized ones. But those you can put up interpretive centers for- at a reasonable distance to both appreciate the artwork AND get the story. You can even have *competing* interpretive centers telling different stories.
The further away from the statue where the statue can still be seen, the more room you have for adding alternative interpretations, thanks to PI*R^2
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, all I can think of is "Well, build this monument to Hitler, Gobbles, and Goehring and let them add 'alternate interpretation' plaques to put it into context." Quite simply, whoever has the most money to do the most spin will win. Unacceptable.
Which is why I don't support absolutist statements like "ALL censorship is bad" -- "ALL or NONE" are too easy to find an extreme case where it ISN'T bad. Once you do that, then the question becomes the much harder "where's the line?"
The world is not black and wh
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, you've yet to give me a case where censorship is good. That Ten Commandments Case sure as hell didn't fit the bill as being for the common good.
And yes, I think it is for the common good to let those who have the most success, define the rules, as long as they don't delete information.
Re: (Score:2)
The Ten Commandments case was, in my opinion, good. It wasn't censorship as the court was certainly allowed to have a display related to them. However, as courts are supposed to be neutral arbiters of the law, the massive monument and the judge's public statements gave the distinct impression that Christians were favored over non-Christians. That the law and justice were NOT equal -- or equal only in the definition given in Animal Farm.
I think it is for the common good to let those who have the most success, define the rules, as long as they don't delete information.
Great! Then you support those who had the most success -- The United Sta
Re: (Score:2)
Those who forget the past- or try to erase it- have a tendency to repeat the mistakes of the past.
The reason why Confederate, Nazi, and Communist statues are good to keep around is as a warning to the future.
Books burn, degrade, crumble. Data seems to be ephemeral and permanent, but only lasts as long as power to the data center does. But we are *still* digging up statues from 10,000 year old civilizations.
Odd that "Marxist Hacker 42" opposes.... (Score:2)
...censorship, given that all the self-declared Marxist governments that have ever existed practiced it pretty openly.
Re: (Score:2)
This is for four reasons:
1. The handle comes from when I was young, idealistic, and in college, my economic and governmental views have evolved considerably since then. From Marxism, to communism, to socialism, to capitalism, and out the other side to a Catholic belief in absolute private property ownership in amounts sufficient for a man to feed his family.
2. It was always more about HACKING Marxism as a system to get rid of excesses like censorship, bigotry, and genocide.
3. 42, the answer to Life, the