In 1978 Alexandr Solzhenitsyn delivered an amazing speech telling us with clairvoyance where we were as a Nation. Today, we are a perfect reflection of his descriptions. These “TRUTHS” are commented on in the Nine articles on this author’s corner of the internet. The baseline article is here
Fourth Story: The Social Pressure for SELF-CENSORSHIP
This is created by the pressure of the press’s diverging opinions. Many people choose to “see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing.”
Solzhenitsyn:
“The press too, of course, enjoys the widest freedom. (I shall be using the word press to include all media.) But what sort of use does it make of this freedom?”
Solzhenitsyn also asserts, that there are responsibilities that are ignored, moral and responsibility to history. When these types of stories are published, they are never rectified publicly because it would damage influence and sales.
However, even if they did, like in the case of CNN, where they published lies daily during the Trump presidency, to the point that viewership plummeted in the last 6 years. During the midterm elections in 2018 CNN had 988,000 total viewers (less than one million) vis-à-vis Fox News’s 2,434,000 viewers. In 2022 a headline reads “CNN Ratings Plummet 80 Percent to Start 2022. During the week of January 3, CNN declined from 2.7 million during the same period in 2021 to 584,000 viewers, a steep 80%. Nobody did a “mea culpa” about the lies that got them there. It only hurt the country and their bottom line in that order.
The abuse of the first amendment violates the trust placed in the media and the only thing that moves their compass is partisanship. Solzhenitsyn was right when in 1978 he wrote:
“…it becomes necessary to resort to guesswork, rumors, and suppositions to fill in the voids, and none — and none of them will ever be rectified; they will stay on in the readers’ memories. How many hasty, immature, superficial, and misleading judgments are expressed every day, confusing readers, without any verification. The press — The press can both simulate public opinion and miseducate it. Thus, we may see terrorists described as heroes, or secret matters pertaining to one’s nation’s defense publicly revealed, or we may witness shameless intrusion on the privacy of well-known people under the slogan: “Everyone is entitled to know everything.” But this is a false slogan, characteristic of a false era. People also have the right not to know and it’s a much more valuable one. The right not to have their divine souls [stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk.] A person who works and leads a meaningful life does not need this excessive burdening flow of information.”
People’s thinking becomes distorted and they start making snap decisions on the reality they believe and thus become superficial “experts.” Solzhenitsyn calls it
“hastiness and superficiality are the psychic disease…Such as it is, today the press is The Greatest Power in the West.”
As it turns out in the USA today, the lies of the press make the Legislature the first greatest power in government. this was clearly seen in the mid-term election of 2020. Today, the Executive is weak and senile, and the Judiciary, SCOTUS is coming in the weakest. SCOTUS just now is starting to show its teeth, realizing how weak and indecisive the Executive is. Is their behavior a product of politics? Maybe, however, they were “designed in” with a weakness — The President selects candidates, and the Legislature “approves” the choice. This process was not politicized until Bork, the best Constitutional mind of his time, was assaulted by “Bobby” Kennedy in Congress.
So we have the press controlling the masses who repeat almost verbatim what “their press says.” The press does not Censor itself so, they run the gamut of “truths,” to be believed; everyone “chooses their truth.” The press has become the candy store for political adults and thus, like Goebbels press, molds the national thinking. In the end, DIVIDING THE NATION. The vociferous, especially during Trump’s Presidency, publicly attacked those who did not think like them. Voters’ self-censorship started then.
That is not all, today we have another type of press, “The Social Media,” like the press, were “given” by the government First Amendment rights (As if these corporations were “people”). This is so they can turn around and “TAKE YOUR FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS AWAY.” Thus mugging our voice as they choose. And it so happens, they are socialist too. All very convenient for a totally “Progressive” government in the mold of Woodrow Wilson.
Of all these things Solzhenitsyn said back in 1978:
“I have received letters in America from highly intelligent persons, maybe a teacher in a faraway small college who could do much for the renewal and salvation of his country, but his country cannot hear him because the media are not interested in him. This gives birth to strong mass prejudices, to blindness, which is most dangerous in our dynamic era.”
“I have mentioned a few traits of Western life which surprise and shock a new arrival to this world. The purpose and scope of this speech will not allow me to continue such a review, to look into the influence of these Western characteristics on important aspects of a nation’s life, such as elementary education, advanced education in the humanities and art.”
AND IN 2022, WE ARE HERE!
Quotes from “Psychology Today” July 2021:
“Olivia Remes, an expert on anxiety disorders, says, “People with anxiety often edit what they’re about to say in their minds because they don’t want to offend anyone”
“Fear of government repression for speaking one’s mind is not a major factor leading people in the U.S. to self-censor. Rather, it’s fear that expressing an unpopular view will result in being isolated or alienated from family or friends.”
“What was a good predictor of self-censorship then? Education. Specifically, those with more formal education self-censor at much higher rates. This suggests that one thing they learned in college was to avoid saying the wrong thing.”
We saw these all throughout Trump’s Presidency. Peggy Noonan, a Wall Street Journal opinion journalist expressed then (April 21, 2016):
“I read an email thread from a group of conservative women — very bright, all ages, all decorous and dignified. But tempers were high, and they were courteously tearing each other apart over Mr. Trump and the GOP.”
On the question being asked in various places: “What are the impacts of this trend of increased self-censorship?” the biggest impact we see today is “the growing chasm within the voting population.”
If you found this story interesting, you may enjoy reading the truths Solzhenitsyn spoke about earlier in his speech.
