Thursday, November 7, 1991
Censorship gets us nowhere
Apparently, some people on
this campus think Fm guilty of
censorship. I find that curious
since I am so strongly opposed to
censorship. I much prefer using
dialectic to change the attitudes
that perpetuate society's ills than
trying to cover those attitudes up.
That won't get us anywhere.
I came to the conclusion that
these people must not know what
censorship is. So I looked it up
for them in Webster's Ninth New
Collegiate Dictionary: censorship
- the institution, system, or
practice of examining
communications (as in letters,
articles, films, etc.) and deleting
or prohibiting materials
considered harmful or
objectionable.
Disagreeing with someone's
ideology is not censorship.
Censorship would be to prohibit
that ideology from being spoken
about. If someone is afraid to
speak up in an open forum on
racism, that is not the result of
censorship. Censorship would be
prohibiting an open forum.
Telling someone that her or his
political agenda does not allow
for equal representation in certain
areas, or that it perpetuates a
hostile environment for people of
different ethnic backgrounds is
not censorship.
People do have a right to
disagree with affirmative action
and diversity requirements, just as
others have a right to speak out
against those disagreements.
Just because someone's ideas
don't go over so well at an open
Dos Passos never even knew
A young college man wanted
advice. "I'm planning a career as a
writer, and I'd like to ask you a
question," he said.
I braced myself, fearing he
would ask me about style, plot,
sentence structure, dangling
participles, split infinitives and
all the petty details that caused
my English teachers to fling
papers back in my face.
But instead he said, "What
kind of computer do you
recommend I buy?"
Now that was something I
could help him with. Indeed, I
could lecture at Harvard on the
subject of the computer and the
writer.
So I said, "How much were
you planning on spending?"
He said he could go as high as
$1,2.00.,
No need to spend that much, I
told him. I could get him started
in writing for about $lO, maybe
less.
He said, "You're kidding.
There's no computer that cheap."
True, but for $lO you can buy
a large box of pencils and a tall
stack of blank paper. And maybe
a cheap pencil sharpener,
although an old paring knife will
do. Then you can write.
He still thought I was joking,
even after I pointed out that
libraries were crammed with great
books written with pencils,
scratchy pens or even goose
quills. Shakespeare didn't worry
about how much RAM he had.
And Mark Twain didn't feel
forum on racism doesn't mean
that person is being censored - it
means that people didn't like
what he or she had to say, and
that's not censorship.
Disagreeing with an idea, and
prohibiting an idea arc two very
different things; the distinction is
an important one.
While people may be making
an effort to change a person's
attitudes, that does not constitute
censorship. And there is nothing
wrong with trying to teach a
person things such as that skin
color is not God's way of telling
one group that they are better
than another.
However, I do recognize the
point that Mr. Strunk made in
his letter to the editor last week.
In and of themselves, supremacist
attitudes are acceptable under the
First Amendment.
Because of my position on
censorship, I will protect the
rights of anyone to say anything,
even down to the worst neo-Nati
propaganda. However, freedom of
speech becomes a confusing and
highly debatable subject when it
enters the area of civil rights. The
two have increasingly become
opposing forces. Having to make
a decision between the two, I
would, in some cases, side with
civil rights.
I feel that freedom of speech
loses its protection under the
Constitution when someone
hides behind the First
Amendment in order to infringe
upon someone else's rights.
My argument for such a
deprived for the lack of a laser-jet
printer.
"Well, I'd really like
something with a spell checker,"
he said
Then blow an extra ten spot
and buy a dictionary.
But he persisted. "I'm sure a
computer with a good word
processing program would make
it easier. I've been looking at the
computer ads, and I think I can
get..."
Ah, yes, the computer ads.
Sleek machines that arc user
friendly, user-adoring. Able to
perform miracles with a single
keystroke. No, not even a
keystroke. Just spin the little
mouse and tap its plastic head and
obedient little icons will dance
across your screen.
Forget it, I told him. If you
are going to become a writer, the
last thing you want is a computer
because you won't become a
writer, you will become a nerd or
a nervous wreck.
How can any machine be user
friendly if the user must wade
through a 500-page manual to
understand how the creature
works? But there's no point in
reading the manual because it is
written in computer gibberish.
But that's just the first
manual. You have another 500-
page manual for something called
DOS.
They could have called it:
"The Buttons You Got to Hit to
Run Your Computer," which we
would understand even though we
The Collegian
stance is as follows. Racism and
sexism do, at times, violate or
prohibit the legal rights of
others. A racist, sexist person
discriminates against people on
the basis of gender, ethnic
background or religious
affiliation. That violates
constitutional rights - rights such
as freedom of religion and
guaranteed equality.
People who say they can be
sexist supremacists and not at
times infringe upon others' rights
arc fooling themselves. It is
human nature that people's
attitudes shape their behavior.
If anyone thinks that
individual supremacist attitudes
have no effect on society, they
should take a look at what's
happening in Louisiana.
Enough white supremacists
have crawled out of the
woodwork to elect David Duke,
former Grand Wizard of the Ku
Klux Klan, to the state senate,
and arc in the process of trying to
give him a governorship as well.
I understand that electing a
white supremacist to office is
constitutionally acceptable. But it
seems inevitable with his past
history, a history which includes
selling neo-Nazi pamphlets from
his state legislative office and
advocating government grants to
encourage high-IQ white couples
to breed, combined with the
support of his like-minded
constituency, that he will attempt
to pass legislation which is
detrimental to the minorities of
that state.
could never hit the right buttons.
Instead, they call it DOS. That's
what I mean. Is DOS a word?
Not around here. Maybe in
Europe: "DOS me zuh ball,
Fritz."
But you can't understand that
manual, either, because it is even
worse gibberish than the manual
on the machine. By the second
,
,
third, your jaw goes slack. By the
fourth, you scream a , d throw it
across the room. You have read
100 pages that could have been
written by a madman or a
monkey hitting typewriter keys
at random.
And it goes on. You have still
another 500-page manual for the
word-processing program. That
one will tell you about fonts and
macros. Did Hemingway ponder a
macro? He would have thought it
was a fish.
But don't worry, the computer
If you'd rather stay closer to
home, I can provide you with
another example of how
dangerous racist attitudes can be.
Two friends of mine (both black)
were detained for nearly an hour
in their car by three Pennsylvania
state policemen. Refusing to give
a reason for stopping them, the
policemen let them go after
warning them "and their kind" to
stay out of the area. This
happened last year in Conneaut
Lake.
Granted, had these policemen
been average citizens their
comments would have been
protected under the First
Amendment. But a representative
of the law has no legal power to
detain a person because of her/his
skin color. Those policemen
abused their positions in order to
act upon their racism.
As I mentioned earlier, I fully
support freedom of speech. As a
writer, I would be foolish not to.
But with these examples I hope
to point out why my sympathies
lie with civil rights. Hate
resulting from race and gender
biases is a dangerously powerful
weapon that can be used against
people who have no way to fight
hack.
With all this talk of
censorship and First Amendment
rights, I think people arc losing
touch with what the fundamental
goals of the PC movement are:
opening up the canon, rethinking
exclusionary standards, expanding
an ethnocentric language to
include all people. Basically, it
ads say. Now it is all simple.
They have created something
called "window." And windows
will give you little cartoon-like
creatures that are supposed to
fulfill your every wish. If you
can understand that 500-page
manual.
Did William Faulkner have
little creatures on his old
typewriter? If so, they were the
product of whiskey, which addles
the brain less than cartoon
creatures and menus and buttons
that send messages to the screen
demanding: "Abort? Quit? Try
Again? Drop Dead? Exit? Go
To Hell You Schnook?"
So when your screen fills
with crazy talk and abuse, you
rush to the computer store's book
section and snatch up books that
simplify everything. That has
become an industry in itself--$25
books that claim to turn the
computer manuals into English.
But don't be fooled. Yes, they
begin: "This is how little Mary
and her daddy learned to use their
brand new BreczYeasY 2,4, 6, 8
Oh How We Appreciate computer
program. It is so much fun.
First, daddy hit the Alt key,
while holding down the shift key,
and the F-9 key, until the promp
c/:...came on the screen, and
Mary laughed because it was so
BreezYeasY."
That's their trick. They still
use gibberish, but they throw in
baby talk. Or maybe try to sound
like a buddy down at the bar.
Except if a buddy down at the
Page
boils down to treating others
with respect. It simply means
acknowledging the non-white,
non-male citizens who also make
up this country. And really, what
is so wrong with that?
People feel uncomfortable
with the PC movement because
it puts them into the position of
having to defend attitudes that
were once accepted as true and
right, and sometimes even
sanctioned by law. These people,
largely the conservative
traditionalists, cannot simply
state their opinion and have it
accepted any more. They must
now defend their opinion because
it is no longer the only one.
I find curious also that Ms.
Mack, in her letter to the editor
last week, decided to use John
Stuart Mill to refute my article.
I'm not sure if she is aware of it,
but Mill was one of the more
radical feminists in the 19th
century.
John Stuart Mill's position on
censorship is one with which 1
fundamentally agree. I also agree
with his positions - essentially
arguments supporting what we
now call affirmative action and
political correctness - in his great
19th century feminist treatise, On
the Subjection of Women.
Jennifer Flanagan is a sixth
semester English major. Iler
column appears every other week
in The Collegian.
DOS
bar talked that way, he would be
taken to detox.
But maybe you persevere,
plunging ahead for weeks and
months, becoming baggy-eyed
and gaunt, until you finally
understand the mysteries of
hitting Shift, Alt and F-9 keys.
And c/...makes perfect sense.
Then what happens? Are you
now a writer? No, because you
no longer care about writing.
You have become a computer
freak. Now all you want to do is
crunch numbers, interface, sit
there at 3 a.m. whipping
messages through your modem to
distant electronic bulletin boards,
eagerly sharing the joys 0f... Or
even...
And somewhere in an old
farmhouse in Maine, a middle
aged housewife is using pencils
and grocery-bag paper to write her
innermost, erotic fantasies that
will become next year's biggest
best seller.
So keep it simple. And if you
must leap into the computer age,
try Nintendo and Super Mario.
Believe me, it is easier to kill the
King of the Koopa than to
fathom the profundities of
S yn.Erk/Blip.
Mike Royko is a Chicago
based, nationally syndicated
columnist. His column appears
weekly in The Collegian.