Nothing Good Comes from a State Controlling Thought

The other day, I heard an interesting point in a history video.

It said that the academic study of history in prewar Japan carries a kind of “original sin.”

History is supposed to investigate what happened in the past. During wartime Japan, however, it became a tool for justifying nationalism and an emperor-centered version of history.

The conclusion was decided first, and researchers searched for evidence that supported it.

That is not research. It is checking your work against an answer key.

And if your answer was wrong, you were in trouble.

Did Einstein Think About Nothing?

The video introduced an amusing entry from a scholar’s diary.

When Einstein visited Japan, a scholar involved in one of his lectures reportedly wrote that Einstein had merely proved equations and had not thought about anything.

I have not checked the original context, but the video explained that the scholar meant Einstein lacked grand ideas about the state and society.

But Einstein was a physicist.

What is wrong with a physicist thinking about equations?

Apparently, once nationalism takes hold, even scientists are expected to explain what they have thought about for the sake of the nation.

Perhaps even the theory of relativity was supposed to demonstrate patriotism.

Why Modern Chinese Culture Does Not Spread More Widely

This reminded me of another video I once watched about a debate between Chinese people.

China has a long history and a rich culture. So why do its modern cultural works not have greater influence around the world?

One reason raised in the discussion was state censorship.

Films, television dramas, and novels must avoid politically dangerous subjects. Even depictions of history require caution.

China has many excellent creators, and some Chinese works have achieved global success.

But when the state keeps saying, “You cannot do this” and “You cannot do that,” the range of possible work inevitably narrows.

It is the same structure seen in prewar Japan.

When the state decides the correct answer, scholarship becomes an exercise in matching it, and art becomes an exercise in pleasing the censor.

There is no way work produced under those conditions will be interesting.

The State Even Wants to Control Nudity

When it comes to freedom of expression, Japan also has an interesting history.

I am talking about obscenity laws.

The removal of the ban on showing pubic hair in nude photography once caused a major controversy. Courts and lawmakers seriously debated exactly how much of the human body people should be allowed to show.

When you think about it, that is rather strange.

The state was deciding how much of their naked bodies citizens could reveal.

Politics and diplomacy are difficult enough. Did the government really need to manage that too?

Even when the issue was simply what adults wanted to see, the authorities stepped in and said, “You must not look at that.”

Why does the state always want to interfere so much in other people’s lives?

The Internet: A Persistent Nuisance

Then the internet changed the situation.

A publication may be banned domestically, yet still exist on an overseas website. Information flows across borders.

China went so far as to build the Great Firewall, a vast system of internet censorship.

Even so, some people use VPNs and other tools to bypass the restrictions.

Censorship remains powerful, of course. But the days when banning a book settled the matter are gone.

Overseas servers, encrypted communications, and VPNs keep those enforcing the bans very busy.

Block one route, and another appears.

To prevent citizens from seeing anything they are not supposed to see, the state is desperately studying the internet.

It looks like a remarkably grand waste of resources.

Does the State Trust Its Citizens So Little?

Prewar Japan imposed state ideology on scholars.

Modern China censors culture and information.

Japan, too, has used law to decide what adults may see.

At the root of all this may be the belief that citizens left alone will think the wrong things.

So the state teaches the correct ideas, selects the correct culture, and decides what people must not see.

But if people lose even the freedom to think something wrong, both scholarship and culture become dull.

If a work is worthless, do not watch it. If an argument is wrong, challenge it.

The state does not need to decide the correct answer every time.

The assumption that the state is intelligent enough to do so is questionable in the first place.

Before monitoring citizens to ensure they never hold the wrong ideas, I would rather someone monitor politicians to ensure they never create the wrong policies.

That would be far more useful to the public.