From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada
Subject: Re: Music labelling (was So its Clinton/Gore, eh?)
Date: 8 Nov 92 05:38:02 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com


In article <BxBtD9.46u@Novell.COM>, dtokarew@tokafew.Doc.Provo.Novell.COM writes:
> In article <1df0mmINN7jo@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com  
> (Jon Livesey) writes:
> > 
>	[much deleted]
>
> ....therefore if you *really* want to know the contents of a record,  
> the (*objectively*) descriptive labelling would be much more helpful.
> So it's not merely a matter of objectivity, but of how useful that  
> objectivity is. Sorry if the train of thought wasn't very obvious.

Now I get it.   And I agree.

> Forgive my assumption about what you assume. It's just that from
> your tone  and word choice when describing/talking about potential
> music labels, I infer only derisiveness, ridicule, and contempt.

That's correct.   Maybe my postings should carry a warning label.

> And much of your argument has been that they'd be a form of
> censorship--which itself is based on much subjectivity on the
> censor's part. But if my assumption is wrong and you don't assume
> the labels will be "subjective warning labels" that merely serve
> to censor, then what *is* your argument against them?

Actually, that's not what I am saying.   I do not claim that
warning labels are in and of themselves a form of censorship.

I claim that warning labels - if applied industry wide - act
as a signal to future authors about what will and will not be
considered 'harmless'.    They single out certain publications
as requiring some form of special labelling.    They therefore
act both as a deterrent to certain buyers, and as a negative
signal to authors.   But authors must eat, and so many of them
will, over time, tend to conform to the guidance they are receiving.
That's self-censorship.

And there is a second form of self-censorship, which is that
publishers also need to eat.   Most publishers will not want to
earn the reputation "everything they publish needs a warning
label".   So most publishers will also conform, over time, and
will start to refuse work they would otherwise publish.

> The question was because I had originally said that outright censorship  
> over the years "has not stopped authors or whoever from creating," and  
> your response was the ever-so-politely-put "How the hell do you know what  
> it has or has not stopped?" Your mention in the other post about some  
> people having gone outside this country to get their stuff published  
> doesn't have anything to do with their ability to *create* the stuff.

But it does.  Do you expect authors to eat air?   Do you expect
them to create in a garret, and sell nothing?

> > Oh, here we go.  The great and the good can set the standards,
> > and as long as the government isn't involved, it's not censorship.
> 
> Publishers do, and have the right to, set the standards/guidelines *for  
> themselves* as to what they will or won't publish--
>	[much more deleted]

Yes, of course *individual* publishers get to set their own standards,
but music labelling - if applied industry wide - is imposed upon them.

We've seen this all before.    Publishers had Victorian standards
of decency imposed on them earlier this century, and then those
standards of decency gradually percolated into standards of prosecution,
and after a while, publishers were being sent to jail for publishing
stuff you and I wouldn't bat an eyelid over.   The self-censorship
of publishers earlier this century and last went as far as clipping
naughty bits out of Shakespeare.    No-one stopped to ask themselves
if Shakespeare put the naughty bits in for some purpose.

				-----

The bottom line here is that there is no "natural" standard
of profanity or indecency, yet a society can impose an
arbitrary standard on itself simply by codifying one.

I can recall the shock of outrage and horror that went
through the rather middle class neighbourhood in which I
grew up, when Paul Anka released "Having my Baby".
Elderly ladies with platoons of children and batallions of
grandchildren expressed pained surprise at finding out that
there were people out there who were actually having
*sex*!   Whatever next: card-playing on Sunday?

If Marky Mark had been around then, he'd have had so many
warning labels slapped on him that you'd have thought he
was wearing the Coat of Many Colours.    He certainly
wouldn't have had genitals:  after all, why should he?
No-one else did?   Does anyone rememeber when genitals were
invented?   Sometime in the sixties, probably.

Really, folks, the truism that standards change should
really clue you in to the fact that there *are* no
standards.   But we can impose standards on ourselves by
constant practice, and warning labels are that.

No, warning labels are not censorship, and I will not
defend that particular straw man.   Instead, warning labels
are a form of creeping conformism and self-censorship, and
in some ways much worse that overt censorship, because it's
hard to tell what's going on until it's too late.

jon.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada,can.politics