“Not fit to print”
For speaking its mind, a Toronto newspaper had its office trashed and press destroyed — by law students. This was in 1826. Debates on what speech is out of bounds and how to keep it out of bounds are not new. It is only recently that reasoned debate began to be seen as good and helpful. “BDS has no place in student government” and “Queen’s Alive has no place on campus” continue this debate on what speech should be limited and how to go about that limiting.
What is lost in these pieces are the new limits on speech that already exist — and that we unconsciously partake in. Think about it, which governments get the epithet “regime”? To refer to the “Putin regime”? Uncontroversial. The “Bush regime”? Much less so. Think about which stories get covered. Back in the 1830s we had a number of local papers. The one that’s survived,
The Whig, was run by a local. Now The Whig-Standard is part of a large chain and stripped — for budgetary reasons — of much local reporting. I see the same debates over acceptable limits of public discourse from 175 years ago, but limits go beyond determining what is “damaging” (Curlew) or “intolerant and divisive” (Streisfield) there are broader assumptions we hold that limit the public sphere too.
Thanks,
Stephen
Stephen Smith MA’11 is a Teaching Fellow and 5th year PhD Candidate
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