

Concerns relevant to censorship

The status of "individuality”


Illustrative of this change in opinion is how a community responds to such a sentiment as that with which Protagoras (c. 490–c. 420 bce) opened his work Concerning the Gods:


This public admission of agnosticism scandalized Protagoras’s fellow Greeks. Such statements would no doubt have been received with hostility, and probably with social if not even criminal sanctions, throughout the ancient world. In most places in the modern world, on the other hand, such a statement could be made without the prospect of having to endure a pained and painful community response. This change reflects, among other things, a profound shift in opinion as to what is and is not a legitimate concern of government.



Requirements of self-government




Freedom of expression”

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The shift from the more political to the more individualistic view of liberty may be seen in how the constitutional guarantees with respect to speech and the press are typically spoken of in the United States. Restraints upon speaking and publishing, and indeed upon action generally, are fewer now than at most times in the history of the country. This absence of restraints is reflected as well in the very terms in which these rights and privileges are described. What would once have been referred to as “freedom of speech and of the press” (drawing upon the language of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States) is now often referred to as “freedom of expression.”

To make much of freedom of expression is to encourage a liberation of the self from the constraints of the community. It may even be to assume that the self has, intrinsic to it or somehow available to it independent of any social guidance, intimations of what it is and what it wants. Thus, liberation may be seen in the desire of most people to be free to pursue their own goals and life plans—which may involve a reliance upon standards and objectives that are solely their own. It is tempting, in such circumstances, to adopt a radical subjectivism that tends to result in a thoroughgoing relativism with respect to moral and political judgments. One consequence of this approach is to identify an ever-expanding array of forms and media of expression that are entitled to immunity from government regulation—including not only broadcast and print media (books and newspapers) but also text messaging and Internet media such as blogs, social networking sites, and e-commerce sites.


What is particularly difficult to argue for, and to maintain, is an arrangement that, while it leaves a people clearly free politically to discuss fully all matters of public interest with a view toward governing itself, routinely prepares that same people for an effective exercise of its considerable freedom. In such circumstances, there are some who would take the case for, and the rhetoric of, liberty one step farther, insisting that no one should try to tell anyone else what kind of person he should be. There are others, however, who maintain that a person is truly free only if he knows what he is doing and chooses to do what is right. Anyone else, in their view, is a prisoner of illusions and appetites, however much he may believe that he is freely expressing himself.

There are, then, two related sets of concerns evident in any consideration of the forms and uses of censorship. One set of concerns has to do with the everyday governance of the community; the other, with the permanent shaping of the character of the people. The former is more political in its methods, and the latter is more educational.

History of censorship


Ancient Greece and Rome





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The circumstances justifying the system of comprehensive “thought control” described in Plato’s Republic are obviously rarely to be found. Thus, Socrates himself is recorded in the same dialogue (and in Plato’s Apology) as recognizing that cities with bad regimes do not permit their misconduct to be questioned and corrected. Such regimes should be compared with those in the age of the good Roman emperors, the period from Nerva (c. 30–98 ce) to Marcus Aurelius (121–180)—the golden times, said Tacitus, when everyone could hold and defend whatever opinions he wished.

Ancient Israel and early Christianity


It should be evident that this way of life—directing both opinions and actions and extending down to minute daily routines—could not help but shape a people for centuries, if not for millennia, to come. But it should also be evident that those in the position to know, and with a duty to act, were expected to speak out and were, in effect, licensed to do so, however cautiously they were obliged to proceed on occasion. Thus, the prophet Nathan dared to challenge King David himself for what he had done to secure Bathsheba as his wife (II Samuel 12:1–24). On an earlier, perhaps even more striking, occasion, the patriarch Abraham dared to question God about the terms on which Sodom and Gomorrah might be saved from destruction (Genesis 18:16–33). God made concessions to Abraham, and David crumbled before Nathan’s authority. But such presumptuousness on the part of mere mortals is possible, and likely to bear fruit, only in communities that have been trained to share and to respect certain moral principles grounded in thoughtfulness.

The thoughtfulness to which the Old Testament aspires is suggested by the following counsel by Moses to the people of Israel (Deuteronomy 4:5–6):



It should be remembered that to say everything one thought or believed was regarded by pre-Christian writers as potentially irresponsible or licentious: social consequences dictated a need for restraint. Christian writers, however, called for just such saying of everything as the indispensable witness of faith: transitory social considerations were not to impede, to the extent that they formerly had, the exercise of such a liberty, indeed of such a duty, so intimately related to the eternal welfare of the soul. Thus, we see an encouragement of the private—of an individuality that turned eventually against organized religion itself and legitimated a radical self-indulgence.

Ancient China

Perhaps no people has ever been so thoroughly trained, on such a large scale and for so long, as the Chinese. Critical to that training was a system of education that culminated in a rigorous selection, by examination, of candidates for administrative posts. Particularly influential was the thought of Confucius (551–479 bce), with its considerable emphasis upon deference to authority and to family elders and upon respect for ritual observances and propriety. Cautiousness in speech was encouraged; licentious expressions were discouraged; and long-established teachings were relied upon for shaping character. All in all, it was contrary to Chinese good taste to speak openly of the faults of one’s government or of one’s rulers. And so it could be counselled by Confucius, “He who is not in any particular office has nothing to do with plans for the administration of its duties” (Analects [Lunyu], 7:14). It has been suggested that such sentiments have operated to prevent the spread in China of opinions supportive of political liberty.

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    Rubbing of Confucius, 19th century, after a design attributed to Wu Daoxuan.
    Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, gift of Robert Treat Paine, Jr.

Still, it could be recognized by Confucius that “oppressive government is fiercer than a tiger.” He could counsel that if a ruler’s words are not good, and if people are discouraged from opposing them, the ruin of the country can be expected (Analects, 13:5). Blatant oppressiveness, and an attempt to stamp out the influence of Confucius and of other sages, could be seen in the wholesale destruction of books in China in 231 bce. But the Confucian mode was revived thereafter, to become the dominant influence for almost two millennia. Its pervasiveness may well be judged oppressive by contemporary Western standards, since so much depended, it seems, on mastering the orthodox texts and discipline.


Medieval Christendom


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    SCALA/Art Resource, New York


The establishment of a fairly precise orthodoxy led to a perhaps unprecedented recourse to creeds. Thus, for example, the Nicene Creed was promulgated in 325 ce. It was devised to fend off a heretical threat to Christian doctrine—and it led, partly because of a unilateral change in wording made by the Western church, to a schism that has continued since 1054 between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism.





Even so, it should be recognized that the rigorous medieval theological-political regime against which Moderns have rebelled did have at its core a principle that subjected the exercise of will (or sovereignty) to the test of wisdom. This principle, upon which the contemporary dedication to freedom of speech may ultimately depend, is reflected in Thomas Aquinas’s insistence in De veritate, “To say that justice depends simply upon the will is to say that the divine will does not proceed according to the order of wisdom, and that is blasphemous.”

The 17th and 18th centuries


The effort to eliminate “previous restraints” (also known as prior restraints) in Great Britain and in America had its roots in English constitutional experience. Previous restraint (or licensing) came to be regarded as an inheritance of Roman Catholic practices. And so, when the Anglican successor to the Roman Catholic Church was disestablished by the Puritans, it was evidently something of a shock to John Milton to find Parliament reinstating licensing in 1643.
















Modern practices

The system in the former Soviet Union


The comprehensive Soviet system led to the development of sophisticated modes of guarded expression in print and even in music, the aim of which was designed to conform with official proprieties even as signals were given to the more perceptive about sensitive political and social themes. It also led to (or perhaps permitted the perpetuation of) such expedients as the transformation of the circus clown into a tolerated means for exhibiting and venting public exasperation with the regime. All in all, in such circumstances, the bearing of persecution on the arts could be seen.


This sort of control was justified as necessary for the protection of the state and the welfare of its citizenry. Some of the restrictions were designed to permit retention of information that was considered vital to national security; others were designed to keep citizens from being “misled,” especially since a proper understanding of dialectical materialism was said to be necessary to determine what is relevant and what contributes to the health of the community and the well-being and moral soundness of citizens. Variations of the arguments used in the Soviet Union may be found in medieval apologetics, in Confucian doctrines, in Plato’s Republic, and in UNESCO proposals for “a new world information and communication order.”


The portrayal in Nineteen Eighty-four is particularly gripping because it suggests how extensive the modern control of ideas can be. (Developments with respect to computers subsequent to the publication of Orwell’s novel made the prospects of comprehensive control seem even more ominous.) The ultimate in censorship may be seen, in the novel, in a technology and an ideology that permit government to edit not only what is being said today and tomorrow but also what is recorded or remembered to have been said yesterday. The Western reader of Nineteen Eighty-four is likely to be offended not only by its government’s efforts to control political discussion but also by the official assumption that the individual has no standing worthy of serious consideration.


Censorship under a military government

Particularly revealing in this respect was what happened in Greece between 1967 and 1974, when a conspiracy of junior army officers seized control of the government. The dependence of Greece upon foreign trade and tourism made it difficult to keep out the foreign press and foreign broadcasts. This meant, among other things, that the more educated citizens in the country were always fairly well informed about the world at large. But information about domestic affairs (especially economic data) was scarce, since much of that kind of information depends in modern times (as in ancient China) upon official sources. (Thus, there was the better-known example of the chronic complaint about the unreliability of official Soviet statistics. Thus, also, the strict censorship in Poland during the 1970s and ’80s evidently kept the communist government there from becoming aware of how serious the country’s economic problems were, leading to considerable domestic turmoil. Such regimes depended, in effect, upon free peoples to do their thinking for them about the most serious matters.)

The limits of government censorship in a country such as Greece, where the press (unlike the broadcast media) is not owned by the government, are in part determined by the fact that much of the business of daily life depends on fairly reliable news operations. All kinds of information—about goods for sale, about schedules and timetables, about innumerable activities upon which an efficient daily life depends—must be published regularly and reliably in the press, whoever may be in power. This means that newspapers and other publications must not be unduly delayed in their appearance; it also means that if they are to continue to appear, they must be profitable.

Censors who are too slow (that is, careful) in reviewing everything that is to appear in a forthcoming daily publication obstruct the flow of work. And if they are too restrictive in what they permit, the publication is apt to become so dull that readers do not buy or subscribe to it. Either way, sales suffer and news companies go out of business.





Censorship in the United States

Freedom of the press

One of the most dramatic attempts by the government of the United States to exercise prior (prepublication) restraint occurred in connection with the Pentagon Papers (1971), a “top secret” multivolume report on the Vietnam War that was surreptitiously supplied to various newspapers, which then began to publish it in installments. Each newspaper that managed to secure and thereupon to publish the report was enjoined in turn, at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice. The Supreme Court of the United States, after hearing arguments, lifted the injunctions, and publication proceeded. In 1979 the U.S. government sued The Progressive magazine in federal district court to prevent the publication of an article purporting to reveal the operating principles of a thermonuclear bomb. The author and the magazine argued that the article should not be suppressed because it was based on information that was already in the public domain; the government insisted that publication of the article would make it significantly easier for unfriendly governments or terrorist organizations to obtain a nuclear weapon. Although the court issued a preliminary injunction, the government dropped the case on appeal after newspapers in two states published a letter containing approximately the same information. The magazine published the original article two months later. These cases point up how difficult it is in the United States to prevent publication, whatever recourse there may be to criminal sanctions or to damage suits after unauthorized or improper publication.

By the very nature of things, prior restraint is, in the United States, a rare occurrence. If each newspaper that began to publish the Pentagon Papers had published in one issue everything it had, or if The Progressive had published the thermonuclear bomb article without first communicating its intention to the government, that would have been the end of the previous-restraint case. And it should be obvious that that is the typical situation in the United States: the government usually first knows about any publication when the newspaper or magazine comes out—and by that time, of course, prepublication restraint is out of the question.

Thus, the U.S. government, in order to keep certain information out of the press, has to depend upon its ability to select those to whom sensitive information may be entrusted. An alternative method, used increasingly since the 1980s, is simply to broaden the categories of information officially classified as restricted or secret. In 1984 the U.S. government made an attempt to require thousands of officials handling classified matter to pledge that they would submit any future writings for prepublication review by government censors. Opposition in Congress kept the new code from taking effect, except perhaps to a limited degree.

Contributing massively to the limitation of censorship in any country is the existence there of considerable private property. Personal resources provide both a cushion against government unfriendliness and independent access to the means of publication, if only in the form of a private printing with private circulation or of paid advertisements in the press (for those who can afford them). Many of the best-known attempts at censorship in the United States testify, in effect, to the importance of private property for freedom of the press. Instances of widely publicized censorship have involved public libraries, textbook selections, and government employment contracts. But in these cases, as with most of the repressive measures of the 1940s and ’50s, public funding, government authority, or a critical dependence on public opinion—e.g., as in the motion-picture and broadcast industries—is involved. Otherwise, there would be no effective way for either the government or public opinion to control what is published—certainly not when those with private means are determined to make their opinions known.

Nevertheless, the private ownership of news media in the United States has itself resulted in a kind of censorship, according to some critics. Because nearly all major news companies in the country are owned by large corporations, and because those companies derive the bulk of their income from paid advertisements by other large corporations, they have tended, in the view of critics, to disregard viewpoints that are broadly critical of corporate influence in the political life of the country or that stray too far from a conventional political discourse that is unthreatening to economic elites. This problem has been exacerbated by the gradual concentration of media ownership in the hands of fewer and larger conglomerates since the mid-20th century. A related development is the steady reduction since the late 20th century in the coverage of traditional or “serious” news topics. In order to increase or protect their market shares, some publications and broadcasts have devoted fewer resources to (or avoided altogether) stories that they fear might challenge, disturb, offend, or simply bore a significant segment of their audience. The result, according to some critics, has been a decline in the practice and quality of investigative, or muckraking, journalism and, in general, news coverage that is bland, homogeneous, conventional, and superficial. The emergence in the 1990s of “infotainment,” the commercially driven blurring of the traditional distinction between entertainment and news, may be seen in retrospect as the natural outcome of these trends.


A different kind of “protection” for the press, less welcome to journalists, was the decision by the U.S. government not to permit reporters to accompany the troops invading Grenada in 1983. Concerns also were raised in later years about the U.S. military’s practice of “embedding” journalists within combat units during the Persian Gulf War in 1990–91, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2002, and the Iraq War in 2003. Critical to these controversies was a concern that too much of the information necessary for adequate discussion of public affairs remained within the exclusive control of the government. Thus, it is sometimes said, a government may need neither previous restraints nor postpublication sanctions when it can shape public opinion simply by regulating the flow of vital information as it pleases. This too can be considered a form of censorship, the more insidious in that it is obviously sensible in some cases to restrict public access to information for the sake of legitimate defense, diplomatic and administrative efficiency, or confidential professional relations.


Freedom and truth

Postpublication sanctions were used in the courts, between 1948 and 1961, against leaders of the Communist Party in the United States. Even so, the indictments in those cases were put in terms of a conspiracy to overthrow the government. That is, despite the unpopularity of communism in a time of considerable international tension, no U.S. government could rely merely on the fact that people found the defendants’ opinions to be offensive. An effort had to be made to connect what the defendants were saying to what they (and others elsewhere) were likely to do.




Nothing is more certain in modern society than the principle that there are no absolutes, that a name, a phrase, a standard has meaning only when associated with the considerations which gave birth to the nomenclature.…To those who would paralyze our government in the face of impending threats by encasing it in a semantic straitjacket we must reply that all concepts are relative.



Much is made today of an asserted right of self-expression and of the related right to privacy. The arguments drawn upon in their support seem to be variations of those developed in John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty (1859). Mill’s arguments are invoked today not only in opposition to government censorship but in opposition as well to those suppressive efforts by private organizations or interest groups that are sometimes more effective than government can be in a liberal democracy. Particularly susceptible to the influence of private censors are the broadcasting media, especially since they are still subject in the United States to some government regulation. A different kind of private suppression has been usefully described in this fashion by Jamie Kalven:

Being badly edited is as close as most American writers ever come to being censored. It thus offers a vehicle for imagining the experience of censorship, for getting at what it feels like. My strongest impression is that the abuse of one’s prose feels like an assault on one’s mind.


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