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.
I've struggled enough in my life to be appreciated and understood. I've had to go against all kinds of people through the years just to be myself. I think everybody should be allowed to be who they are, and to love who they love. I don't think we should be judgmental. Lord, I've got enough problems of my own to pass judgment on somebody else.
This aggression will not stand
There's no pride in having been a child soldier.
If there is one thing I fear less than everything else, it is, I believe, persecution for my opinions. There are a good many points about which I may be diffident, but when it comes to questions of Truth and intellectual independence, there is no holding me - I can envisage no finer end than to sacrifice oneself for a conviction.
We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of a worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth - but neither shall we shrink from that risk any time it must be faced.
You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down.
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