All posts tagged: free expression

What’s Happening in Russia Is Not an Election

What’s Happening in Russia Is Not an Election

Published by skeptic

If you read global news, you’ll be told that Russia is holding an election this weekend. That’s not true. Millions of Russians will be voting, but not in an election: Call it an “election-style event.” Terminology matters. Many people wrongly see elections as synonymous with democracy because the same word is used to refer to wildly different events. A genuine election, when it takes place, is one of the fundamental pillars that uphold democracy. But a rigged contest marks the death of democracy and renders all the other essential pillars irrelevant, because the people no longer have a meaningful say over who governs. This year, more people are casting ballots than ever before in human history, and yet the world is becoming less democratic. That’s because many of those votes are meaningless, registered in sham contests that don’t deserve to be called elections. Russia’s upcoming charade is a classic example of voting without democracy. Read: Lots of people will vote this year. That doesn’t mean democracy will survive. Why do tyrants like Vladimir Putin bother …

Can PEN Preserve Intellectual Freedom?

Can PEN Preserve Intellectual Freedom?

Published by skeptic

In June 1953, at the height of the McCarthy era, while congressional investigators and private groups were hunting down “subversive” or merely “objectionable” books and authors in the name of national security, the American Library Association and the Association Book Publishers Council issued a manifesto called “The Freedom to Read.” The document defended free expression and denounced censorship and conformity in language whose clarity and force are startling today. It argued for “the widest diversity of views and expressions” and against purging work based on “the personal history or political affiliations of the author.” It urged publishers and librarians to resist government and private suppression, and to “give full meaning to the freedom to read by providing books that enrich the quality and diversity of thought.” The manifesto took on not just official censorship, but the broader atmosphere of coercion and groupthink. It concluded: “We do not state these propositions in the comfortable belief that what people read is unimportant. We believe rather that what people read is deeply important; that ideas can be dangerous; …