Zen Turns Sour.

Repetition is boring. Repetition is irritating. Repetition is all too routine. When the dark side of history repeats itself, it gets irritating. I'm talking about censorship. That ship has sailed.

(Zen isch suur - a Swiss Chris Dialect Creation - Sorry)

When Zen turns sour, you can bet it’s the sourness doing the turning. The Zen of free speech, free thought, free action — it’s under threat. From whom, you ask?

Well, here’s the irony: from censorship itself.

The word “censorship” always reminds me of one of the many gods in the Roman Empire a few thousand years ago. The god of crossing out or correcting things — a handy fellow for the writing trade, I thought. Because proofreading newspaper articles, essays, or political speeches is rarely called censorship. That would set alarm bells clanging in competition with each other. It’s merely corrections for grammatical offences, structural issues, and the basic message of a text. To soften the word’s punch, it was renamed “pre-censorship.” So the action before the actual censorship? No — this is still the innocent version, the warm-up act before a text steps out in public.

Now, to demonise censorship outright would be too simple.

Before I publish a text — this one, for instance — I pre-censor this early-morning outpouring of words a little myself. I don’t want to come across as a grammar thug or stumble into the day completely incomprehensible. The danger lurks around every corner when, before the first proper thought has arrived, I sidle up to a word and fabricate a story from it that was never planned. It came into being on the basis of pure spontaneity. So am I practising self-censorship?

No. Not necessarily. I’m practising grammar and storytelling without any censorial ulterior motives. That is, without thoughts like: “Do I need to worry about consequences once this story goes public?” That would be real censorship — reaching for the red pen out of fear of reader reactions.

Censorship, then, that fearsome instrument of pruning. The word itself was no Roman god, but it did have a Latin cousin: “censura.” Back then, the Romans didn’t understand censorship as the suppression of texts, but simply as the judging or assessing of them. Only later did it curdle into the bitter version we know — the official control of writings, media, and public expression.

Oh dear. Creativity has just broken out in a cold sweat. It’s wondering whether its job is at risk when every thought, every vision, every idea falls under the guillotine of the state apparatus the moment it’s spoken aloud. Will creativity become a purely private pleasure, never allowed out the door? Probably.

Now, to demonise censorship outright would be too simple. Because a certain degree of control over the effects of publicly released information strikes me as entirely reasonable. I’m rather in favour of incitement to violence being a criminal offence. Likewise, racist or sexist incitement has no place — and no business — in a humane society. The same goes for people and bots spreading disinformation and conspiracy theories.

Censorship turns sour when it tries to silence criticism. That’s when I turn sour too. Criticism is a duty, not merely an exercise. Because criticism isn’t the dismissal of ideas — it’s their improvement. Critical thinking and writing — above all by the media — directed at elected politicians: that’s what makes up the fourth estate. Not only in Denmark.

And that fourth estate isn’t crumbling quietly. It’s crumbling rather loudly. When a state controls the media, who controls the people temporarily holding power? That makes me nervous and sour — the way this spread of censorship is moving.

Fortunately, there are journalists who follow their ethos of reporting and critical commentary. They can afford to, because they’re independent. Every morning I used to search for and subscribe to such free and critical journalists — just to get at least some overview of the world I’d rather like to go on living in.

The collecting became work. So I stopped collecting — and started curating.

Now and today that’s much easier to manage, since I’ve automated the collecting: www.infacted.ca

That’s my personal list of independent journalists and media, to quench my thirst for fact-filled news.

So the fourth estate doesn’t go quiet.

Right then. Now we both know what I get up to after writing the morning splinter.