the only qualitative difference I find is the directness with which this operates when it comes to political communities. With sports or religion it feels more easily Co opted by capitalism, because it's almost a metaphorical type of spectacle.. whereas rebellious political activity isn't sublimated through movies or TV but simply through actually 'engaging' in political activity. Moreover, I feel like it requires certain misunderstandings about the nature of power for it to work. Rebellious political speech is only felt to be rebellious if there is a certain belief in power's desire to repress it(?).

sorry, most of this was in reference to concepts in foucault's the History of sexuality. If you've ever read foucault, his view of power is much more expansive than simple government control. Control, and power in general can be said to be exercised by any institution, the university, prison, capitalism in general, discourse, etc.

Not a waste of time, if anything it helps me to realize I'm being vague.

power is not involved ?

I'm suggesting that the thirst for subversion has been entirely absorbed within a system that cares very little about the content of the subversive beliefs , so long as the liberal value of open dialogue and discussion (this is a liberal idea AGAINST repressive, aristocratic power) continues to dominate our political imagination, we will continue to seek political desire in speaking subversively online, which does next to nothing.

hence the second half of the quote, asking for what reason one might believe that their views are repressed or censored. I don't think you have to look very far to see this sort of view in action, it rallied many people to vote for Donald Trump, for example (leftist universities censoring right wing views = larger societal problem of right wing censorship). My point is that this belief seems widespread especially on social media, and it may be the case that social media has the effect of making this sort of political belief (1) profitable and (2) desirable for those who take part. Foucault talks of the speakers benefit in the history of sexuality, he says that it is desirable for one to believe that sexuality is repressed because then speaking on it is subversive and somehow "anticipates the coming freedom". This speakers benefit, when paired with the repressive hypothesis (I.e that power seeks to repress subversive views, lifestyles etc.) creates a constant cycle of speaking about things that are apparently too radical to be spoken of. Hence you can be a communist online, or a fascist, and power doesn't really care. You're just giving them more information on you, and you're trapped in a cycle of believing speech to be subversive, which generates a multiplicity of political communities online that somehow satisfy political desire enough for no one to take it offline. It also profits social media companies and makes political marketing and manipulation somewhat easier.

right, so then is there an exercise of control that generates compliance by virtue of something like the opposite of censorship, an incitement to speak? A "divide and conquer" type strategy that focuses less on propaganda and censorship and more so focused on an endless "incitement to discourse". I am thinking here of social media politics and the 'dissenting' political communities it generates that have virtually no effect on the material conditions of society. All the while maximizing profits for social media conglomerates and crushing real political dissent in favor of a simulated (?) dissent.

But "democratic" countries, like the United States, rely on propaganda spread by the media in a constant torrent with the aim of keeping everyone agitated and so easy to persuade.

But also an explosive multiplicity of different 'radicalized' political groups, who have developed beliefs and established communities online, yet achieve very little in reality offline. It relies not only on media companies but on the interaction between people and the medium (internet communication) itself. Power relies a lot less on controlling the "messages" as much as they are focused on controlling the medium (?). At least in the case of internet politics.

yes, I think I wrongly posed the question. I have a hard time posing the question. It's something more like: is there an observable belief that political views are censored, and if so, is this belief true? What other purposes might this belief serve? I think that this belief does exist on both the right and left especially in online contexts, despite their ability to speak rather uninhibited online. My reply to ssu explains how I think this belief might benefit power.

There are some egregious examples of censorship, like the concerted effort to ban the American president from online discourse, but for the most part social media companies want us on their apps

I think they're being cool about it. It'd be crazy to suggest there are no issues of censorship on social media and in Politics in general in the US.

my point might be that this discourse on misinformation helps to radicalize political communities and to compel them to speak, which benefits power in so far as it had a handle on both repressive and non repressive power.

"the medium is the message" or something like that

I wonder how our form of communication effects our political beliefs and horizons.

hey, thanks for the response. I wrote a rather long response to ssu that has some of my thoughts on the question of censorship.

I can see what you mean, "representative democracy" is hardly representative and political and capital interests end up limiting political options. And I by no means want to imply that authoritarianism is gone from the world, but that there exist other, more open forms of control, especially in western liberal democracies.

I agree. I wrote a response to ssu that focuses on non repressive power, however I wonder how much real, repressive power works in tandem with non repressive power to form control in both arenas. If we are suppressed, we take to social media to speak. We are, relatively, allowed to speak subversively, and that benefits social media companies becquse engagement and other forms of power because we are relegated to speech and inaction. However, power may be getting greedy here, the proliferation of speech and repression may be too much to control.

Hi ssu,

Thanks for the response.

Outright censorship as a government action is quite rare especially in democracies. Hence as a tool of power it is quite rare.

I agree, one of the fundamental problems liberal democracy sought to solve was tyrannical, repressive power. The "open society" in which "debate and deliberation" are tools for political change, more freedom, etc. Is one that has to operate on a different logic than a traditional authoritarian one.
This is where an interesting contradiction seems to appear, to me, in contemporary political discourse, especially online, on both the left and right. I think we haven't quite shaken this liberal view of power as repressive.

Foucault writes on sexual liberation movements that a peculiar contradiction appeared. On the one hand, there was a proliferation of discourses surrounding 'subversive' sexualities. On the other hand, there was a widespread belief that power sought to repress sexual liberation, and that the mere act of speaking about or acting in accordance with these sexualities constituted a revolutionary act (this was a big part of 60s new left movements, readings of freud in service of sexual AND political liberation, see Marcuse or Reich). Foucault, with the benefit of hindsight, suggests that these movements misinterpreted the nature of power in our liberal capitalist societies. Power benefited from the discursive explosion because not only could it study, understand, categorize and market these subversive beliefs the more they were spoken about, but also because, in so far as people believed their ideas repressed, they always were satisfied with being subversive through speech and rather unorganized, symbolic political action.

What I find interesting about this picture is that it is an analysis of a rather open interaction between power and revolutionary potential that managed to absorb what was seen as subversive into the system, instead of suppressing it - by virtue of speech. Is this not the way power interacts with so called radicalized political communities, especially online? Social media companies make money from speech, not silence. Further, more interaction happens between many diverse and opposing political communities, as well as within them. The repressive hypothesis appears to me to be a part of these beliefs. For the right, there is a certain melancholy about the prospect of their ideas running the world, it is agreed upon by them that government is run by 'leftists' who suppress right wing speech. On the left, the repressive hypothesis manifests in different ways. The left believes the right runs the world, and that leftist ideas are subversive by virtue of their anti capitalism. This belief helps develop communities who engage with each other and with themselves heavily, who engage primarily through speech and ideas online because it is seen as satisfying political desire for a decisively alienated political era. For power, repression and consumption go hand in hand, the more we believe we are repressed, the more we speak and consume these so called subversive ideas.

But also this isn't to say political repression doesn't exist. These two can work together to form even more expansive forms of control.