Pentimento?

[altivo]

Painters sometimes change their mind about a feature in their work, and change it by painting over the top of it. Modern technology lets us see into the mind of the painter a little by using xray or other techniques to discover these hidden changes, which are called pentimenti.

Writers, of course, go through similar revision processes. Occasionally we get to see them when, as in the case of Tolkien or Joyce, their early manuscripts were preserved and later edited and published so that the evolution of a work can be actually traced.

In the relatively ephemeral environment of the LiveJournal, however, we don't often get to see these things. I just had a rare experience. Someone on my friends list posted a very rational and lucid item about US economics and politics and the way in which they interlink. During the time it took me to compose a comment, he apparently changed his mind and deleted his article (or set a privacy option that hid it from me, I suppose) so that when I hit post for my comment, I got an error message: "No such posting".

Now I know this is, at worst, a case of self-censorship. I hope he is only revising and will repost, because it was a good item. But we live in a time where government scrutiny of free speech is greatly increasing. I couldn't help thinking of Big Brother and worrying for a moment that another perceptive mind had been summarily silenced.

Comments

Couldn't agree with you more

[favouritewindow.livejournal.com]

It's said "2004", but it's spelled "1984". Of course, now that Grade 8/9s aren't reading 1984 anymore, they might have a hard time realizing this... Perhaps this new worldwide trend of censorship and governmental control will become the norm, if it isn't already...

Re: Couldn't agree with you more

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, I don't think anyone is noticing it here either. It's all covered by the smokescreen of the "war on terror." Your country, though, having only escaped this sort of thing in recent memory, ought to be more sensitive to it I would think.

[chibiabos.livejournal.com]

I've censored myself plenty of times. I can get a bit hot-headed when someone incites me and post something incredibly long, ranting and stupid versus when I've had time to ruminate (sp?) for awhile, then I'll post something incredibly long, ranting, and angsty in its place. I'm gradually learning to just shut up and let it go after awhile, which leads me to erase posts I make and put in something short and on a vastly different topic.