The history of censorship extends long before the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, extending well into antiquity. However, as we've been discussing in class, the emergence of the printing system revolutionized the entire paradigm of communication. This combined with the outpouring of protestant and often seditious ideas by revolutionaries like Voltaire, Diderot, Tyndale, John Locke, etc. created the most controversial censoring laws before 1700.
These seditious thoughts were collectively known as the "Scandalum Magnatum", or simply, defamation of someone with dignity. Such protestant propaganda became major threats to the control of the State and Church powers. Many books were only available in Latin, and the common people only knew English. The Church and State had complete control over the public---as long as they could keep them ignorant. Jonathan I. Israel, author of Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and theEmancipation of Man 1670-1752, states, regarding the control of Church and State:
“Individuals have no right to decide the most fundamental matters of belief for themselves; and that what is proper to believe should be enforced and what is incompatible therewith suppressed”
Authorities operated under the belief that: “To sow discord in society---to set one member against another or any member against the head---was thus not merely a crime but an offence against God”. Thus, censorship became a necessity of the State and Church to remain in power.
There was thus created several statutes seeking to punish seditious writers as well as those who read the propaganda. The Stationers Company in Tudor England even went as fas as to search and destroy all printing presses that produced Scandalum Magnatum.
Does anybody else see a problem here?
This censorship was a means to control the general public. Throughout the course of our discussions in class about the reinvention of knowledge, we have come across the theme of the control of knowledge time and time again.
Why does it keeping coming up again and again?
Does this control ever actually advance the reinvention of knowledge?
In what ways is our knowledge being controlled today?
Having control of knowledge is something that's very powerful and I believe that's why many seek to have control over it. Even simply having control over our studies and our processes of study makes us powerful. Knowledge can produce so many unimaginable things and I believe that scares people. It scares me... Censorship or the printing press were ways for people to control or maintain that knowledge. They were in charge of the knowledge that people had access to and therefore had control of many of the outcomes that people had the ability to create. Our knowledge is being controlled today through the media. I believe many rely on it too much and aren't willing to experience things on their own. While internet and other forms of media are very valuable forms of knowledge, I also believe that they have the ability to control those who rely soley on it as their only source of knowledge. If that makes any sense...
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