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Comment by eikenberry

4 months ago

> [..] as the highs of repressive christian moralism in the mid 20th C.

What makes you pick the mid-20th century as the high point of repressive christian moralism? That doesn't seem even close to the high point if you look back further in history.

I was specifically thinking of the censorship of mass media which took place in the west from the 20s-90s, which enforced a "family values" kind of christian moralism. Prior to the 20s, mass media wasn't particularly censored (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Code_Hollywood):

USA : * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hays_Code * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commiss...

UK : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Chamberlain

> From 1737 to 1968, the Lord Chamberlain had the power to decide which plays would be granted a licence for performance; this meant that he had the capacity to censor theatre at his pleasure.

UK : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_nasty

> To assist local authorities in identifying obscene films, the Director of Public Prosecutions released a list of 72 films the office believed to violate the Obscene Publications Act 1959.

I'm supposing they mean

as the highs of (repressive christian moralism in the mid 20th C.)

and not

as the highs of (repressive christian moralism) in the mid 20th C.

It's a cheapshot at Christianity. That's all it is.

  • You're right. He should have mentioned the Victorian era (1837–1901) as a clear precedent of repressive moralism. Though there are still echoes of it today, where Christians want to ban any sort of criticism of their morality.