Gilbert Highet on Censorship, 1954

A collage of his words

4 min readNov 18, 2023

An erasure/collage of “External Hindrances,” Part Two, Chapter Three of Man’s Unconquerable Mind (Columbia University Press, 1954) by Gilbert Highet (1906–1978).

‘Man’s Unconquerable Mind’: External Hindrances

At first, I’m intrigued.

Cave man painting a running stag? Standards of good and evil? Transmuted into living flames? I’m in.

Image 1 of 3: Phrases of the paperback have been cut out with scissors and arranged on the red book cover. The full transcription is at the bottom of the article because it won’t fit here in the alt text. — Gilbert Highet’s book with phrases cut out — Tucker Lieberman

Then it gets a little weird.

The author is just very intense and specific about whatever he’s talking about.

Image 2 of 3: Phrases of the paperback have been cut out with scissors and arranged on the red book cover. The full transcription is at the bottom of the article because it won’t fit here in the alt text. — Gilbert Highet’s book with phrases cut out — Tucker Lieberman

Oh, the author is defending censorship.

No one will agree on exactly how to what to do about material that corrupts the youth, he says, but we can’t just continue allowing the free distribution of information about sex, violence, and drugs.

Image 3 of 3: Phrases of the paperback have been cut out with scissors and arranged on the red book cover. The full transcription is at the bottom of the article because it won’t fit here in the alt text. — Gilbert Highet’s book with phrases cut out — Tucker Lieberman

The Text from Highet in the Images…