In the ancient Roman Republic the office of ‘Censor’ was among one of their most prominent public positions. Much like the consulship – the preeminent position of the Republic – there were only two censors at any time, and their power was often only checked by their own compatriots and successors. The censor was responsible for the census, but when we hear the word ‘censor’ today we think of their other vital role – the maintenance of public morality. These Castigatores,  these ‘chastisers’,  had the right to keep the list of the citizens, and the ability to exclude the undesirables from it, whether they had committed any proven injustice or not.

In our democratic institutions today we retain an instinct that government censorship is undesirable – a restraint on our freedoms, an overstep of government power and an indication of tyranny. We rightly criticize it when we see foreign tyrants practice it, and yet it seems in our own society one must watch their words very carefully indeed. It’s rarely the iron fist of state power that comes down on one who speaks immorally in the west, but we would be naive to think we go uncensored. The office of censor is alive and well, but who holds it?

Among the right, and particularly the controversial ‘alt-right’, there is a popular term – the red pill. Those of you familiar with the Wachowski brothers’ The Matrix might be familiar with the reference, but I’ll elaborate. Our protagonist Neo is approached by a mysterious man, Morpheus, who informs him that his mundane, rather depressing life is in fact an illusion – he is offered two choices, a blue pill and a red pill. “You take the blue pill,” Morpheus tells Neo, “the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” Becoming ‘redpilled’ is a claim that one has escaped an illusion, seen beyond something contrived, bypassed a charade. To the alt-right, embracing this movement is a political awakening and a rejection of a lifetime of perceived lies – from the government, from the ‘fake news’, from their culture, and even from their friends and family. Whatever you think of the alt-right and their alleged enlightenment, bear with me.

Some people reading this may have seen the words ‘red pill’ or ‘alt-right’ and, exasperated, stopped reading. Worse, imagine if instead of naming the ‘controversial alt-right’ I had called them ‘much-maligned’, or even dared to praise them? Would such a statement turn you off? Would you decide you didn’t want to hear more? What if you heard something else you didn’t want to hear, something that would upset you, outrage you, or worst of all, change your mind? I feel compelled to say ‘I don’t support that!’, to protect myself. Well, there is a blue pill just waiting for you, all you need to do is look away, and go back to what agrees with your temper. Or perhaps…

Ave, Censor! The morality of society is safer in our hands – the people, the ‘mob’ as the patricians of old might have said. It’s up to us, not the state, and all the better for it – we’ll teach the vile, the evil, the no-good, whether they’re powerful or not. We can’t let these misleading morals malinger, can we? After all, some things are unacceptable. We know a Nazi when we see one, and some of us can even name a few. We have our morals, well-earned through a lifetime of careful reflection, immense and challenging thought, endless reading and research and cautious balancing of opinions… After all, you could define ‘ethics’ for me without a quick google search, couldn’t you?

If you tried I admire the effort. If you’ve read a book on the topic you’re well ahead of most, and if you remember a word of it, even better. To actually understand our morals is not a thing most people give much thought, even if we think we know injustice when we see it. If we’re lucky someone puts it in a nice concise list for us, someone like Moses, Marx, or Thomas Jefferson. But our morals are more often immediate and emotional, outrage comes easily when we see what we perceive as evil and wrong, even if we can’t explain it. That fucker Jefferson owned slaves, that’s no good! What are we going to do with this stupid list now? No matter. We have tools at our disposal now to bare injustice in its myriad forms and shine a light upon it – smartphones, the internet, a selection of sources so vast that you could find any injustice you could possibly imagine, and oh, the indignation. Oh the wrongs we can right together, Censor! Knowledge of every secret evil harboured in the hearts of our enemies, it’s at the tip of your fingers, you need only point to it – that is, if it isn’t delivered straight to you. And then a few choice words to them or their supporters, perhaps to the moderators of the platforms they post on, perhaps to their boss. Perhaps a broadcast to society at large, a public condemnation, a call for exile! And isn’t it so easy? And doesn’t it feel so good? It serves them right, doesn’t it? The world is watching, and now the world is a better place. Another evil has been exposed and excised, Censor, and we have you to thank. Who would be stupid enough to stand up for a slaver?

Let’s get back to Neo and Morpheus. The Matrix is a retelling of a far older philosophical argument – if you haven’t heard of Neo and Morpheus maybe you’ve at least heard of Plato and Socrates? I hope you’ve at least given them a try, Castigatore, before you wrote that email to the boss of your vicious moral rival. If not, who can blame you – we’re all busy, who has the time for some crusty old Greeks when we have the wisdom of modern man to replace them? We have peer reviewed studies! We have science! But I digress, Plato’s Matrix was also a simulated reality, but this one was in a cave. Socrates, Plato’s mentor and the lead character of his dialogue Republic, proposed a scene where a group of men are chained to a wall inside that cave their whole lives, exposed to shadows projected from a fire behind them. To them this was the world, they gave these shadows names and that was their reality. But these shadows were not the real world, merely an obscure aspect of it. What if I told you that your emotional outrage, your gut reaction, your quick and dirty definition of ethics, were also shadows on a wall? 

And what casts the shadows that drive your thumbs to crush your vile enemies, Censor? I won’t be so presumptuous as to give you an easy answer – I could say ‘the media’ and I probably wouldn’t be wrong, but what about your dad? Your best friend? That thing you read on Twitter yesterday? Hell, maybe it was our new friend Socrates, he had a few zingers – pity he was sentenced to death for corrupting public morality. How many times lately have you read the citations of that article you were reading? Maybe you’re just starting to notice your favorite news site only cites its own articles? Oh, or maybe it didn’t have any citations! Just trust them, I’m sure they did their due diligence, they’re professionals. Did you understand that peer reviewed paper? Of course you read them, don’t you Censor? Perhaps at least the abstract… Or are you counting on the journalists to understand that for you too? Does that academic journal’s name ring a bell to you, and who are those ‘peers’ who reviewed it, anyway? Is the fire warming your back yet, Censor?
I don’t mean to cast doubt on your moral authority, I’m just a shadow on the wall. You’ve got truth and justice at your disposal, and your certainty is unwavering! So go on, the world is watching – but tread lightly dear Censor, because after all, the world is watching.

Works Referenced:

Plato, and Allan David Bloom. The Republic of Plato. 2nd ed. S.l.: Basic Books, 1991. – Associate Link

Andy & Lana Wachowski – The Matrix