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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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 Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 3:47 pm Post subject: orwells censored preface to animal farm |
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i thought some might be interested in this, its the preface to animal farm that was censored, titled 'the freedom of the press' - anyone whos checked much chomsky will have heard him talk about this
| Quote: | Orwell's preface to Animal Farm
"The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news - things which on their own merits would get the big headlines - being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralized, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done' to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was 'not done' to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals. |
read it all at http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/Orwell.html |
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RaulRipp
Joined: 13 Feb 2008
Location: Coventry
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| Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 4:11 pm Post subject: |
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| This is such a poignant statement given the current outbreak of media collusion to obscure and discredit "unpopular" ideas and opinions. An obvious case in point being Ben Griffin. Thanks for sharing, I'd heard about the preface, but I'd never been aware of its content. |
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t.
Joined: 30 Sep 2007
Location: canada
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| Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 7:10 am Post subject: |
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| thanks for this |
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