I realize I’ve been considering censorship from the wrong end: I’ve been thinking of censorship as the act of either a government or a large corporation to suppress speech of individuals. Censorship, however, operates on a much smaller level than that as well – it operates at the organizational level, where “the boss” silences expression which is not in line with the norms of the group. This was within an email exchange, wherein they told me they were “shocked” that I’d post recordings of our choir performances when I’d been told that the musician’s union prohibited such recordings (they record the performances themselves – I’ve seen them do so – but apparently it’s against the rules for anyone else to do so). We’ll not go into how 1) there IS no content posted by me at this moment, nor 2) the fact that search engines cache all sorts of things – those are mere details, and aren’t really what’s made me consider this as censorship operating on a micro scale, as opposed to that imposed by governments or media companies.
We tend to think about censorship in very broad strokes, but it’s far more ubiquitous than we realize. It’s an issue of power, and control, and authority. It’s about silencing those who are not just the minority voices, but about silencing those who have less power within whatever perceived power structure that is in place. It’s about maintaining the status quo, really. It’s social control at its most crass and medieval.
There are intersections, in this case, with copyright … which I’m not going to examine right now. I’m still angry about the idea that I’m being subjected to censorship – that my voice can be threatened by someone. I do not give in to this type of thing as there is NO LEGAL BASIS FOR SUPPRESSING MY VOICE (or my recordings). But the social creature says to give in to the voice of authority, and that there is an implicit threat in being told to do something by someone who has set themself up as someone “in charge.” That threat – that exercise of control – is what censorship is about. It’s not just about the silencing of voices – that’s just the end result. It is exercising control over other beings whom one imagines to be somehow inferior, and that is why I resist it so furiously.