I was interested by the recent conversation threads on self-censoring.
I too at times feel the social pull, desiring to belong and fall in with the dominant view. I could reword that and say that I try to be polite, don’t want to antagonise people, get tired of defending a position etc. But generally, all those mechanisms are a means for me to fulfill the biological/instinctual need for belonging. I want to belong therefore I act in a certain way that will ensure a sense of belonging. It’s a natural thing to do, we are social animals. Not conforming to cultural norms in some aspects of my life has showed me the harshness and stigma of being the outsider. It also thickened my skin and gave me impetus to understand the mechanism of belonging. We humans are designed to have a strong social instinct. And that is a good thing but when it’s used as a weapon by institutions of power to silence me, well there I draw the line.
There are many ways that institutions of power have maintained control of their subjects throughout history. There have been various forms of punishment and discipline. Self-censorship has developed as contemporary mechanism of control. We have been conditioned to control ourselves, we don’t need to be subjugated to an ever present overlord, we have one installed within us. The biological need to belong has been weaponized to curtail any potential opposing opinion and therefore silencing us.
The topic of self-censorship reminded me of Foucault’s analysis of the Panopticon. The Panopticon initially was a prison design by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). The physical design placed the prisoners in a round structure at the perimeter and the guards in a tower in the middle. Being very efficient, the guards could observe all cells from one spot, reducing the number of guards required. It was designed so that the prisoners couldn’t tell if they were being watched or not. All they could see was the guard tower. The prisoners would assume they were being watched all the time and Bentham theorised that they would modify their behaviour accordingly. Essentially they would guard themselves.
For Foucault (1926-1984) the Panopticon model was not just a prison design but a model of power and control that could be used in a variety of settings by any institution of power. He argued that this had become a way of social control in contemporary institutions and practices.
A thesis by Emily Brown explains a current panoptic experience through the use of surveillance in our society. Our online footprint is tracked, what we like and don’t like is tracked, our biometrics are gathered like face and voice recognition. “There is little of society left untouched by technological surveillance.” Essentially we live with the experience of being watched. Brown explains how a government’s overuse of surveillance though the internet can create self-censorship online. This is both conscious and unconscious behaviour. It is motivated by discomfort and fear. “People self-censor in order to avoid the social disapproval of others.”
Self-censorship is desirable to a government because it curtails dissent. Over surveillance creates an environment hostile to free speech. When people feel pressured not to dissent, their resulting normalised behavior is self-censorship.
“In modern societies people are increasingly watched, and their activities documented and classified with a view to creating populations that conform to social norms.”
Through the mechanism of normalisation, people being surveilled follow the rules of the institutions without questioning them or resisting them. Brown expresses the dangers of this,
“The consequences of this will be dire; in a society where alternative ideas are not expressed, they will eventually cease to exist, setting us on the path to authoritarianism.”
