ABSTRACT
Considering censorship as part of a culture of surveillance of free speech, the article intends to demonstrate that besides being an effective instrument of violation when it comes to defending moral values and good manners, censorship consists of a political instrument of legitimacy before certain sectors of civil society, an endorsement on the part of the State to what is considered relevant to the values of the Christian family. The discussion will be based on the analysis of the social and cultural conditions that contributed to the development of the process of political structuring and institutionalization of censorship of publications considered offensive to moral values and good manners during the Brazilian military dictatorship. The purpose of this article is to contribute to the study of power strategies and social behaviors in the face of authoritarianism, in order to understand the social bases of authoritarian power.
Keywords:
censorship; legitimacy; moral values; good manners