Love-Hounds Digest #7.361

[viewpnt!echelon!henrik@uunet.UU.NET (Larry DeLuca)]

? censorship?  I think you'll find the only definition is along the
? lines of "censorship is the prevention of free speech by the use of
? physical force".  A definition any more broad than this will give you
? troubles.  So if the government passes a law that selling labelled
? albums is illegal, that is censorship, because disobeying will get
? you in jail (use of physical force).  But if a given store doesn't
? want to sell labelled albums, for their own reasons (suffocating
? morality, profit concerns, whatever) there is clearly no use of force.
? Try to *make* those stores sell albums they don't want to sell, on
? the other hand, *would* be a use of force.  And *that* would be
? censorship, if you consider the albums a store chooses to sell to
? be an "expression" protected by the first amendment (which doesn't

"Physical force" is a very narrow definition.  Your rape analogy is most
apt, in that "physical force" would be a very narrow definition, here, too.

Psychological and emotional pressure are much more powerful forces because
they are more elusive - in many ways it's easier to stand your ground
against an attacker who is beating on you physically than one who is 
concentrating on breaking down a psychological barrier, because the former
is much more direct - it's tangible - you can see a physical bruise - 
you can try to deflect a penis making its way toward your vagina - you
can sit in the front seat of a bus or at a lunch counter and refuse to move.

But psychological pressure is different - when someone says "If you really
loved me you'd sleep with me" or "It's only because you're frigid that 
you won't sleep with me" or "Only immoral people would want to listen to
that music" the attacker crawls under the skin - causing you to doubt 
yourself.  It takes a much stronger defense to battle these sorts of
attacks effectively, and because the constraints of physical force are
removed, the attacker can sustain himself/herself for much longer periods
of time.

There are a lot of people who would object to "physical force" - the 
government coming in with machine guns and blockading record stores.  But
most people wouldn't think twice about "psychological force" - using
political and religious influence to create an environment where record
stores feel compelled to drop certain items that people find offensive.

This is where your other argument falls apart - you claim that it's not
censorship for record stores to not carry artists' music when there is
not a demand for it to justify its existance on the shelves.  That is true.
How little demand was there for 2 Live Crew's album?  For other "stickered"
artists like Guns 'n Roses?

					larry...