Flights of Self-Censorship
By Porter Anderson (@Porter_Anderson) | August 20, 2021 |
Image: Getty iStockphoto: John Phoenix Hutchinson
In Search of Safe Landings
How do you airlift your creativity above the tree line of the moment’s social and political sensibilities? Can you be sure you’ve honestly defeated the gravity of any given moment?
Especially in the political moment we’re in today, the question can become more internal than corporate, more about personal courage than contracts.
Curiously, on the world stage, it’s easier. In meetings, conferences, and the world congresses of the International Publishers Association (IPA), one of the most frequently examined issues is self-censorship. Publishing Perspectives is the association’s world media partner, and we’ve become attuned to issues around international markets in which an ISBN is the approval you need from the state’s censors to publish something, or cases in which a publisher may quietly scuttle plans for a book that would attract visits from the authorities.
But what about when it happens in a democratic context? What does self-censorship look like in chinos and Uniqlo?
“Woke” being a more recent evocation of “politically correct,” it’s been interesting to see publishing-house staffers in the United States challenging their managements over acquisitions. At times, these have been cases in which former White House players’ or current allies’ book deals were challenged, despite the rightful howls of objection that followed each of Donald Trump’s efforts to block publication of books he didn’t want released.
In terms of highest visibility, these incidents have meant staff agitation against work by Woody Allen, Mike Pence, Josh Hawley, and others, with varying results and often earnestly nuanced responses from executives–usually followed by company discussions, division meetings, and “town hall” debates for employees.
It’s pretty easy to see where self-censorship may begin to creep into a company’s editorial decisions, especially when sensitivities are raised to so high an alert level as various social media can produce. And on the world scene, the hot zones are easy to map.
- In exhausted Belarus, there have been incidents in which publishers weren’t allowed to export–or in some cases import–books they’d wanted to get to the international readership. They’ve been called in for interrogation, sometimes detained, their bank accounts frozen, all shipments halted.
- In staggered Afghanistan, imagine what anyone working in the written word now feels when a 20-year-old swell in the traditional peraahan tunbaan and lungee comes by, Nikes on his feet, the obligatory Kalashnikov strapped over his shoulder.
- A publisher from a Southeast Asian nation–a much-loved colleague among international publishers, small of stature, gentle, soft-spoken, a person easily crushed by state security forces–once told the IPA’s world congress audience from 70+ nations that the reason she’s able to move forbidden topics and commentary from her press to her store and into the hands of faithful consumers is that, “The authorities don’t read. It’s my best protection.”
In such situations, self-censorship is not only understandable, it’s at times necessary for survival. And that’s why the politically articulate Vietnamese “clandestine press” known as the Liberal Publishing House, Nhà xuất bản Tự Do, has disappeared, its operatives melting away into the crowd after at least two alleged co-founders of the group were reported to have been arrested by Hanoi.
But what rarely gets coverage–the quiet part, as we say–is the internal toll. The self-censorship we don’t talk about.
When Provocations Won’t Fly
My provocation for you today has to do with where you may be putting on the brakes, deleting the phrase, setting down the copter before you actually have to.
Provocations graphic by Liam Walsh
A lot of authors have said to me in recent months, “Nobody’s going to buy this from me, I can tell. It’s not ______ enough.”
You fill in the blank. Sometimes these comments have referred to social issues, sometimes to the political climate, in one case even to educational shifts. And this isn’t a criticism. Self-defense is a natural reaction to adversity and many authors do experience the concerns and cultural trends of the day as being adverse to what they need and want to write.
The old saying that paranoia is just heightened awareness may be in sway here, frankly. The whole supply chain responds to the “modes of the court,” as they’d say in the 18th century. Book publishing is a component of the entertainment sector and fervently held social positions have a lot to do with what customers see as entertaining.
But have you ever felt that at times you may have pulled your punch, changed your narrative, adjusted this character or that incident because it just wasn’t quite “woke” enough?
And then, have you wondered if you should have waited? Have you wondered whether you should have hung on to see if an agent or an editor might react as you expected? What if you jumped too early on the assumption that “the house” wouldn’t sit still for that scene and “fixed” it before sending it to your editor–only to realize later that it may have been just fine?
At many points, the huffing and puffing you hear in culture warfare are as much about intimidation as about actual threat. And the real courage may happen at your desk when you decide not to change that word or scene or motivation because it’s right for your work.
Have you felt the chill of the times, the damp breeze of cultural criticism and expectation? Have you made changes in your work, either aware at the time or not realizing that they were in response to current sensibilities? Have you wondered if a change you made was as much about salability as sensibility? There are no wrong or right answers, by the way. We’re all human. We all want things to work in the marketplace. How often have you felt you might have censored yourself? And would you do it again that way if the chance arose?
Update: 3:04pET / 20 August: In a rare return to a piece I’ve just published, I’d like to recommend to you a new article by Anne Applebaum at The Atlantic. Her piece, it turns out, was published as I was writing this one, at 6:30aET this morning. It’s on the topic of the Afghan crisis and it’s headlined Liberal Democracy Is Worth a Fight. It’s keenly worth your time and thought, and it illustrates well what I’m talking about here in terms of self-censorship. Applebaum does not censor her message (this is typical of her), and she offers a very hard lesson that many need to consider, especially those of us (yes, I am one) who are inclined to pacifism, diplomacy, negotiation “at all costs,” a presumed supremacy of nonviolent dialogue. Hers is a (short) political essay, of course, not fiction, but nicely resonant of our topic. You may not agree with her, of course, which is fine. But the care she takes to put across an unpopular position in time of emergency is an admirable, instructive example of something I’ve tried today to get at in my own column. Thanks. – PA
@Porter_Anderson is a fellow of the National Critics Institute. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives, the international news medium of Frankfurt Book Fair. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for trade and independent authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman. Priors: The Bookseller‘s The FutureBook in London, CNN, CNN.com and CNN International–as well as the Village Voice, Dallas Times Herald, and the United Nations’ WFP in Rome. is a recipient of London Book Fair’s International Excellence Award for Trade Press Journalist of the Year. PorterAndersonMedia.com
Thank you for a well-written argument that did not take the path that I expected upon reading the title.
Just my perspective – I come from a religious and political background that I felt I needed to largely self-censor throughout my graduate degree, frankly. Looking back, I would handle things much differently today and push the envelope a bit more.
The good thing about being on ‘the other side’ of many issues is that over time it does make you much stronger in defending your writing (or other expressions), as you generally get to practice that quite a bit, whereas someone who has been in the bubble of ‘wokeness’ does not have to do that, at least not on such a scale.
Hey, Todd, thanks for getting back.
Agree with you on the bubble of “wokeness” — it supplies ready answers and cushions that can make all of us soft in terms not only of defending our positions, as you say, but also critical thinking itself. Once you sign onto one camp or another, you’re surrounded by the ready positions and stances of your colleagues rather than having to evaluate and discern what you actually think.
I had a religious background, too (my father was a Methodist minister), and I finally began to push back in some post-graduate work I was doing on the religious concepts of George Bernard Shaw … only to have my father admit that he wished he’d come across GBS’ material before going into the ministry. But he’d begun his career in the bubble of his own father’s work as a missionary.
So I’d add to what you’re rightly saying — about the comfort of a “wokeness” bubble — the idea that we can be handed bubbles, if you will, installed early. We all have influential background training in our lives, and even current effects of colleagues, associates, friends, our day to day context. None of this is easy to resist, especially when a personally discerned position might damage a relationship we value.
I’ve added above a note about Anne Applebaum’s new Atlantic essay in which she’s proposing the hugely unpopular idea (certainly with me and those of many of my own evolving bubbles) that there are times when fighting is right, as in military action. This may not have been the case in the Afghan instance, of course. But she’s basically proposing that our latter-day effort to create a war-free world may have made us too quick to shy away from the violent imperative that might actually be required to defend the democratic formulation in which we see the world’s future. It’s an interesting piece, and I can imaging losing a few friends, certainly if I were to put it forward.
All of which is to say you’re right. Being “woke” carries the comfort of its associations and community — which may be the last thing we need in crisis and clear thinking — and its impact on our creative work.
Thanks again,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
“The real courage may happen at your desk when you decide not to change that word or scene or motivation because it’s right for your work.”
Yep. Thanks for this, Porter. When I teach my workshop on revision and self-editing, self-censorship is something I warn about. It is easy in the drafting process to be honest. But when we are editing our work, that’s when we start to think about what individual people or collectives will think about our work (and worse, what they’ll say about it on Goodreads or Twitter). When we draft, we are bold–the reason we are writing is because we have Something to Say. But when we edit, we are thinking of the audience…and all the things they’ll say.
I think there is at least one time in the writing of every book where I recognize myself getting a little squeamish and pulling back a bit in order to avoid some kind of criticism. But so far I think I have managed to not kowtow too much to being diplomatic, PC for PC’s sake, or in my case, because I publish with a Christian press, too “nice” or clean for clean’s sake. Sometimes it is my editor who wants to be sure not to offend (she is from a younger generation than me–it rhymes with centennial). With every book, there is somewhere I push back, reminding her that this character from this generation with this upbringing (and sometimes in this time period) wouldn’t care about that or would find this totally normal.
It takes some amount of courage to let your characters act as flawed and imperfect people when we’re all pressured at every moment from every angle and from people with competing agendas to be/act/think/behave perfectly according to their (ever-shifting) standards. Living in a time of constant false apologies for things that, in many cases, people shouldn’t have to apologize for (even saying that I feel people’ hackles being raised and their knuckles cracking as they prepare their argument against me) and cancel culture and the like, I actually wonder if people either never learned or have forgotten how to experience fiction. Everything in our everyday world is so literal and is always making a statement or taking a stand (whether or not we intend to). Every sentence you write on social media must encapsulate the entirety of your opinion on a matter (and it had better be the right opinion) and then you must defend it against an onslaught of criticism and passive-aggressive comments from “friends” who have known you for all of two minutes but also, apparently, know everything about you and are now angry and incensed about it (but who then wonder, with bruised feelings, why you decided to finally unfriend them and move on with life).
But fiction is about taking a journey, and sometimes it’s not a very dramatic journey–and by that I mean that point A and point B may be rather close together and growth may be small and character may not reach Earthly Perfection by the end. It’s not about pointing out someone else’s faults, but about recognizing our faults in a character we realize we can like anyway and hopefully feeling some empathy that will then translate into real life as we interate with other imperfect people.
The novel I have coming out in January involves reckoning with past abuse, and one of my beta readers was frustrated that the MC did not pursue justice in the case in the way we are seeing women do now. But for this character, it wouldn’t have been appropriate. And truly that is kind of what the story is about: that justice is not always served (and maybe there are times even when that is fine for all involved–yikes!) and the people involved in some personal (not talking systemic, here) injustice can choose to deal with it in a way that doesn’t live up to our ideal (and, frankly, our insatiable desire to make other people pay and regret no matter what). That sometimes we have to accept that we can’t fix things and balance the scales. And maybe just having everything balanced isn’t actually the highest good–that there is something better and more satisfying out there than that things are fair or even.
Maybe, ultimately, it comes down to our current cultural reckoning between individual liberty and collective safety. Lots of our social and political discussions can fit into that framework. We (rightly) don’t like it when people are wronged, treated differently, oppressed, or persecuted. We make attempts to correct things. And in the process, we sometimes simply shift our persecution, judgment, and willful misunderstanding to a different group of people.
Why? Because the definition of “utopia” start with the word “imagined.” Maybe there’s a higher goal than utopia. Maybe forbearance and forgiveness offer us a better path forward. (Again, I’m talking about individuals, not unjust systems.)
Okay, I’m going to hit the Post Comment button without looking back on what I just wrote so I don’t censor it. 😬
Erin:
So much of what you wrote resonated with me so strongly, I could barely wait to finish reading to “like” it. I imagine a day in the future when eating meat will be treated with the same disdain as owning slaves is today. Will we “cancel” those writers who committed the unpardonable sin of enjoying a steak and whose characters do the same? It’s coming to the point where we’re “canceling” ourselves for fear of what future generations will think. Thanks for your well-reasoned argument.
Hi, Christine,
Yes, you’re now talking about one of the most dangerous forms of censorship and/or self-censorship: revisionism.
Let’s hope that the societal temperature cools long before we get to that level. Nevertheless, there already are instances in which books and other works are sidelined (at best) because various tenets either held by their creators or simply reflected from their era no longer meet our standards.
As important as society’s and civilization’s evolution is, so are the truths of past times, sensibilities, and norms. Finding a peaceful coexistence with them isn’t always at all easy, and certainly not “good optics.”
And yet facing up to what has happened in the past not only is instructive but also can reinforce why we’ve changed (or tried to), so that we better contextualize what we mean to do better and why.
Simply “disappearing” what we don’t like rarely works — the Victorians could tell us a lot about repression – — and even less frequently is healthy.
Thanks for jumping in,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Glad you didn’t censor it, Erin. :)
Thanks much for such a thoughtful reply. I agree with you about the importance (and even the normality) of “imperfect” resolutions, even a lack of resolutions, maybe especially a lack of resolutions.
When I studied the psychology of the arts at a university in Bath, the most resonant rule of thumb was that art sets up a conflict, and then resolves it. What I came to know is that the best art doesn’t resolve its conflicts, or doesn’t resolve them “correctly,” nor does it demand that its viewer or reader or listener resolve it. Like life.
One of the things I’ve noticed about popular culture is what you’re putting your finger on: this love of the revenge tale, the worm turned, the last straw. We’ve become modern Jacobeans (remember The Revenger’s Tragedy?). I like to see almost any effort to counter that reactive fallacy with intelligent understandings of how much of life never lines up so neatly or justly, to the degree that some of this desire is just — and much of it is not, in the eye of all beholders.
What’s peculiar is that a result of today’s dynamic, we see forbearance and forgiveness as vagaries, as unsatisfying weaknesses too likely to leave wrongdoers unpunished and victims not avenged. We are very big on victims. An entire and dangerous energy of our civic structure today rests on grievance politics.
In a way, this reflects your point about people either never learning or forgetting how to experience fiction.
Of all things, it may be that in authentic fiction of the kind you’re describing, readers find actual reality — complete with the vagaries of life. This is something that the various news media and their readers, viewers, listeners don’t really like. We want hard, clear lines everywhere. We want the subject first and the verb second. We want the guilty easily recognized, we want them punished, and we want the innocent to be victorious.
This has never been the province of the best fiction. I’m going to go out on a genre limb here and say that I believe that this is one reason many people don’t warm up to literary fiction. It’s less because of a presumed elevation of lyricism and language and more because it frequently starts and stays in those “vagaries of life.” It lives in confusion — as we do — something I appreciate about it even when it makes me uncomfortable. I first grasped this in Iris Murdoch’s “Jackson’s Dilemma,” a book affected by the very real-world mental condition in which Murdoch wrote it.
Yes, there’s a higher goal than utopia, mainly because it requires us to make it, not find it.
So keep making it, Erin. :)
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Your comment on literary fiction rings very true. Not surprisingly, it’s my go-to when it comes to personal pleasure reading. :)
Yep, and you’ll find I’ve beaten you to it much of the time, lol.
See you in the literary stacks. :)
-p.
Porter, thank you for your insider’s view of this issue. Your ‘on the world scene’ hot-zones made me realize how much I take for granted . Case in point; “The authorities don’t read. It’s my best protection.” As I query my first novel, I’m hyper-aware of trends and hashtags that don’t apply to me. About pronouns and protocols that shift beneath our feet. I don’t like when when political correctness is used as a cudgel. Cancel culture, either. But behind and beneath these things are the necessary, deeper conversation that can bring about change. But because I believe that stories reflect back to us all our ugliness and beauty, I hope we don’t become too paralyzed. We need characters who insult and ridicule as well as ones who shine a light on ignorance. We need to see it all, and to keep examining what it means to be fallible humans. You reminded me this morning that here in America, while we listen and learn, we still retain that freedom.
Thanks so much, Susan,
And especially for mentioning our fallibilities and the job of insulting and ridiculing — so little appreciated in the going populist worldview.
I was referencing George Bernard Shaw’s religious conceptualization to Todd in an earlier comment here. GSB’s essential idea was that while there’s a benign “life force” at work in the universe, it requires our hands and minds to change us from “man” to “superman” (hence the title of one of his plays). We can never get hold of being about the business of a life force until we’re ready to look at the fallibilities of our lives and call out our own and others’ shortcomings.
Don’t worry, I’m not torching for any religious direction here. Way too much a minister’s son to fall into that rabbit hole. :)
But your comment and others’ are encouraging. Maybe we’re getting closer to a time of appreciation for more earnest, authentic literature, at least some of it — the material that’s less interested in entertaining than sharing intelligence.
Yes, it can do both, as many like to say. But given a chance, so many of us seem to err on the side of entertainment.
For some of us, the best entertainment starts with intelligence, realism, and challenging truths — and stays there.
As you put it, we still retain the freedom to make that choice.
Thanks again,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Honestly, I think responsible writing requires a certain amount of self-censorship. I’m very frustrated right now with the way media is handling news reporting, and how the point seems to be to get the story out, no matter the cost, instead of considering the potential consequences of the story as it’s being told. Being “woke” isn’t just about political correctness, but it’s also about righting wrongs from the past and as writers I think we need to be aware that what we write has power and can either help others or hurt them. For example, when a writer writes a racially-stereotyped character into their story, they help perpetuate that racism and prejudice. Self-censoring, however that may look in this case (not writing the character at all, learning to write sensitively about unfamiliar cultures or races, etc…) can help–or at least not hinder– and maybe change the readers perception of the stereotyped group.
Perhaps part of the reason why social media has become such a crappy place is because people don’t self-censor what they are saying anymore. We, as writers, can write whatever we want but the storytelling transaction only occurs when other people hear (or read) the story. Sometimes we need to say what we want to say–it may even be a moral imperative. But we also need to be thoughtful about how we say it and consider if it’s the right time to say it. We live in a global community, what we put out there goes around the world! Writing is a partnership – author to reader – and I do think we need to keep others’ needs in mind when I’m writing.
Diversity is a strength, both in life and in fiction. This has always been true, long before white people started to use the word woke and the publishing industry got called out. And it will continue to be true, long after today, when the word woke itself is already changing in meaning.
Yes, to answer your question, I make changes and constantly reevaluate my work, including hiring marginalized readers, to check for inherent racism, not because I think an editor might ask me to, but because I’m afraid an editor might NOT ask me to.
None of this stems from outer pressure of being called out. I certainly don’t call it censorship. It comes from wanting to write the best story that I can. It comes from a desire to reflect my family, friends and neighbors, as they really are – beautifully diverse. It comes from my belief that the best stories are welcoming to any reader (except maybe racists).
To other writers I say please don’t worry so much about what people will say about your work. There’s always somebody saying something. Maybe worry more about how people will feel, especially those who are marginalized. Let that be your guide.
Words and story are powerful, especially when published. As a writer, I believe, we have a responsibility to be respectful of their power.
Hi, Ada,
In response to your line, “As a writer, I believe, we have a responsibility to be respectful of their power,” I heartily agree. Well said. And thanks for your thoughtful comment.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
An important post that I thank you for, Porter. Who in the coming years is going to risk writing sympathetically about Andrew Cuomo?
When Philip Larkin’s letters were published, and it became public knowledge that he had racist and sexist views, look at what the reviewers set about doing to his reputation as a great poet. His private and public selves were treated as two sides of the same coin. Of course the template for such take-downs are the stories of famous people from the past like Jefferson.
But in terms of self-censorship, there’s something else not related to PC/wokeness. I publish short pieces on Medium, and I now find myself editing for greater simplicity. Not greater clarity, just a more accessible read for people with limited vocabularies and little or no experience with complex syntax. It’s the way things are now, and I don’t like it.
Barry, please don’t dumb down your writing. The ‘way things are now’ distresses me, too. I hear bad grammar coming out of the mouths of journalists and it makes me nuts. But lowering your standard isn’t going to shift that downward trend. Good writing might. I love your eloquence!
Very nice of you to say, Susan. Added to a decline in language knowledge among journalists is the apparent elimination at newspapers of proofreaders. I’ve been starting the day with the daily Detroit Free Press for decades. Now, I finish it wanting to go back to bed.
Agree.
Hey, Barry,
I hear you on the concern of needing to use a very clear style because the readership may not be as receptive to something more complex.
I do think that in some cases — not all — this is a function of time constraints rather than an educational or intelligence issue. (Again, I’m saying only in some cases.)
I find that I need to stay across so much information at any given time that a straightforward text can really be welcome, even when I know I’m reading a writer capable of a lot more.
I’m not sure the trend to simpler, clearer text is wrong, as long as it’s in a journalistic or nonfiction context, and as long as the writer is still saying what needs to be said — and this might apply to your work on Medium, pending how much you want it to represent your creative work as opposed to more utilitarian text. (This is your decision to make entirely, no one else’s. It’s your work.)
In fiction, of course, we’re then into stylistic and aesthetic points of voice and intent that make these considerations much more tricky, and offer a chance to examine what you’re doing and evaluate it on the basis of how true it is to what you mean to do — and how well that’s being communicated in your stylistic framework.
All the best with it, as ever,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hi Porter, An important post, one I will be rereading. On social media, I don’t hold back. You can see my politics every day when I post on Facebook. You can see my politics when you read my tweets. During the writing process, I am often grateful that my story is not set in the present–that being said, there have always been cultural situations that need the attention of a writer with an open mind and even more, a mind willing to listen. I hope to teach my characters to have positive outlooks, the ability to fight prejudgment thinking. That’s a theme in my work. Take care.
In free countries the zeitgeist changes so frequently that it’s almost foolish to hold back based on that phenomenon. Again, in a free country, it’s best to write your story and apologize later. Assuming that you must. Ahem. Sorry for the pedantry. This is an excellent article!