with Salman Rushdie when he said at an interview that 'self-censorship is a lie to yourself,' and that 'self-censorship is the death of art.'
To me that is an incredibly strange thing to say, especially coming from someone who considers himself educated...
Imagine what would happen if all of us just said and did what we felt, with no self-censorship? Where then would be the grace in conversation? Where ethics? Where 'The Golden Rule'? Dickens, Thackeray, Twain, Austen, Hardy, and all the authors we've grown up on didn't offend anyone with their writing, with their literature. Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Picasso, Van Gogh, didn't offend with their art. They too portrayed life as it was in the times...as they felt...the pictures they painted were very realistic and quite painful at times - how is it that what they said or painted never caused offence? never caused violent reactions? never divided society?
In a society that is increasingly becoming a kind of free-for-all, the only thing that would keep some kind of sanity is self-censorship...
By all means say what you think and feel, but to those in your inner circle - the very fact that you have to defend your stand, or writing, or painting so much, so loudly and from so many forums, means that something is not quite right somewhere.
And, well, if he did not believe in self-censorship, then he should applaud that not having him over was because others too did not believe in self-censorship - they too said what they believed...