Word of the Week Archive
by Kerry Maxwell, author of Brave New Words, with recordings by speechinaction
‘The rapidly increasing popularity of the Internet, which can be used to transmit all kinds of information, including “indecent” digitized images and words, may spawn a new age of Comstockery.’
(In R. Corn-Revere, ‘New-Age Comstockery: Exon vs. the Internet’. Cato Policy Analysis 232, June 1995)
Comstockery describes
an unfair, self-righteous form of censorship, and has led to the
destruction of vast quantities of literature and photos perceived to
be immoral. Such classic works as James Joyce’s Ulysses and
literary giants such as Tolstoy and Balzac have been subjected to
this form of censorship.
Background
The term Comstockery derives from one Anthony Comstock (1844–1915). In 1873 Comstock
became secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of
Vice. In the same year he went to Washington to lobby for stronger
laws on obscenity, carrying a huge cloth bag full of publications
and information on contraception and abortion. He was subsequently
empowered to enforce a new law, the Comstock law, which
prohibited publications ‘of an indecent character’ and the
mailing of ‘any article … intended for the prevention of
conception or the procuring of abortion’. The law enabled him to
go to any post office and inspect mail he suspected might be
obscene, and in his lifetime he oversaw the destruction of 160 tons
of literature he considered immoral.
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This article was first published on 10th February 2003.
Subject archive: business - publishing