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About this quote

What does it mean?
Goldman suggests that public campaigns against indecency are used to distract attention from major social injustices.
In plain terms
Decency crusades distract from bigger social wrongs.
What can you take from it?
Watch for distractions from real social issues.

Where it applies

  • media analysis
  • political strategy
  • activism

Putting it to work

  • identify diversion tactics
  • focus on systemic issues

Questions to consider

  • What issues distract you from bigger problems?
  • Who benefits from moral panics?

Another view

Sometimes decency campaigns address real harms.

More from Emma Goldman

  1. It is safe to say that no other superstition is so detrimental to growth, so enervating and paralyzing to the minds and hearts of the people, as the superstiti…

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  2. Jealousy is indeed a poor medium to secure love, but it is a secure medium to destroy one's self-respect. For jealous people, like dope-fiends, stoop to the lo…

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  3. It is organized violence on top which creates individual violence at the bottom. It is the accumulated indignation against organized wrong, organized crime, or…

    Permalink to quote #64

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