Margaret Atwood vs Virginia

Here, I would point out that attempts to control media content are as likely to come from the so-called left as from the so-called right, each side claiming to act in the name of the public good. Stalin’s U.S.S.R. and Mao’s China went in for a mind-boggling level of censorship, but it was all for “the people,” and who could be against that? Or against the protection of the innocent? Sometimes, these things get started out of a genuine need and concern, but a takeover by some bureaucratic version of the Inquisition is very likely to follow. Most of us are more easily manipulated by our desire to do good, or to be seen to do good, than by the temptation to do evil, at least in public view. Hence “virtue signaling.”