Censorship in the UK and US in the year 2000 is no less powerful than in other "less free", totalitarian regimes, not least because it is generally far more sophisticated and subtle.
     In the "free" world the sources of censorship are mostly not governments but rather big businesses (including universities). The criteria of censorship are whether there is infringement of the tacit dominant ideology of our age (see The Ideology of Our Age). Thus the censorship does not resolve in a left/right dimension, but rather is focussed on the main taboos, which are intellectual challenges to big business globalisation, environmental concerns, and intellectual challenges to multiculturism.
     An indication of the powerfulness of the censorship can be seen in the following examples. The UK's most famous journalist, Polly Toynbee, challenged her colleagues on BBC radio's Moral Maze to provide examples of the alleged powerful regime of repression by the Political Correctness industry. Her colleagues were unable to provide more than one laughable instance. And on the web, Brian Martin has produced a very commendable web-book called Suppression Stories in which he says he knows of no evidence of Policitally Correct censorship.
     Well, these people could not find evidence precisely because the censorship has been that effective! It is in the very nature of censorship that it does not shout out of the pages of the media. But others can tell you of the evidence of a repressive regime of PC. For example, the depublished book by Chris Brand, the international scholarly conference in London which was closed down by police last year (1999), and the attacks on JP Rushton among others. Information on these and other cases can be found at for example the PinC website.
     But the censorship is just as much a "rightwing establishment" phenomenon as a "looney left"one. The media in "free" countries are at the mercy of the big businesses which control the advertising revenues (the BBC is slightly more independent).
     Their great trick is to present an illusion of free debate. For example, the Guardian has a token heretic (environmentalist) in George Monbiot. But his revelations are always hidden away on the wrong side of an inside page, and greatly outweighed by copious material powerfully conveying contrary messages.
     It is only when one has direct experience of the reported issues, or has had many letters published in the press, that one can see how its subtle trickery works. I have had about 15 letters published in the Guardian or Independent, but they were never my most powerful, most interesting ones, which made important points which the public never hear about. The normal system is that heretic voices are present but heavily confined in volume and conspicuousness, and invariably the most powerful material -- the intellectually challenging -- is absent, with superficialities about unhelpful stereotypes such as "eco-warriors" in their place.
     Another trick was demonstrated by the Daily Express in autumn 2000. They had a prominent article by the director of the Automobile Association, claiming among other things that motorists are charged much more than any costs they impose on the nation. But the next week an anti-car article appeared in the same space. So Express readers would think that evenhandedness had been shown ...

[to be continued .....]

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November 2000

www.zazz.org.uk

Robin P Clarke is an independent specialist in the study of social causality.