Though Amazon.com quickly decided to pull The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure off its shelves, they continue to sell other books in the same genre. That’s probably not news to most. But take a look at their reported reasoning:
“Amazon.com believes it is censorship not to sell certain titles because we believe their message is objectionable.”
(Other commenters on the discussion thread linked there confirmed that Amazon had said the same to them, and there is no sign of their repudiating the claim, so it seems credible that this was indeed their answer.)
Amazon has a policy on what they will accept for their digital platform, which makes this statement seem very odd. Perhaps there’s more to their position than this, but if so, CNN does not seem to have uncovered it.
What is censorship, anyway? I always thought the term applied when some controlling authority (government, school administration, etc.) prevented the dissemination of ideas, images, etc. Amazon is powerful, but it’s not a controlling authority. If it doesn’t sell a book it’s preventing nothing. It’s only closing a certain channel, one to which no person or group has any legal or moral right of unrestricted access.
Suppose someone offered Amazon a book on how to construct a radioactive “dirty” bomb, or on how to break into Amazon’s computers and steal their funds. Would they be justified in refusing to sell those books? Where content promotes plainly illegal and harmful activities, there is every reason not to distribute it. As is the case with pedophilia.
So what’s really going on here? Amazon is clearly not guilty of censorship in any legal sense of the term. But it does look as if they are bothered about the censorship connection, and if so, it must be on moral grounds. Indeed, censorship does carry some moral weight: to block someone’s access to speech channels could (in at least some cases) be wrong ethically even if not legally. I could be mistaken about this, but it looks to me like this is how Amazon views the current matter. It appears that access to a speech distribution channel carries more moral weight, for Amazon, than pedophilia does; and that they view blocking distribution channels as more harmful than all the damage wreaked on young children by sexual predation.
Sexual morality is such a featherweight moral issue to many in our culture, it seems almost to have negative weight. Kids are harmed by pedophilia, and companies are harmed by theft. Both harms are weighty matters. One of them is lifted up, though, by a virtual hot-air-balloon emblazoned with the words, “if it’s sexual, let it be.” Is there any other way pedophilia could become so weightless, a lighter offense than telling someone you won’t sell their book?
November 12th, 2010 | 11:11 am | #1
“Is there any other way pedophilia could become so weightless, a lighter offense than telling someone you won’t sell their book?”
It’s funny. When I scrolled down to read this sentence at the end of your post … I saw in big boldface the title of the post below:
A Longing for Weirdness
——-
LOL! I think that’s your answer, Mr. Gilson!
November 12th, 2010 | 1:43 pm | #2
Yes, I’ve seen the term “censorship” bandied about frequently with respect to any sort of content restraint by anyone. My guess is that such people would call a parent keeping their kids from watching offensive material “censorship” or utilize the term “self-censorship.”
Both the latter uses, of course, mistake the entire point of the idea of censorship, which is to limit the powers of the government in a modern liberal nation-state for prudential considerations tied to its role as the final (legitimate) coercive authority in the realm. Fearing the likely consequences of a government restricting disfavored political speech, namely the repression of those not in power, the term “censorship” was utilized.
But it was meant to bind, I think, only a particular authoritative institution–the government–because of its particular nature and character rather than any and all authorities (e. g. a parent over child, Amazon over its business). Unfortunately, “liberated” modern people have tended to reject or suspect all forms of authority without distinction, so we hear “censorship” applied to even the most appropriate of restraining actions.
And yet, part of the confusion occurring here is also because what counts as “political” speech is not quite coherent in modern liberal societies with its deluded technocratic vision of a polity divorced from a religious conception of the good (which is impossible). You need only be familiar with an Aristotelian conception of politics to see the problem with how we understand “political.” As (true) aspects of the postmodern critique filter through society and people start realizing the neat divisions of modernity are not so coherent, there will be continuing (and not altogether unjustified) confusion concerning the forms and language (e.g. “censorship”) of our late-modern society.
November 13th, 2010 | 9:25 am | #3
Lack of self-restraint tends to elicit imposed restraint from above. If Amazon.com fails to exercise discernment in deciding which books to sell, government may step in and do it for them. Perhaps Amazon prefers such an outcome?
November 13th, 2010 | 10:58 am | #4
Well it IS censorship, just not government censorship. But so what? I’ve gotta say, Amazon’s answer was one of the most bald-faced non-answers in the history of public relations rhetoric. “We believe this is censorship.” Yes, and I believe that giving a dollar a day to a poor Ethiopian child is sponsorship. So what of it? The debate isn’t whether or not banning books from a website is censorship (which, by the popular definition, it most certainly is). The debate is whether or not a particular book SHOULD be banned.
Yes, yes, I know. “Censorship” has a negative connotation, and Amazon is banking on that connotation to subconsciously fool the reader into thinking that a sensible argument has been provided. But no real argument is there. Just a vague statement that, at best, simply means “it is wrong to ban books from websites, but we’re not going to explain why,” or at worst, is purposely vague in order to give Amazon wiggle room to do whatever it wants.
November 13th, 2010 | 3:04 pm | #5
Regarding whether or not this is even an instance of censorship, I think Gilson–if I understand him correctly–is correct. This isn’t an instance of some entity, authority or otherwise, _preventing_ a person or group from speech or dissemination of ideas. Amazon merely declined to perform a service to the pedophile author, namely, the selling of his book for him. It seems to me that the pedophile has no claim on Amazon to this service.
November 14th, 2010 | 8:39 pm | #6
I think what happened has a much simplier explanation. Amazon probably has a standard response to the complaint of “I don’t like you guys selling book X”. That is “We don’t censor our selection, just because we sell a book by Glen Beck, Christopher Hitchens, Ann Coutler, Michael Moore, Karl Marx, Adolph Hitler, etc. doesn’t mean we endorse it”. This is different from, say, The Liberal Book Club, whose manager probably doesn’t put Glen Beck in the titles for sale.
The more accurate answer is that Amazon seeks to act like a Google of Books. It has no editors, buyers or reviewers deciding which books to sell. It wants to sell just about every book that’s published. Hence just about every book that is published is instantly listed. It will, however, have actual humans look at items after the fact if they think there may be some trouble. This seems to be what they did here.
Albert
“Fearing the likely consequences of a government restricting disfavored political speech, namely the repression of those not in power, the term “censorship” was utilized. ”
Yea yea but the First Amendment says ‘speech’, not ‘political speech’. The Founders were highly educated men who were well aware that there was a lot of printed material which was neither religious nor political speech. At least some of them were probably even aware that literary pornography was being written, printed and distributed. If they wanted to have crafted the 1st to limit freedom of speech to only political or religious speech they could have done so, they didn’t.
November 16th, 2010 | 12:27 pm | #7
David, it certainly might, especially if Amazon can demand a regulatory or monetary subsidy for their troubles.
Boonton, as a theoretical matter concerning the capacity to distinguish political from other forms of speech, you are probably right. As a historical question of what the Founders meant you are almost certainly wrong. Wikipedia’s a pretty good introduction to this subject of “speech” referring primarily to political speech (it is a political constitution, after all). The vast majority of the early cases were ones dealing with political speech. Non-political speech (to the extent that such a determination can be made) was and is not held to be protected by the First Amendment to the same extent as political speech (to the extent that such a determination can be made). Let me quote at length and note especially the bold:
Additionally, the highly educated Founders lived decades before the Civil War and the 14th Amendment and so would have understood that while there might be limits to federal interference in speech, no such legal limits would automatically apply to states. Being aware of pornography, they would have opted for state laws to passed against them if they believed such a law would be prudent. Being practical men, few such laws were passed not because they thought the First Amendment protects pornographic literature but because of other prudential considerations and perhaps because of a lack of need. Unlike people today, they didn’t feel comfortable with a massive burden of federal laws seeping into every corner and crevice of life.
So yes, the First Amendment protects political speech first and foremost in theory. If you only meant that it is at some level impossible to say which speech is “political” and which is not, well then I would agree with you and note that is one of the reasons why liberalism (classical or progressive) is incoherent.
November 20th, 2010 | 11:53 pm | #8
This doesn’t strike me as “censorship,” but I do find the inconsistency in what Amazon sells to be problematic enough. “Censoring” implies a sort of complete demolishing; if Amazon were truly “censoring” the pedophile book, then they would go to the publisher and throw a molotov cocktail in their shipping warehouse. Amazon, of course, is hardly doing that; they are using their right to choose what they want to sell (despite the incongruence of what they sell).
Amazon does not have an obligation to provide its customers with every possible item they want. If Amazon wants to boycott a certain book, then they absolutely have the right to do so. Nor do the people have the right to buy anything they want from a provider like Amazon.
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