A Sense of Doubt blog post #2971 - Books Sell Better When Censored - Censorship Part One
This may be a lazy share, but I am preparing a a presentation on censorship, so this is post number one of three that collect lots of materials.
Thanks for tuning in.
https://www.openculture.com/2022/12/isaac-asimov-on-how-libraries-can-radically-change-your-life-1971.html
https://www.wonkette.com/100-year-old-lady-at-florida-school-board-better-patriot-than-all-book-banners-put-together
North Dakota GOP To Jail Librarians For Disgusting Sex Books, Including Images Of 'Gender Identity' https://t.co/EcNaaU9R8e
— gmrstudios (@gmrstudios) January 21, 2023
NYT: The morning - December 19th 2022
By Julie Bosman National Correspondent |
Good morning. The book industry usually does well during the holiday season, but has faced a tumultuous year instead. |
|
Battlegrounds |
Book bans are sweeping schools and libraries. A failed corporate acquisition resulted in an antitrust trial and an executive shake-up. Strife over low wages has sparked labor actions. |
This is a moment of upheaval for the book publishing industry, a multibillion-dollar business with extraordinary cultural power and influence in the United States. |
The industry is also facing other headwinds. After a boom in sales during the pandemic, some high-profile books underperformed this year. Michelle Obama’s most recent book, “The Light We Carry,” had less than one quarter of the first-week print sales of her 2018 memoir, “Becoming.” Publishers are worried that 2023 will be a bumpy year, with fears of a recession ahead. |
In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain three issues that are causing angst in the publishing industry: free speech, labor and corporate consolidation. |
Banning efforts |
Which books should children read? It’s a question that has sent parents complaining to meetings of school boards and public library councils in recent months. |
Many were mobilized by conservative groups who say they are defending the rights of parents. These organizations succeeded in persuading school boards and libraries to remove specific books, said my colleague Elizabeth A. Harris, who covers publishing. |
Their most frequent targets are books with plots on race or gender, or stories with L.G.B.T.Q. characters. They have even gone after books with acknowledged cultural and historical significance: In Tennessee, a county school board removed “Maus,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, and refused to reinstate it despite a national uproar. |
The efforts of these conservative groups have very real implications. For millions of American families, especially those with lower incomes, books are usually borrowed, rarely bought. If a book is not available in a school or library, children simply lose access to them. |
In some cities, parents and administrators have pushed back. A school board in Downers Grove, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, rejected calls recently to remove a memoir on gender identity from its libraries. |
But the conservative groups are becoming more organized and better funded, Elizabeth said. They have sophisticated operations in place on the state and local levels and show no sign of slowing their efforts. |
“It’s happening all over the place, and it’s very alarming for publishers and the larger book world,” she told me. |
Labor conflict |
Publishers are also facing opposition from within their own ranks. Employees have been restless and angry on the topics of both wages and diversity in a business that has historically doled out low pay to its editors, publicists, marketers and other workers, while requiring them to live in the astronomically expensive New York City area. |
A younger generation of employees is challenging the industry’s longstanding assumption that newcomers will work long hours for lower wages. They have begun demanding that executives build a more diverse work force, and raise its pay. A unionized group of HarperCollins employees went on strike in November, arguing that the minimum starting salary should be raised to $50,000, from $45,000. |
More than one month later, the strike hasn’t stopped HarperCollins from publishing books. But the action has gained support. Padma Lakshmi, the author and chef, hosted the National Book Awards last month with a union button on her dress that striking employees had given her outside the gala. |
Business fundamentals |
Back in 2013, I was covering the publishing industry during the merger of Penguin and Random House, a jaw-dropping move that created the most dominant book publisher in the world. A charming Random House executive, Markus Dohle, was tapped to lead the newly merged company as its C.E.O., and his rise in the industry seemed unstoppable. |
Much has changed since then. Dohle fought for the acquisition of Simon & Schuster, another major publisher. The Justice Department sued to stop the merger, arguing that it would have stifled competition and hurt authors. After a trial in August, a judge ruled in the government’s favor to block the deal, a blow to Dohle. He resigned this month as chief executive. |
Does this mean that consolidation, which has ruled the publishing industry for so long — and is a complaint of authors, who are left with fewer choices when they are looking to be published — will pause? Perhaps. Hachette and HarperCollins, two major publishers, have also expressed interest in buying Simon & Schuster. |
One outcome seems clear: Publishers are going to think carefully before they consider a merger that will come under government scrutiny. The Biden administration has demonstrated that it is not afraid of the challenge. |
Related: The books most frequently targeted by conservative groups have been by or about Black or L.G.B.T.Q. people. |
Banned Books Week
September 18-24
"Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to read and spotlights current and historical attempts to censor books in libraries and schools. By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship.
ALA’s (American Library Association) Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 729 challenges to library, school and university materials and services in 2021, resulting in more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals. Most targeted books were by or about Black or LGBTQIA+ persons.
The theme for Banned Books Week 2022 is "Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us." Sharing stories important to us means sharing a part of ourselves. Books reach across boundaries and build connections between readers. Censorship, on the other hand, creates barriers." - American Library Association
Top 10 challenged booksList of frequently challenged books
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
https://media.okstate.edu/faculty/jsenat/censorship/defining.htm
Defining Censorship
- DEFINITIONS of CENSORSHIP
"Supervision and control of the information and ideas that are circulated among the people within a society. In modern times, censorship refers to the examination of books, periodicals, plays, films, television and radio programs, news reports, and other communication media for the purpose of altering or suppressing parts thought to be objectionable or offensive."
-- Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia
- What's missing from this definition? Censorship by whom?
- Is censorship by private groups and individuals included in this definition? Do they "supervise and control"?
"Official prohibition or restriction of any type of expression believed to threaten the political, social, or moral order. It may be imposed by governmental authority, local or national, by a religious body, or occasionally by a powerful private group."
-- The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.
- Would parental control over children be considered censorship?
- Would economic boycotts be considered censorship?
- Does this includes suppression of information?
"The term censorship, however, as commonly understood, connotes any examination of thought or expression in order to prevent publication of 'objectionable' material."
-- U.S. Supreme Court, Farmers Educational & Coop. Union v. WDAY, Inc., 360 U.S. 525, 527 (1959)
- Does censorship include punishment for thought or expression after the fact?
"In its broadest sense [censorship] refers to suppression of information, ideas, or artistic expression by anyone, whether government officials, church authorities, private pressure groups, or speakers, writers, and artists themselves. . . . In its narrower, more legalistic sense, censorship means only the prevention by official government action of the circulation of messages already produced. Thus writers who 'censor' themselves before putting words on paper, for fear of failing to sell their work, are not engaging in censorship in this narrower sense, nor are those who boycott sponsors of disliked television shows. Yet all of these restraints have the effect of limiting the diversity that would otherwise be available in the marketplace of ideas and so may be considered censorship in its broadest sense."
-- Academic American Encyclopedia
- Is censorship limited to violations of the First Amendment by government?
"The cyclical suppression, banning, expurgation, or editing by an individual, institution, group or government that enforces or influences its decision against members of the public of any written or pictorial materials which that individual, institution, group or government deems obscene and 'utterly without redeeming social value' as determined by 'contemporary community standards.'"
-- professor Chuck Stone, UNC-Chapel Hill - FORMS of CENSORSHIP
- Preventive (exercised before the expression is made public)
- Prior restraint by government
- Licensing
- Self-censorship
- Punitive (exercised after the expression is made public)
- Censorship vs. Taboos
- Taboo becomes censorship when it is applied to outside members who do not hold that belief.
"In primitive societies, censorship is ordinarily the work of taboo, traditional prohibitions upon certain acts and attitudes; and those taboos are so thoroughly imprinted upon the minds of the young by the tribal elders that they become almost a part of the nature of all members of the group, without much latter necessity for enforcing conformity to these commandments."
-- Collier's Encyclopedia"Censorship is a conscious policy; it may be enforced without the assent of the greater part of society. A tabu enters intimately into the scheme of feelings of those who entertain it. The tabu is particularly effective in self-control; when it is applied by group action to those who do not entertain it, such action is generally spontaneous and unreflective."
-- Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
- Preventive (exercised before the expression is made public)
- WHAT is CENSORED?
- Speech
- Art
- Books
- Periodicals (published with set frequency)
- Films
- Plays
- Photography
- Television programs
- Radio programs
- Internet (Web sites and e-mail)
- News reports
- WHO CENSORS?
- Government
- Church
- Private Pressure Groups
- Speakers, Writers and Artists (self-censorship)
- Anyone
- Types of government/societies most likely to censor
Societies most confident of their principles and of the loyalty of their members have allowed the greatest freedom from censorship. "In societies whose values have not been fully accepted by their people or whose leadership rests on shaky foundations, the heaviest hand of censorship has fallen. The relative prevalence of censorship is one of the features that has most distinguished autocratic from democratic societies."
-- American Academic Encyclopedia
- WHY DO THEY CENSOR?
- SELF-CENSORSHIP: A form of preventive censorship
Why? To avoid:- Trouble
- Controversy
- Offending the audience
- Economic boycotts
- Lawsuits (e.g., libel, invasion of privacy torts, etc.)
- Official censorship (self-imposed ratings to avoid government ratings)
- CENSORSHIP of OTHERS:
- "The fact that this censorship may have a laudable ulterior purpose cannot mean that censorship is not censorship."
-- U.S. Supreme Court, City of Erie v. Pap's A.M., 529 U.S. 277, 322 (2000)
- "Censorship operates on the assumption that the thoughts, feelings, opinions, beliefs and fantasies of human beings ought to be a subject of moral judgment and ultimately social and government action."
-- Harry White, "Anatomy of Censorship: Why the Censors Have It Wrong," p. xvii
- Censorship is a necessary obligation of the authority to protect the moral and social order.
-- Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
- "The objectionable material may be considered immoral or obscene, heretical or blasphemous, seditious or treasonable, or injurious to the national security. Thus, the rationale for censorship is that it is necessary for the protection of three basic social institutions: the family, the church, and the state."
-- New World Encyclopedia
- Protect "the moral order upon which each and every citizen ... depends for his or her safety and well-being and upon which society as a whole depends for its very preservation."
-- White, p. xv
- Root motivation for censorship is fear that "the expression, if not curtailed, will do harm to individuals in its audience or to society as a whole."
-- American Academic Encyclopedia
- Three rationalizations for censorship:
- Ideas are false or dangerous by the standards of the authorities;
- The minds of those who would be subjected to the ideas to be censored are not capable of seeing the falsity and would be led astray; and
- Ideas that lead to antisocial behavior may be censored.
-- International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
- "The fact that this censorship may have a laudable ulterior purpose cannot mean that censorship is not censorship."
- SELF-CENSORSHIP: A form of preventive censorship
- WHAT ARE CENSORS REALLY TRYING TO PROTECT?
- Censors talk about "VIRTUE" -- really means "conform to the opinions, beliefs and values that they and theirs hold and which they would like to see enforced throughout the land."
-- White, p. vii
- Censorship REALLY "serves to protect the predominant ideology from which those benefit most who have attained power, wealth, status, and control within society." Censors seek to protect the prevailing ideology not because society would collapse, "but because it serves to legitimize their eminence and the various social, political and economic arrangements they oversee."
-- White, xv
- "More often than not, state action is not in defense of itself but in the form of a service to some influential members of the polity, in ridding the society of certain ideas that are considered offensive by these influential members."
-- International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences.
- Censors talk about "VIRTUE" -- really means "conform to the opinions, beliefs and values that they and theirs hold and which they would like to see enforced throughout the land."
- WHY ARE CENSORS WRONG?
- Cannot define with clarity what is "blasphemous, obscene, or seditious expression. Clear definitions and standards are rarely publicized prior to the arrest, prosecution and conviction of those accused of illicit expression."
-- White, p. xiv
- Cannot demonstrate that the material "actually poses a danger to society."
- Censors have to "forcibly suppress" because they cannot "convincingly demonstrate" that the material is false or harmful.
- "Censorship arises when and precisely because someone cannot convincingly demonstrate to others that the opinions which offend him or her are indeed truly false or dangerous. If they could, there would after all be little or no need for censorship."
-- White, p. xiv
- Cannot define with clarity what is "blasphemous, obscene, or seditious expression. Clear definitions and standards are rarely publicized prior to the arrest, prosecution and conviction of those accused of illicit expression."
- WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF CENSORSHIP?
- "The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion. ... In the long run it will create a generation incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience."
-- Henry Steel Commager, historian and educator
- "Censorship that hinders peaceable opposition to the government in the short run creates the long-run danger of violent opposition."
-- Americana Encyclopedia- "By suppressing reform the censorship may transform it into a revolution."
-- Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
- "By suppressing reform the censorship may transform it into a revolution."
- "Every censorship produces a technique of evasion as well as a technique of administration."
-- Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
- "It is a notorious fact that censorship or the threat of censorship may make the fortune of a book or play which might otherwise have failed to win public attention."
-- Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
- Real issues are not racism or sexism, but racial and sexual discrimination. Emphasis on controlling racist and sexist thoughts diverts attention and resources from more substantive problems.
-- White, p. v
- Getting government of the business of censorship and re-allocating the funds regularly spent on it would:
- Unburden the legal system (legislative and judicial branches), and
- Re-deploy law enforcement agents to better confront "the real dangers and serious crime citizens face."
-- White, p. xvii
- "For the real evil in the world comes not from the disagreeable people, but from those so convinced of the absolute rightness of their opinions and beliefs that they would impose what they think and feel upon others. It is they who must account for their actions. For it is they who are most definitely in the wrong and from whom little good ever comes."
-- White, p. ix
- "The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion. ... In the long run it will create a generation incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience."
The Push to Ban Books Across America
Parents, activists, school board officials and lawmakers are increasingly contesting children’s access to books.
- Nationwide Efforts: Amid growing polarization, books exploring racial and social issues are drawing fire in different parts of the United States.
- Growing Rapidly: Attempts to ban books are accelerating at a rate never seen since tracking began more than 20 years ago, according to a report from the American Library Association.
- Fueling the Surge: Over the past two years, conservative groups seeking to restrict access to books have become vastly more organized, well-funded, effective — and criticized.
- Librarians Under Attack: As book bans explode across the country, librarians find themselves on the front lines of an acrimonious culture war, with their careers and reputations at risk.
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2304.07 - 10:10
- Days ago = 2835 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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