We live in a frightened time, and people self-censor all the time and are afraid of going into some subjects because they are worried about violent reactions.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the fear people feel in discussing certain topics due to potential backlash.
Salman Rushdie's quote emphasizes the current societal climate where fear of violent reactions leads to self-censorship. It suggests that individuals often avoid discussing controversial or sensitive subjects, thus stifling open dialogue and critical discourse, which are essential for healthy discourse in a democratic society. This fear can be detrimental, as it prevents the exploration of important issues that need to be addressed.
In practice
In a speech on freedom of expression, I would quote Rushdie to highlight the dangers of self-censorship in today's society.
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
They're gonna keep knocking away until all this comes crashing down. But I'm not gonna ever crash. I'm in control.
Some people are so worn down by the yoke of oppression that they give up.
On a very long and very high wire, I will not hope to not be blown off by high winds. I will have the certitude that such could not happen.
[talking about the race at Imola circuit] There are no small accidents on this circuit.
There are six million female lives lost in the world every year simply because they are female.
Courage is required not only in a person's occasional crucial decision for his own freedom, but in the little hour-to-hour decisions which place the bricks in the structure of his building of himself into a person who acts with freedom and responsibility.
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