From: TURK@TUKY.COM   
      
   Well, I'm getting RSI dealing with this subject but it's too much fun to   
   stop now. My chosen weapon for this exchange is ££   
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   > According to the OED censorship means the official suppression of   
   published   
   > material on grounds of unsuitability or national security. Gibson's dog's   
   > name is censored from the film and your article states this clearly and   
   > your   
   > approval of it being censored;   
   >   
   > **You may believe that if you want to but you must know  perfectly well   
   > that you're misrepresenting my position. Quite clearly i don't wish to   
   have   
   > the knowledge of the dog having had that name suppressed.   
      
   ++ Clearly not, but I contend that bleeping the name in the film is   
   censorship of the past (swear words have always been swear words; Gibson's   
   dog's name has - whether we like it or not - not always been a swear word   
   but, repugnant as it may be, part of British cultural history) and sets a   
   precedent and adds to the gathering murk that is closing over the past. If   
   Gibson's character swore violently then I would say bleep it - before the   
   watershed.   
   ££When do you think the watershed ( already a joke) should be for racial   
   epithets?   
   I'd be PERFECTLY happy if the film began with an explanatory note, scrolled   
   up the screen or even as voiceover, explaining that the dog's name would   
   not be transmitted, what the name was, and why. Do you regard it as   
   censorship when authors , ranging from Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene to   
   Nevil Shute, leave the f-word or other crudities out of conversations in   
   which it would certainly have been used. Shute made a great deal of use of   
   'mugger'in his versions of serviceman's conversations,  and his Australians   
   say 'My Word' quite a bit.Is that, was that 'censorship'? Should the books   
   now be republished with the f-word , the b-word etc inserted?  When I   
   object to censorship, it is to attempts to suppress facts or arguments. The   
   definition upon which you rely( very similar to that used by John Mortimer   
   etc in their noble battles to make the world safe for smut)  is so broad   
   that, under it, all my objections to pornography and bad language would   
   have to be laid aside. I do not think this has ANYTHING in common with the   
   suppression and distortion of the truth about the past which you rightly   
   fear. On the contrary, the fact that a much-admired war hero was crass   
   enough to give his dog this stupid name rather reinforces the (false) view   
   that pre-cultural revolution Britain was a swamp of bigotry. The n-word has   
   always been an insult. Gibson may not have known how insulting it was in   
   1944, but then a lot of the people who wear FCUK clothes probably don't   
   know how much I want to punch them in the mouth.Have you thought about this   
   at all, or have you just dug in on what at first looked like a good   
   defensive position and turned out not to be?   
      
      
      
      
      
      
    The transmission   
   > of a word on live TV is quite different from its appearance in print, or   
   > even its use in quotation marks in a description or review.   
   >   
      
   ++ I don't agree and think you're being ingenuous (or disingenuous if it   
   comes to it) about that. Television *must* be considered a mass publication   
   since it reaches numbers that dwarf the book-reading public and the dying   
   circulation figures of newspapers. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if more   
   people watch a rerun of The Dambusters than have read your Abolition of   
   Britain book. Furthermore, you obviously realise the power of television as   
   a public medium by bewailing your lack of opportunity to get on it and   
   present your - usually quite sensible - views. It is a mass medium and if   
   showing material on it - such as The Dambusters - isn't publication (or, if   
   we're going to be pedantic, re-publication) then I don't know what is.   
   Therefore, when the dog's name is bleeped it *is* censorship (would you be   
   happier with 'bowdlerized'? It means censorship anyway) and in your column   
   you said you 'didn't blame TV executives for bleeping it out', therefore   
   giving your public approval to censorship not of a swear word, but a once   
   more widely-used word from the past; a past, as you have already gone to   
   great lengths to demonstrate, that is already under the airbrush of the   
   Left   
   in too many ways to count. Furthermore, matters have been confused by 'rap'   
   and 'hip-hop' culture having taken to using the word with great   
   extravagance   
   and thus importing back into youth culture; examples of this abound in mass   
   media - though no censorship seems to be required there....   
      
   ££A very long answer to a very short point. Why? Because you actually agree   
   with me and because what I say is obviously true. Why not just acknowledge   
   it? I do indeed realise the power of television to endorse that which it   
   transmits, and recognise, as you so cleverly spotted because I had just   
   said it, that this is why it's so hard for me to get on it. You'll be   
   telling me what my name is next.  I loathe and oppose rap and hip-hop.   
   Nobody would expect me to support its transmission. But, see below, many   
   people WOULD expect me to defend the transmission of the n-word in this   
   film. The dog's name is not essential to the plot, I don't object to people   
   knowing what it is, I just dislike it being transmitted in dialogue. I know   
   of a prominent conservative who thinks it's amusing to be able to call his   
   black labrador a 'black bitch'. I don't share that person's amusement. I   
   repeat, your definition of 'censorship' is absurd. If that is censorship,   
   and censorship is wrong, then it is wrong to stop any part of the tide of   
   verbal slime.   
      
   >   and, given the way intellectual life in the   
   > West is going, the censoring of the dog's name in a TV screening of the   
   > Dambusters seems to me be just another increment on the royal road to   
   > censoring it as fact   
      
   ££Which I would not support and would actively oppose. But I'm interested.   
   Give me another instance of this. Just one. There isn't one. The problem is   
   elsewhere. I was personally very upset by the use of war films in   
   advertisements ( 'The Cruel; Sea', for instance, to advertise lager). I   
   find the brief bits I've not managed to avoid of cult series such as   
   'Blackadder' dispiriting and stupid. The problem is not one of suppression,   
   but of the destruction of the knowledge, understanding and patriotism which   
   enabled my generation to enjoy and appreciate these films.   
      
    and you are the first person to bewail the de facto   
   > censorship of aspects of British history in our schools.   
   >   
   > **I most certainly am. Which is why you should realise that my stance is   
   > not a surrender to political correctness. I could have made life much   
   > easier for myself if I had kept this private opinion to myself. I had a   
   > specific purpose in mind. It is this. PC's greatest strength in the eyes   
   of   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)