Censorship & “Beyond Their Reach”

 

The older I become, the more I find that I squirm with embarrassment whenever I read the Ten Commandments. It’s not that I’m embarrassed by prohibitions or injunctions but, rather, I’m embarrassed that God found it necessary to give these particular ones. We generally give instructions to others based on our perception of their weaknesses and proclivities. And I can only conclude that God’s instructions reflect His understanding of the kind of people we are.

The prohibition against “graven images” suggests that mankind has a tendency to elevate and admire the works of his own hands over the God who made those hands to begin with. Centuries later, the apostle Paul made this explicit in his letter to the Romans when he described man as having “worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator”. So mankind apparently has an unhealthy tendency to overestimate the value of its own innovations. Peachy.

Alexander Leighton was a Puritan Scottish physician who penned a pamphlet in 1633 taking exception to the severity of the bishops and hierarchy of the Church of Scotland. In his pamphlet, he described the bishops as “anti-Christian and satanic”. (You know the Scots, when their dander is up they incline toward purple prose.) Dr. Leighton objected, along with other Puritans, to the imposition on their consciences of the extra-Biblical ceremonial requirements of the Church of England.

From a 19th century history by John Wingate Thornton:

“In substance, the prelates claimed that every word, ceremony, and article written in the Common Book of Prayer and in the Book of Ordination was as faultless and binding as the Book of God and must be acknowledged as such. The Puritans dared not say it. The prelates claimed to themselves – or, more modestly, to the church which they personified – an infallibility of judgment in all things pertaining to religion. The Puritans denied the claim. The prelates claimed obedience; the Puritans manhood; the prelates, spiritual lordship; the Puritans Christian liberty.”

In taking exception to Dr. Leighton’s pamphlet, Archbishop Laud (later elevated to the exalted position of Archbishop of Canterbury) sentenced Dr. Leighton without trial to be whipped at the pillory, branded, and to have his ears “cropped”. Reacting to accusations of abuse by becoming abusive has a long and rich history, still in evidence today whenever we observe the indignant reaction of those Islamists who respond to accusations of being violent by, well, becoming violent. A well-developed sense of irony is not something, apparently, that runs in Islamist circles.

But I digress.

On the appointed day, Dr. Leighton – ill from long confinement in an open-air cell – was led to the pillory where he was whipped, his ear cut off, his nostril slit through, and his cheeked hot-branded with the letters “SS” for “sower of sedition”. One week later, his wounds not yet healed, he was again led to the pillory and whipped, his remaining ear severed, his other nostril sliced open, and his other cheek branded.

Such was the cultural context and ferment that caused the Puritans to flee to Massachusetts Bay, from where they would write to parliament,

“we thought it our safest course to get outside of the world, out of their view and beyond their reach.”

It is this business of getting “beyond their reach” that especially piqued my interest. Any resemblance that Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey have to Archbishop Laud is, probably, coincidental. Well, except for the censoriousness. And the absurdly elevated sense of their own importance. Also the corresponding belief in the flawlessness of their own understanding. And they’re assuming the role of arbiters of truth.

Except for those things the resemblance is probably coincidental. They probably don’t wander the halls at Facebook and Twitter in a cassock. (But come to think of it, who really knows?) At any rate, they don’t yet have the power to brand people or slit their nostrils. So we’ve got that going for us.

Conservatives, like the Puritans of old, need to put themselves beyond the reach of the Archbishop Laud’s of cyberspace. And they need to do it in full recognition that it may involve a certain amount of hardship for a while. I confess that I’m increasingly unsympathetic with the complaints about fact-checking and censorship on the major social media platforms. It is the hallmark of adolescents to believe that the comforts and conveniences of their home are their due. It is time for conservatives to move out of the progressive basement and build their own home. I realize Parler tried to do this, but the attempt was half-hearted and they didn’t do it competently. It doesn’t require much imagination to conceive of the possibility that depending on a progressive Amazon for all your internet infrastructure needs could be a bad idea. And yet Parler had no viable backup plan at all.

Conservatives should probably not merely try to reproduce a conservative version of what the progressives have built. They should think more asymmetrically, and they should intentionally try to use technology, perhaps, to wreck the business model of the social media giants. Social media’s lifeblood is its ability to collect and monetize data, but I wonder sometimes if that is also its Achilles heel. Perhaps conservatives should, with malice aforethought, be innovating in uses of technology that blind the tech giants. Or, alternatively, maybe conservatives should flood social media data streams with so much pollution that it becomes impossible for tech lords to differentiate between signal and noise.

I don’t know the answer to this. I only know that complaining about censorship will do nothing to put anyone “beyond their reach”.

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  1. Chuck Coolidge
    Chuck
    @Chuckles

    Keith Lowery: And I can only conclude that God’s instructions reflect His understanding of the kind of people we are.

    FIFY.

    For the rest, you say lots of good stuff.

    • #1
  2. Barfly Member
    Barfly
    @Barfly

    Keith Lowery: Conservatives, like the Puritans of old, need to put themselves beyond the reach of the Archbishop Laud’s of cyber space. And they need to do it in full recognition that it may involve a certain amount of hardship for a while. I confess that I’m increasingly unsympathetic with the complaints about fact checking and censorship on the major social media platforms. It is the hallmark of adolescents to believe that the comforts and conveniences of their home are their due. It is time for conservatives to move out of the progressive basement and build their own home.

    Spot on.

    Keith Lowery: Conservatives should probably not merely try to reproduce a conservative version of what the progressives have built. They should think more asymmetrically, and they should intentionally try to use technology, perhaps, to wreck the business model of the social media giants. Social media’s lifeblood is its ability to collect and monetize data, but I wonder sometimes if that is also its achilles heel.

    Not so much an achilles heel, because it’s a vulnerability they have to expose – they have no choice, it’s how they make money

    Keith Lowery: Perhaps conservatives should, with malice aforethought, be innovating in uses of technology that blind the tech giants.

    I’m thinking about it all the time these days. I have ideas. I’m looking for like minded serious software developers. Oh, and funding. I could do a lot with three or four sharp programmers and 18 months. Build a culture where every user has an internet presence, and therefore a real internet identity. Those identities would use truly distributed search and shopping engines. The time is right.

    • #2
  3. Ekosj Member
    Ekosj
    @Ekosj

    Barfly (View Comment):

    Keith Lowery: Conservatives, like the Puritans of old, need to put themselves beyond the reach of the Archbishop Laud’s of cyber space. And they need to do it in full recognition that it may involve a certain amount of hardship for a while. I confess that I’m increasingly unsympathetic with the complaints about fact checking and censorship on the major social media platforms. It is the hallmark of adolescents to believe that the comforts and conveniences of their home are their due. It is time for conservatives to move out of the progressive basement and build their own home.

    Spot on.

    Keith Lowery: Conservatives should probably not merely try to reproduce a conservative version of what the progressives have built. They should think more asymmetrically, and they should intentionally try to use technology, perhaps, to wreck the business model of the social media giants. Social media’s lifeblood is its ability to collect and monetize data, but I wonder sometimes if that is also its achilles heel.

    Not so much an achilles heel, because it’s a vulnerability they have to expose – they have no choice, it’s how they make money

    Keith Lowery: Perhaps conservatives should, with malice aforethought, be innovating in uses of technology that blind the tech giants.

    I’m thinking about it all the time these days. I have ideas. I’m looking for like minded serious software developers. Oh, and funding. I could do a lot with three or four sharp programmers and 18 months. Build a culture where every user has an internet presence, and therefore a real internet identity. Those identities would use truly distributed search and shopping engines. The time is right.

    There are some good ideas in “Who Owns the Future”  by Jaron Lanier

    John Galt had it right.

    • #3
  4. Mim526 Inactive
    Mim526
    @Mim526

    Keith Lowery: I only know that complaining about censorship will do nothing to put anyone “beyond their reach”.

    “Never take a problem to your supervisor without a solution,” my mother prior to my first responsible job.  She was gentler than Teddy Roosevelt, “Complaining about a problem without proposing a solution is called whining.”

    Keep track to build/prove a case, but still have to work to win it.

    Keith Lowery: It is time for conservatives to move out of the progressive basement and build their own home.

    Keith Lowery: innovating in uses of technology

    At minimum you’d need ideas, entrepreneurial spirit, and funds.  Ideas and entrepreneurs I imagine we have.  Funds?  Maybe venture capitalist like JD Vance.  Would be a good area for someone like Trump to make some $$ in except he’d probably want active involvement not merely an investor.

    Keith Lowery: The older I become, the more I find that I squirm with embarrassment whenever I read the Ten Commandments. […] And I can only conclude that God’s instructions reflect His understanding of the kind of people we are.

    Yes.  “He knows what we have need of”.  I also think they are things needed for humans to live together in community; they are for the good of mankind.

    • #4
  5. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    This is a phenomenal post.

    Thanks, Keith Lowery.

    • #5
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