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.
It is not these well-fed long-haired men that I fear, but the pale and the hungry-looking.
In swimming, especially training out in the ocean and open water, you got fogged-over goggles, you're stuck with your own thoughts - there's great benefits to that, deep thinking like that after many hours, but there's also tremendous loneliness. You burn out. You want to run, jump, ski, do anything. So at age 30, I was finished.
At some point, you just pull off the Band-Aid, and it hurts, but then it's over and you're relieved.
I am not happy that I am sick. I am not happy that I have AIDS. But if that is helping others, I can at least know that my own misfortune has had some positive worth.
And I quoted from Nietzsche: That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.
I know in war good people can feel obliged for good reasons to do things they would normally object to and recoil from.
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