censcorship - A Serbian Film

snuff is for sick fucks. end of.

i hate this stupid broad definition of libertarianism that 'opposes all censorship'.

libertarian communism is about a democratically self-governed anti-statist worker's movement fighting for collective gains and the abolition of capitalism.

fuck all this crap about stopping censorship of 'artistically shocking films', leave it to the lifestylists.

Yeah, that's true, but the point is not about regulating how 'individuals' respond in their leisure time to the products of capitalism, it's about reshaping the productive forces of society. Right? I mean, we've no interest in the thought police making sure we are enjoying ourselves in the correct manner. But we do want a world which is shaped by the cooperation of people to do what is meaningful to them. The point about censorship is not that it is right or wrong, but that it is a feature of capitalist management. I don't think I'm telling you anything you don't know, but also I think it's important to point out the features of the critical communist position in addition to telling people they are not taking it.

Mechanisms for censorship (board of censorship, the censors themselves, rules on what's acceptable and what isn't) constitutes a few having power of the many. Stinks of a non-anarchistic institution for me. And I wouldn't want to live in a society where somebody else can decide what I can or cannot watch or create. For reference, A Serbian Film is not real snuff, it's just make-believe. On the other hand, how about the Collateral Damage video? Should that be censored too?

Just watched this last week. Was pretty dull, I fell asleep.

That's obviously not snuff because the intention is not to titillate and the people killed were not killed in order to make a great video. There have, on the other hand, been cases where people committed murder with the intention of filming and distributing it.

I don't think there should be a board of people in charge of censoring things, but I would have no problem with hackers destroying sites that distribute snuff (I might do it myself if I had the skills) or if this was back in the days of video smashing up cassettes of people actually being murdered. In the same way, I don't think that during a revolution there should be some anarchist panel in charge of censoring bourgeois ideas, but I have no problem with anarchist militants destroying broadcasting stations of bourgeois media or tearing down anti-anarchist posters.

Okay, how about the videos of POWs being executed which were shot for propaganda reasons?

Sure, but who says what's bourgeois or not?

Who exactly is supporting snuff? Because I don't think anyone is.

I want to live in a society where people can control what I can create. Any creative activity that demands the activity of other people I want to be conditional on the free participation of those people. I don't want to live in a society where I can decide to make a thing that requires the labour of others (such as basically any film) without those people thinking it's a good idea and having a say in how it's done. I could make a film regardless of what anyone else thought now if I was very rich, but under communism I hope I couldn't.

RedEd I agree with you. And if under communism somebody found a bunch of other people who wanted to make A Serbian Film then they should do it. Perhaps nobody would watch, perhaps it'd be a total failure, but I wouldn't want to have a censorship body who would tell them to stop before it began.