Hmmm, I’m not seeing or “hearing” the situation in which I spent most of my professional life - as an official diplomatic representative of my country, a role in which much of my speech was not my own personal views or thinking but rather the circumscribed officially approved words sent to me by the government of the day in Washington. My interactions with people often were disassociated from any personal agenda for which I had to substitute the goals and objectives of the government instructing me.
Loury doesn’t really raise that issue directly. But there’s a sense in which self-censorship comes into play—same as inside a company. If the official line is such and such, participants have to decide how much of that they’re okay with and how much of themselves they have to leave out or suppress. If the dissonance is high, it can be tough to bear.
I will have to look for this book since you’ve made it sound very interesting indeed.
It seems to me that both discussions, including on the personal level, necessitate, making similar judgments about what to say and what to leave out. Anyone who’s been married for more than five seconds has confronted this delicate problem.
Think of all the times you think an argument is about something immediate like the top left off the toothpaste tube, and your partner comes into the talk with some bigger fish to fry.
It sounds like what the author is addressing is a situation where common citizens, not diplomats, feel they should speak out against something they believe is unethical, or where there is a social issue or public policy they disagree with, but they silence themselves out of fear of personal consequences that have worsened over the years as everything has become politicized at the atomic level. A situation where tribalism and partisanship have replaced high-quality debate and intellectual discourse.
Rather than a free society that is capable of having rational conversations about challenging but important topics, it sounds like the author is describing a public that is afraid to speak their minds honestly out of fear of political retaliation, even for those who live far outside the sphere of politics.
That's a very different thing from a diplomat who has personally chosen to work in the political realm and who voluntarily traded their free speech rights to serve as a representative of their country and its values (which, ironically, include free expression, in America at least).
That was my take as well, though I might appreciate someone addressing the personal dissonance arising from the experience of a professional altering speech to satisfy an external agenda.
A difficult topic, Joel. This is something I, as a writer, a novelist, am highly aware of. Mr. Loury hints at what his views are on the war in the Middle East, but doesn't say it outright. A lot of people are in the same boat. And then there is race. Ouch! Be careful what you say. That topic can get you fired or worse.
In America, and the world, now, you cannot say what you think, give your opinion because we have lost the ability to 'discuss,' to listen, to agree to disagree.
I see no solutions to the current situations. I think the only one available at present is for people to find their own group where most, not all, share the same opinions.
I was going to go further but I have decided to self-censer. Sorry everyone.
John Stuart Mill warned of this phenomenon in the introduction of On Liberty;
“Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own.”
If you have recently raised a child you will be very familiar with the promotion of self-censorship to the children by many schools.
This speaks. Sometimes speaking your peace is better than being silent no matter the cost. Speaking peace means what it says because it can clear the air.
I have been silenced through my life— from parents, evangelical subculture, poetry school. It’s taken work to speak up and on a personal level there comes a price.
But on social media it costs too much because people pile on and conversations go on and on. But in person it’s another matter because we can find common ground by sensing the other persons reactions and gauging opinion to that. In this acrimonious age I think that it’s important work.
This was a breath of fresh air. This is so true to my life. I’m an artist and my business is based on Instagram. I can’t even tell you the feeling of fear (yes, it’s ridiculous but sometimes I feel real fear and dread) that I might say something in a post that offends someone, or I might accidentally says the wrong thing and my business and livelihood will suffer. I’m not giving my opinion on everything going on in society, I keep my posts focused on the things I make and sell, but over the past 5 years I have witnessed the businesses of people in my particular industry on Instagram get absolutely torn apart and slandered, accused of racism, accused on being anti-(insert social topic). You feel like you are walking on eggshells. And if you aren’t playing the game, saying the things that *are* okay, and what everyone else has “permission” to say, then even your silence speaks. This essay from 1994 was/is very prophetic.
Self-censorship has always existed as a form of protection, but the possible reach and breadth of contemporary communications has drastically raised its influence and importance.
Agreed. He doesn’t denigrate self-censorship as such. Sometimes it’s just a question of being polite and getting along. What he goes after are those cases where civic discourse suffers because we’ve shielded ourselves from facts and perspectives we find uncomfortable or inconvenient.
It is often actually a question of whom to talk, where, and why, and whether it benefits anybody but my own precious self.
If I'm not saying anything -be assured, 99% it's because I'm scared for other people, and not myself.
Or because the audience isn't really interested in my opinion.
If it's gonna be the matter that, while indeed risking much more more then social clout, will be neccessary to address right there and right now -then I'll say stuff that nobody else dared to say. And face the consequences.
I think self-sensorship is very much underappreciated.
Of course I'm not arguing with how it can stem from this and that, and many other reasons it exists, and the book discussed sounds very interesting indeed, albeit not new to me (field of knowledge I once knew better)
Interesting, but there is another type of self-censorship that is the mark of maturity. In the words of Solomon, "A fool utters all his mind, but the wise man keepeth it in until afterwards." James calls the untamed tongue a world of iniquity, that sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell. Whoever controls the tongue, says James, has reached maturity and able to control their whole body. Freedom of expression is a legal protection to keep the government from singling out those who disagree with it, it is not moral license to say whatever comes into our mind. As our Lord warned, we will give an account for every idle word spoken.
Thanks, sounds like something I should read. That description definitely captures the "is it really worth it?" questioning we all go through when approaching any delicate topic (which seems to include most of them these days). Just last night I was working on a post about "The Great Gatsby," in which I wanted to include some political reflections... and I thought long and hard about whether to do it, and how to couch them. (Head count so far: one subscriber lost! Could be worse....)
I also think it's true that the moderate voices get squeezed out--or not simply the moderate ones, since being "in the middle" is not necessarily a virtue, but the temperate ones who are disposed to seek some kind of mutually acceptable compromise with their opponents. They get trashed by both sides, and typically nobody's got their back.
Hmmm, I’m not seeing or “hearing” the situation in which I spent most of my professional life - as an official diplomatic representative of my country, a role in which much of my speech was not my own personal views or thinking but rather the circumscribed officially approved words sent to me by the government of the day in Washington. My interactions with people often were disassociated from any personal agenda for which I had to substitute the goals and objectives of the government instructing me.
Loury doesn’t really raise that issue directly. But there’s a sense in which self-censorship comes into play—same as inside a company. If the official line is such and such, participants have to decide how much of that they’re okay with and how much of themselves they have to leave out or suppress. If the dissonance is high, it can be tough to bear.
Yes! For example, I tried to avoid any official involvement with our Middle East policy.
I will have to look for this book since you’ve made it sound very interesting indeed.
It seems to me that both discussions, including on the personal level, necessitate, making similar judgments about what to say and what to leave out. Anyone who’s been married for more than five seconds has confronted this delicate problem.
Think of all the times you think an argument is about something immediate like the top left off the toothpaste tube, and your partner comes into the talk with some bigger fish to fry.
Yeah, especially if your partner has the frying pan in hand...
Isn’t this one of those issues everyone has to decide for themselves based on the issue concerned, your own personal
values, what’s at stake and all that?
It sounds like what the author is addressing is a situation where common citizens, not diplomats, feel they should speak out against something they believe is unethical, or where there is a social issue or public policy they disagree with, but they silence themselves out of fear of personal consequences that have worsened over the years as everything has become politicized at the atomic level. A situation where tribalism and partisanship have replaced high-quality debate and intellectual discourse.
Rather than a free society that is capable of having rational conversations about challenging but important topics, it sounds like the author is describing a public that is afraid to speak their minds honestly out of fear of political retaliation, even for those who live far outside the sphere of politics.
That's a very different thing from a diplomat who has personally chosen to work in the political realm and who voluntarily traded their free speech rights to serve as a representative of their country and its values (which, ironically, include free expression, in America at least).
That was my take as well, though I might appreciate someone addressing the personal dissonance arising from the experience of a professional altering speech to satisfy an external agenda.
I think that would be a really interesting and enlightening book! Have you considered writing about your experiences?
Humility forbids
A difficult topic, Joel. This is something I, as a writer, a novelist, am highly aware of. Mr. Loury hints at what his views are on the war in the Middle East, but doesn't say it outright. A lot of people are in the same boat. And then there is race. Ouch! Be careful what you say. That topic can get you fired or worse.
In America, and the world, now, you cannot say what you think, give your opinion because we have lost the ability to 'discuss,' to listen, to agree to disagree.
I see no solutions to the current situations. I think the only one available at present is for people to find their own group where most, not all, share the same opinions.
I was going to go further but I have decided to self-censer. Sorry everyone.
John Stuart Mill warned of this phenomenon in the introduction of On Liberty;
“Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own.”
If you have recently raised a child you will be very familiar with the promotion of self-censorship to the children by many schools.
This speaks. Sometimes speaking your peace is better than being silent no matter the cost. Speaking peace means what it says because it can clear the air.
I have been silenced through my life— from parents, evangelical subculture, poetry school. It’s taken work to speak up and on a personal level there comes a price.
But on social media it costs too much because people pile on and conversations go on and on. But in person it’s another matter because we can find common ground by sensing the other persons reactions and gauging opinion to that. In this acrimonious age I think that it’s important work.
This was a breath of fresh air. This is so true to my life. I’m an artist and my business is based on Instagram. I can’t even tell you the feeling of fear (yes, it’s ridiculous but sometimes I feel real fear and dread) that I might say something in a post that offends someone, or I might accidentally says the wrong thing and my business and livelihood will suffer. I’m not giving my opinion on everything going on in society, I keep my posts focused on the things I make and sell, but over the past 5 years I have witnessed the businesses of people in my particular industry on Instagram get absolutely torn apart and slandered, accused of racism, accused on being anti-(insert social topic). You feel like you are walking on eggshells. And if you aren’t playing the game, saying the things that *are* okay, and what everyone else has “permission” to say, then even your silence speaks. This essay from 1994 was/is very prophetic.
Self-censorship has always existed as a form of protection, but the possible reach and breadth of contemporary communications has drastically raised its influence and importance.
Agreed. He doesn’t denigrate self-censorship as such. Sometimes it’s just a question of being polite and getting along. What he goes after are those cases where civic discourse suffers because we’ve shielded ourselves from facts and perspectives we find uncomfortable or inconvenient.
It is often actually a question of whom to talk, where, and why, and whether it benefits anybody but my own precious self.
If I'm not saying anything -be assured, 99% it's because I'm scared for other people, and not myself.
Or because the audience isn't really interested in my opinion.
If it's gonna be the matter that, while indeed risking much more more then social clout, will be neccessary to address right there and right now -then I'll say stuff that nobody else dared to say. And face the consequences.
I think self-sensorship is very much underappreciated.
Of course I'm not arguing with how it can stem from this and that, and many other reasons it exists, and the book discussed sounds very interesting indeed, albeit not new to me (field of knowledge I once knew better)
Ah, yes. Like America nowadays.
Interesting, but there is another type of self-censorship that is the mark of maturity. In the words of Solomon, "A fool utters all his mind, but the wise man keepeth it in until afterwards." James calls the untamed tongue a world of iniquity, that sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell. Whoever controls the tongue, says James, has reached maturity and able to control their whole body. Freedom of expression is a legal protection to keep the government from singling out those who disagree with it, it is not moral license to say whatever comes into our mind. As our Lord warned, we will give an account for every idle word spoken.
Thanks, sounds like something I should read. That description definitely captures the "is it really worth it?" questioning we all go through when approaching any delicate topic (which seems to include most of them these days). Just last night I was working on a post about "The Great Gatsby," in which I wanted to include some political reflections... and I thought long and hard about whether to do it, and how to couch them. (Head count so far: one subscriber lost! Could be worse....)
I also think it's true that the moderate voices get squeezed out--or not simply the moderate ones, since being "in the middle" is not necessarily a virtue, but the temperate ones who are disposed to seek some kind of mutually acceptable compromise with their opponents. They get trashed by both sides, and typically nobody's got their back.