[Dragaera] OT: Ray Bradbury

[Davdi Silverrock]

On 7/18/07, Maximilian Wilson wrote:
> On 7/18/07, Davdi Silverrock wrote:
> >
> > On 7/18/07, Maximilian Wilson wrote:
> > > Not state-sponsored censorship, then. Self-censorship by the community.
> >
> > When the "community" is large enough, it *is* the state.
>
> So the ban on picking your nose in public is state-sponsored?

WTF?

Seriously, what does that even mean?

> I don't know exactly what Bradbury had in mind, but I see plenty
> of community censorship that doesn't involve the state.

Some "censorship " exists because life is too short, and time and
resources are limited.  For example, this thread, which is nearly
entirely off-topic to the discussion of Steven Brust and his works.

[snip stuff for which life is too short to go into at this point in
time and is very off-topic for this forum]

> > Bradbury's assertion (various minorities wanting to burn stuff end up
> > winning) doesn't make sense.  All existing cases of censorship are
> > because of majorities performing the censorship - and if they are a
> > minority, they need the support of those in power, and therefore
> > become a /de facto/ majority.
>
>
> So you acknowledge that minorities have and do censor majority opinion, with
> the majority's consent.

Minorities with power and money have indeed censored the opinions of
the poorer majority.   It's with the majority's "consent" only in the
Chomskian sense of manufactured consent.

>I don't know what "assertion" you're contradicting
> and don't see how the majority's assent contradicts it.

Bradbury's assertion was that many conflicting minorities were
"somehow" able to censor anything they wanted *even outside their own,
small communities*.  Quoting the paragraph you cited: "Every minority,
be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen
Buddhist, Zionist / Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib / Republican,
Mattachine / FourSquareGospel feel it has the will, the right, the
duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse"

My point was and is that it makes no sense that minorities without
money or power are able to do anything but self-censor.  They can buy
books, and burn them, but they cannot dictate to publishers that
particular books can not be published.

Once a minority has enough money and power to dictate terms to
publishers, well, they're no longer a powerless minority.

>
> It may not be the case that the "whole point" of Fahrenheit 451 is about
> television (Bradbury doesn't assert that it is),

Ah, but he does.  At least in that article.

"Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of
reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how
television destroys interest in reading literature."