Repost Re: [LINK] the myth of government censorship

[Chirgwin, Richard]

Sam:
>One of the important insights from recent social theorists like Pierre
>Bourdieu and Michel Foucault is the idea that there is a relationship
>between power and knowledge.  Power can be said to structure knowledge and
>vice-versa.  

I can't argue about the relationship. But why is this a recent insight?
Hephasteus (according to Robert Graves, The Greek Myths) was lame, because
tribal practise was to protect the knowledge of metalworking by breaking the
smith's leg. Control of knowlege has been inherent in human politics ever
since we got politics!

> > can you tell exactly who is behind the drive to make people 
> conform? and
> > conform to what?

As Sam said, there isn't an individual "who" or "conform to what". But there
are plenty of people who wish to impose their wills on others, not just
governments. Cracking the Al-Jazeera site was one expression of that desire.
Flaming people who disagree is a different manifestation of a similar
desire. Imposing censorship is another.

BTW: Hair-splitting here. Does "We know where the ship is going to be but
we're not telling you" censorship? It seems that there's a confusion of
terms that partly gives rise to this particular controversy.
"You have published this information; we, your government, are revoking
publication" is clearly censorship.
"We have this knowledge, but decline to tell you for <reasons>" looks like a
different creature to me. And the morality of the statement depends on
whether we agree with <reasons>!

Richard Chirgwin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sam Hinton [mailto:s.hinton at latrobe.edu.au]
> Sent: Thursday, 3 April 2003 10:50
> To: Link list
> Subject: Repost Re: [LINK] the myth of government censorship
> 
> 
> Argh... Below is a repost of a post I sent yesterday that got 
> through to
> some but skipped off outta link because I mistyped the address :\
> 
> Sorry!
> 
> Hi Deus, link,
> 
> Deus asked:
> > can you tell exactly who is behind the drive to make people 
> conform? and
> > conform to what?
> 
> I think the point that some modern post-structuralist social 
> theorists make
> is that the "who" is the system as a whole.  The "what" is the norm or
> average that the system defines.
> 
> It's not just some dark guy sitting in a room making plans to 
> control the
> Internet by installing a brutal regime of top-down government 
> censorship,
> but an emergent property of a complex system.  In this 
> respect the who is
> you, me, link-listers, etc. That is, everyone and the system 
> which we create
> (which includes resistance, which is part of the dynamic system).
> 
> One of the important insights from recent social theorists like Pierre
> Bourdieu and Michel Foucault is the idea that there is a relationship
> between power and knowledge.  Power can be said to structure 
> knowledge and
> vice-versa.  
> 
> An example might be an ISP who decides to get rid of certain kinds of
> information that he or she deems inappropriate.  That ISP is making a
> decision based upon their knowledge, which is defined by who they are
> (male/female, gen-x/baby-boomer, gay/straight, western/eastern among
> millions of others) and the structures of the society and 
> cultures in which
> they live.  
> 
> The point is that to some extent, we are all a product of the 
> society in
> which we live, and the way we think - even the things we are 
> capable of
> thinking, are dependent upon the social matrix that we're 
> part of.  At one
> level, the ISP is making a decision on the basis of their own 
> personal moral
> compass.  But at another level, that moral compass is 
> constructed by the
> society in which he or she lives.
> 
> I think this is a really important principle for understanding the way
> control works on the Internet.  It's not through blatant 
> overt manipulation,
> but through a more subtle infusion of values and ways of 
> thinking throughout
> the society, and then the reinforcement of those values by 
> groups within the
> society who can benefit from it.
> 
> IMHO it's not takedown notices or cease and desist letters 
> that introduces
> control in the Internet. I see these things as being  
> symptomatic of a more
> fundamental shift in underlying values within the community, 
> which are led
> by the Government and supported by groups within the society. 
>  The Internet
> is controlled when these things encourage us, as individuals, to make
> decisions or take actions that censor ourselves or others.
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> Sam
> 
> 
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