This spring, longtime golf great Fuzzy Zoeller made a racist joke about Tiger Woods, and found himself in a lot of hot water for it. The remark - about fried chicken and collard greens - not only cost Zoeller his reputation, but also plenty of cold, hard cash: Almost immediately after the comment made national news, Kmart dropped Zoeller as its celebrity spokesman.
Later that week, I happened to be on a TV talk-show panel. When the Zoeller matter came up, one of my fellow panelists spoke up in outrage - not about Zoeller's remark, but about Kmart's dismissal. This person, who (I think it worth noting) is black, felt that Zoeller was a victim of political correctness. "What Zoeller said may have been insensitive," he opined, "but I for one will staunchly defend his right to say it. I think it's terrible that he is being censored."
Censored? I was floored by his comment. How exactly had Zoeller been censored? What does yanking a lucrative endorsement deal have to do with the First Amendment?
The incident came back to me a couple of weeks ago, after my Synapse column on Sharon Pratt Kelly's Web site and her radical political ideas. A few hours after the column went live, I received an irate email from someone at Microsoft. "Just what is it you are suggesting?" he wrote. "That Ms. Kelly not be permitted to express her views on the Web? ... Censorship is intolerable and will be vigorously challenged whenever and wherever it raises its' [sic] ugly snout."
Censorship? I hadn't said a word about muzzling Kelly. I just said I thought her ideas were dumb.
Then, in the discussion thread prompted by the column, someone else made exactly the same charge:
"I take it, Herr Shenk, you would allow only those who possess perfect political pitch and who have dedicated their lives to the study of government should be permitted [sic] to sing their melodies of governance."
"Allow?" "Permitted?" Who said anything about suppression of speech?
Censorship has become the red herring of today's culture, used in much the same way that "communism" was in the 1950s. People will cry censorship in a gratuitous grab for the moral high ground in a debate they may be losing, or in a discussion in which they don't necessarily have anything relevant to add. Invoking censorship in a discussion of someone's controversial remarks is equivalent to accusing a critic of the Israeli government's policies of being an anti-Semite. In fact, people accused of advocating censorship on the Net are frequently equated to Nazis, a quick way to end any threaded conversation. The accusation carries a powerful stigma that easily spooks people, whether or not it has any foundation.
Now, before all you civil libertarians go ballistic, let's get the obvious out of the way: Censorship still lives as a critical issue. This year's row over the CDA proves as well as anything that the danger of censorship is alive and well as we move into the 21st century.
There are plenty of other examples too. School libraries still ban books like Slaughterhouse Five and Huckleberry Finn. In Germany, ISPs are being censored for sexual and political content. According to the ACLU's Marjorie Hines, the 1990s have witnessed the paradox of both increasing free speech and increasing censorship. Thanks to electronic technologies like desktop publishing, fax machines, and the Net, we are free to speak our minds as never before. But this hasn't inhibited government, corporate, and social attempts to suppress specific types of expression.
It must also be said that even if censorship weren't alive and well, it would still be an important issue. The danger of censorship will always be real.
So much more reason, then, to be precise about what censorship is, and what it isn't.
In the marketplace of ideas, criticism - however severe - is not censorship. A reporter's laziness in not covering an important story or angle is usually not censorship. An editor's poor judgment in cutting back a quote or in not assigning a story isn't censorship.
Case in point: Project Censored, a worthwhile annual scrutiny of important issues that don't get their due in the mainstream media, is badly misnamed. In fact, it's not at all about censorship, but about the flaccidity of big media. When we begin to forget the difference between suppression and poor judgment, we're in big trouble.
The irony of my TV talk-show companion's remark was that he himself was engaging in first-rate political correctness. In an effort to humiliate his ideological opponents, he was wrapping himself in the flag of censorship. "I will staunchly defend the right to say such things." No one on the panel, or for that matter in the entire country, was questioning his or Zoeller's right to say stupid things. It's the substance of the remark people were challenging, not its existence.
Crying censorship in a situation like that is tantamount to ideological warfare. It is propagandistic, a desperate and cynical attempt to move from rationality into irrationality, in order to subvert one's opponent. Ultimately, improperly playing the censorship card is an attack on those who genuinely care about real censorship, because it confuses and weakens the power of the issue.
This year, Larry Flynt became a national hero for pushing the envelope of our First Amendment freedom of speech. But the real point of The People vs. Larry Flynt, I thought, was that Flynt himself was no hero at all. He was a scumbag; it so happened that it was in society's interests to protect his legal right to be a scumbag. But after upholding that principle, no one need stay in Flynt's corner. As soon as the conversation shifts back to substance, racism and vulgarity and stupidity deserve no special treatment.
The Constitution protects our right to say - and publish - virtually anything we want. The best way to enjoy that freedom is not to pretend that it's always under fire. Freedom of speech doesn't do us much good if all we ever get to talk about is freedom of speech.
This article appeared originally in HotWired.
