The Problem with the “Private Corporations Can Self-Censor if They Want” Argument

In response to: Do Conservatives Want The Government To Seize Dr. Seuss Books? | by John DeVore | Humungus | Mar, 2021 | Medium

Whoever’s doing the censoring is a minor technicality.. It’s painfully obvious that acompany is censoring itself so that others don’t do it first or loud voices on twitter pushing for political correctness (which the Atlantic said generally constitute about 8% of the population) don’t do it first.

This is the exact same thing Hollywood studio bosses did to its ethnic stars so that Middle America would distribute their films from the 1930s up until 1960. The government didn’t make Margarita Casillas have electrolysis to have a higher hairline and change her name to Rita Hayworth. Ditto Issur Danielovitch (Kirk Douglas) and Emmanuel Goldenberg (Eddie G Robinson). Hollywood did this in the name of profit kowtowed to wrong ideas.

These thing don’t become any less reasonable if it comes form the other side. As with the culture wars of the 80s and 90s when people believed violent video games, punk rock, Bart Simpson, Beavis and Butthead, and Kevin Smith’s film Dogma should be banned, there are many of us who believe that value of culture alone is worth more than its (generally unsubstantiated externalities). The point of art is to be provocative and challenge society (even unintentionally), and the solution isn’t to erase it because of heightened sensitivities but to produce more art that might counter…