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Here is the problem with advocating censorship of "bad" ideas: If it is permissible make rules about what ideas can be expressed, then someone has to make those rules. And who will that be, people with power, or people without power. Obviously the former.
Btw, I am referring to censorship of ideas, not obscenity, not child porn, and not any of the 1000 other things that those who favor censoring ideas they don't like want to conflate therewith.
I disagree with this argument (and all similar "how would you like it if it were the right wing censoring left wing ideas?" ones)
If I understand you correctly, you're saying that (idea) censorship, as a technique, is inherently bad - even if its being done on behalf of your in-group in order to suppress the out-group.
There are techniques that I would consider inherently evil, even if done against people I disagree with (torture, vigilante violence, etc)
But as suppression techniques go, censorship is rather underrated:
Yes, the people in power want to stay in power, and everyone wants to impose what they believe to be moral on reality.
If you genuinely believe that all criticism of Jews is unfounded in reality and that allowing such ideas to exist in the mainstream could lead to a 21st century Holocaust, then why shouldn't you stop these anti-Semites from trying to prosecute such a wantonly cruel agenda?
Sure, it would be bad for your cause if the tables were turned, and it were the enemy in power, censoring all of your own propaganda. And censoring them now will have the second order effect of making it more likely they censor you later on. But that's outweighed by the first order effect of actually censoring them.
No, the idea behind it is usually good. It's that is always ends up getting abused...
Just look at history (looking at you blasphemy laws), the pattern is the same each time.
Now, I'm not saying that we can't have any regulations on speech (ie fire in a crowded theater that is not in danger) but any rules need to be transparent and very carefully constructed.
Censorship has been an obvious and pervasive aspect of American social technology since well before the founding, all the way back to the initial colonization. How did our long and rich history of censorship amount to abuse, and what were the concrete negative consequences of that abuse?
Orangecat clearly isn't talking about every form of censorship, the impression I got was they are talking about censorship to protect people's feelings or in some other impulsive fashion - the kind which simply wallpapers over an issue, usually to shut up agitators. I can't think of any time that has had a positive impact on society.
When did it have a notably negative impact on society, though?
...I've just finished one big debate on censorship, and I'm not really up for jumping into another one. I know the consensus is supposed to be that censorship is very bad, m'kay. I observe that large amount of censorship, through a variety of methods and with a variety of targets, appears to have been the norm throughout our nation's entire history, excepting perhaps two decades bookending the turn of the last century which were unusually permissive, and which were immediately followed by an acute decline in social conditions.
I know how this all is supposed to work. I am skeptical that it actually works that way. I note that a lot of the standard narrative about censorship conveniently ignores most of the censorship actually happening in the past or present, and gets pretty hand-wavey about nailing down cause and effect.
Covid would be my first example, but it's the first of thousands so I assume I am misunderstanding you. The way I see it, people who argue against censorship aren't arguing against censorship, which is an amorphous concept found in every sphere of life, and as you (and @orangecat) say, often with positive effects. They are trying to stop power grabbing. Someone proposing censorship is trying to assume power they didn't previously have, and anyone grabbing power should be suspect, because the unscrupulous outnumber the scrupulous a thousand to one.
Speech is a particularly important power because it is the basis of communication, allowing our hierarchies to exceed our physical limitations. So I immediately suspect anyone who tries to take it, and it completely blows my mind that anyone would willingly give it up, especially for a reason as minor as hurt feelings or to cover up a mistake. And since in my lifetime I haven't seen any negative consequences to telling censors to fuck off - ever - but can list multiple times I desperately wished everyone else had told the censors to fuck off, I don't see a problem with drawing a line in the sand at 'no censorship'.
I mean, you're right that permissiveness leads to worse social conditions, but if that's all that mattered Saudi Arabia would be a utopia. It's not, (unless you have a fetish for censorship, then it's pretty great) so we get back to the same problem as always - who gets to inflict their values on whom? We can only go forward from here - there's no getting back the Hayes code and CCA.
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