Self-study
Historian: Support Political regimes that routinely censor various forms of expression on the grounds that they undermine public morality inevitably attempt to expand the categories of proscribed expression to include criticisms that these regimes perceive to threaten their power. ████████████ ████ ████████████ ███████ ████████ ██ ███████████ ██ ████████████ █████ ████████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████ ████████████ ██████ ██████ ██████████
Summary
Many totalitarian regimes take writings that could reduce public passivity and label them as blasphemous or pornographic. Why do they do this? Because regimes that regularly censor forms of expression for moral reasons always end up proscribing (forbidding) criticisms that they see as threats to their power.
Notable Assumptions
The historian relies on several key assumptions:
There are totalitarian regimes that routinely censor various forms of expression on moral grounds. (If they never never did this, then nothing in the argument’s premise would apply to totalitarian regimes.)
A reduction in public passivity can be perceived by totalitarian regimes as a threat to their power. (Otherwise, why would they take issue with things that reduce public passivity?)
Classifying something as blaspehmous or pornographic is a way of proscribing something. (If these didn’t count as “proscribing,” then there’s no support for why a regime would classify something this way.)
13.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ███ ███████████ █████████ ████████
a
Unless a piece ██ ███████ █████████ █████████ ████ ██ ██████ █████████ ██ ██ ████████ ██ ██ ████ ████████
Irrelevant. The argument is about how certain writings are treated when they could hypothetically be widely influential. Being believed or being popular is different from being influential. Even if (A) were on topic, there’s no need to assume what’s likely sufficient or necessary for being influential in order to reach a conclusion about how hypothetically influential writings are treated.
b
Not all political ███████ ████ █████████ ██████ █████ ██ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ████ █████ ██████ ████████ ███ ████████████ ████████
If anything, (B) runs slightly counter to the argument. The historian must assume that at least some regimes that censor on moral grounds are, in fact, totalitarian regimes. Otherwise, his premise about regimes that censor would tell us nothing about totalitarian regimes.
c
A totalitarian regime ███ ████████ ████ ██ ██████ █████████ ██ █ ██████ ██ ███ ██████
The support is that regimes will forbid things they perceive as a threat to their power, while the conclusion is that totalitarian regimes will forbid things that reduce public passivity. So the historian must assume that if a thing reduces public passivity, totalitarian regimes at least sometimes perceive it as a threat to its power.
d
Widespread public passivity ██ ███████ ██████ ███ █ ██████ ██ ██████ █████████ ██████
The argument is about how regimes respond to perceived threats to their power. Actual requirements for power and threats to that power are irrelevant. What matters is whether a regime percieves public passivity as important to its power.
e
Most writings that ████████████ ███████ █████ ███████████ ██ ████████████ ██████ ██ ██████ ████████████ ██████ ██████ ██████████
This independently supports the conclusion, but it’s not an assumption. The concepts here—writings, things labeled blasphemous/pornographic, and things that reduce public passivity—only appear in the conclusion. (E) has nothing to do with the relationship between support and conclusion, so it isn’t an assumption.