We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too seldom, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life; we’ve added years to life, not life to years.

We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We’ve conquered outer space, but not inner space; we’ve done larger things, but not better things.

We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we’ve split the atom, but not our prejudice.

We write more, but learn less; we plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait; we have higher incomes, but lower morals; we have more food, but less appeasement; we build more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; we’ve become long on quantity, but short on quality.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men, and short character; steep profits, and shallow relationships. These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure, but less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition.

These are days of two incomes, but more divorce; of fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throw away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer to quiet to kill.

It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stockroom; a time when technology has brought this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to make a difference, or to just hit ‘Skip Ahead’…”

- Dr. Bob Moorehead

Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they’ve begun to question, ‘Is this real, or is this just a ride?’, and other people have remembered, and they’ve come back to us and they say ‘Hey, don’t worry. Don’t be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride.’ and we KILL THOSE PEOPLE.

“Shut him up! We have alot invested in this ride! SHUT HIM UP! Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real.”

It’s just a ride.

But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that. You ever noticed that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn’t matter, because … It’s just a ride.

And we can change it anytime we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear wants you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead see all of us as one.

Here’s what we can do to change the world right now, to a better ride:

Take all that money we spend on weapons and defense each year and instead spend it feeding, clothing, and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and WE CAN EXPLORE SPACE, TOGETHER, BOTH INNER AND OUTER, forever… in peace.”

- William Melvin “Bill” Hicks.

Essentially, the question of whether to censor art is a human rights and civil liberties issue. We live in a society where freedom of speech and therefore freedom of expression through the arts is an essential right; the entire concept of a free and democratic world depends on the ability of any person to voice their opinion on any topic without fear of being silenced by the authorities. Censorship is exactly what this freedom gives us liberty from.  Esteemed French intellectual François-Marie Voltaire was one of many who understood the danger of censorship and the importance of free speech; “We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.”[1]

Throughout history, censorship has been used by leaders to assert power and dominance over their people, and to silent dissent. One such example of this was Adolph Hitler’s movement to censor art in Nazi Germany. Any art which was radical, unconventional or less than worshipful of the Nazi regime was destroyed, and often the creators of this art were imprisoned or killed. Stalin’s communist government in Russia went so far as to ‘purge’ (execute on mass) artists and authors as they were seen as dangerous enemies of the state.

If censorship is to be implemented properly by a government, set-in-stone regulations must be created to state where ‘the line’ is when it comes to what media content may be censored and what is ‘acceptable’; it is impossible to give exact boundaries of what is morally acceptable in a society. What was an extreme taboo 50 years ago is considered ‘ok’ and normal now, and often the inverse is the case too. Most reasonable people would not be offended by the modern sitcom, Sex and the City, which follows the lives of a group of single, independent women, who often seek out casual sexual encounters with men who are essentially strangers. If an episode was to be shown to a pre-sexual-revolution audience (for example, in the 1950s), many people would be shocked and utterly disgusted. From another viewpoint, racist humour was common in the early days of television, and even children’s cartoons used derogatory jokes which would be considered very offensive in the modern era.  This shows that over time, society’s morals have changed and that morality itself is a subjective concept which can be changed over time or due to context, not an objective constant which can be used to regulate decency.

With the advent of modern technology, such as the internet, government regulation and censorship of the media is close to impossible. Also, the banning of film, literature and other art forms only serves to add a ‘forbidden fruit’ desirability for media consumers. One example of this can be seen through the recent banning of the film Ken Park within Australia. On the internet file-sharing network ‘BitTorrent’, one can see that there are at least 31 users hosting Ken Park publicly for others to download[2], and that a large portion of those users are in fact from inside Australia. Another problem inherent with censorship of the media is that if we place all trust and moderation in the hands of the authorities, we will not be able to self-censor and moderate our behaviour in real life. As Henry Steele Commanger wrote, “The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.”

After logically analysing the points against censorship, one can only come to the conclusion that it is an out-dated concept manipulated by various dictatorial governments to control their people and to silence dissent. Censorship is dangerous, limits free speech, assumes that society has a never-changing interpretation of right and wrong, and assumes that once implemented will be adhered to by the media-consuming masses; when it comes down to the crunch, censorship is pointless. Ask yourself a question. Do you really think that it’s worth protecting us from the so-called “danger” of art, “saving” us from our own discretion, and “freeing” us from our own liberties, after weighing out the negative result of limiting expression? Decide for yourself, form an opinion, and voice it – as long as you’re still allowed to do so.

References:

[1] Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1764.

[2] Source: http://isohunt.com/torrents/?ihq=ken+park

- Jamie Phelan (JamieP)

Welcome to #Debates new blog. The blog will allow users who wish to write interesting articles on any subject do so and share them with others. It can be about anything, gripes about politics, thoughts on religion, musings about philosophy, or simple real life observations you think others may enjoy.

We’ll keep the registration open for a couple of days until the trolls find it so as to make it as easy as possible for our members to sign up easily, and then go back to moderated registration as nessecary.

Please remember to keep it relatively clean, devoid of pornographic material. We want the content to be thought provoking and challenging, but we do not want it to be crude and obscene.

Have fun everyone.

Mabus