In Defense of Censorship

If you’ve never heard of the Big Book of Mischief, thank a censor.

Photo by Kyle Cleveland on Unsplash.

Have you ever heard of the Big Book of Mischief? If you have, you’re one of the few. Most people haven’t.

Let’s try one a little more famous: How about the Anarchist’s Cookbook?

Whether you’ve heard of the latter or the former, or neither, you won’t be able to stroll into your local bookstore or public library to pick up a copy in any case; thankfully, no one else can either.

You can’t even order these particular books on Amazon, and they have everything.

It isn’t that the books don’t exist- they do. Both books have been banned, censored, de-platformed and demonetized into relative obscurity, thank goodness. But censorship being an imperfect tool, unwieldy and often unevenly applied, these books are still out there- somewhere.

Someone might be able to get their hands on one, or a portion, were they inclined to try- very hard. They shouldn’t try. Even as a purely academic pursuit, too much searching for either of the above might net a visit from the federal authorities.

Both books are bomb-making manuals; compendiums on arson, disrupting power grids and supply lines, poisoning municipal drinking water sources, infiltrating companies and government agencies to create chaos, mass…