Censorship Readings

Boyer: Boston Book Censorship in the Twenties
LaRue: Buddha at the Gate, Running
Nunberg: The Internet Filter Farce

What struck me in Boyer’s work was the fickle nature of mob mentality. In this article, mob mentality plays a role in the rise of censorship in Boston, as in the first two decades of the twentieth century a wide variety of people praise and support the censorship movement as a noble cause, for example, praising the Watch and Ward Society as a sort of “moral board of health”. But just as the 1920s was a period of social and moral flux, the mob turns in the middle of the decade and proceeds to eat its own, savaging its former heroes.

In retrospect it’s remarkable to think that self-appointed moral police could have such a strong extralegal influence as to shut down the distribution of certain publications: telling the reviewers which books they shouldn’t review, and the booksellers which books they shouldn’t sell, with the understanding that those people would be vilified as purveyors of filth if they broke ranks.

LaRue and Nunberg represent movements by groups that hardly deserve to be called mobs since they’re motivated by concern over their children's well-being. Nunberg’s article itself reminded me of the Boston backlash, complete with an angry accusation in the title. Internet filters are ineffective, and their developers have over-sold their abilities, but we should also see them as the industry’s flailing first attempts to address a real problem for parents. As with Double Fold, I’m sure that not everyone behind the situation is evil incarnate.