James Bond, Roald Dahl and the masters of taking offense

The Holy Inquisition, which was only in name, had no army, no police, no firepower, its only weapon was the pulpit. From there, the celebrant threw his anathemas on anyone who had dared to contradict in fact or in words the Apostolic and Roman Catholic Church.

When this happened, the subject in question was “banished from God”, the sentence had to be separated, cut off because a member is amputated, from the community of believers who, acting as a crowd, were responsible for leading the accused before the courts of the Inquisition and the dungeons where they were tormented until they accepted the faith or were fed at the stake. It was a question of censoring, closing down or drying up whoever questioned the praxis, the faith, the mysteries of God, the authority of the Church, in other words, to repress the crimes of opinion.

All tyrannical governments, and quite a few democracies with authoritarian traits, joined with more or less enthusiasm in this purifying practice, imposing it with varying degrees of violence. Western democracies, driven by the winds of neoliberalism, have become centrifugal and expel from them everything that is economically very costly, such as social expenditure now the responsibility of NGOs where charity is levied, or politically, such as censorship, now in the hands of enthusiastic groups who have mastered the art of take offense.

They are champions of “political correctness”, zealous defenders of so-called rights even before they are violated.

The risk of offending someone is always incurred when exercising freedom of opinion. If anything is said or posted that can be interpreted from a distance as offensive to sexual identity, beliefs, gender, or any group that someone, for whatever reason, considers vulnerable, this new crowd of people right-thinking people will rise up against him, her or her. cover him with the most abject insults to on the edge being blocked without consideration or even expelled from social networks which are the temples where good people, the righteous and the pure in heart gather today.

Umberto Eco he characterized them with his well-known certainty when he said, “Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak.”

What is serious is that many entities respond with concrete measures to the fear that a possible anathema of the Internet will inspire in them and offer, for example, to publish the adventures of james bondpure entertainment novels which do not present the slightest danger to the physical or moral integrity of anyone, or that of Roald Dahlto remove any potentially offensive charges.

It recalls the infamous decade, when the Church spoke out against tango lyrics, the censors of General Edelmiro Farrell’s dictatorship produced a manual to regulate radio expressions. So, under threat of fines and closures, and in defense of the purity of the language, The Ayacucho street book it was renamed my happy room; The surgeon became The Collector; Yira Yira it was called walk walk there what a cow of wine what are we going to do among countless other nonsense. Some tanguero have commented that Guardia Vieja street should be renamed Cuidado Mama.

At one time, in Brazil, there was also a movement of bureaucrats with the intention of preserving the rights of blacks. They wanted to impose that they be called “people of African descent”. Musician Edu Lobo challenged them to adapt the rhyme of the chorus of his song “Upa Neguinho” (black upa) for the most correct “upa little person of African descent”.

Examples of nonsense like these, there are thousands. Of the same ilk are the current censors who patrol the networks in search of reprobates, as dreaded as those of the Inquisition or the minions of tyranny. Censors are especially cruel to artists, but the real target is freedom, especially freedom of expression.

* Ernesto Mallo is an Argentinian writer who lives in Spain. He is the author of novels such as “El hilo de sangre” and “La ciudad de la furia”.

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