Censorship is dangerous and pointless, especially when applied to forms of art such as film, television, video games and other media. ‘Censorship’ is defined by premier online dictionary Wiktionary as “The use of state or group power to control freedom of expression, such as passing laws to prevent media from being published or propagated.” Some people see censorship as necessary to ‘protect’ viewers from being influenced by what is seen as negative content – in television and film media, this is most commonly violence and sexuality; this essay sets out to show that censorship is in itself very dangerous and essentially a bad thing. Censorship infringes on personal liberties, relies on morality being an objective concept, and is almost impossible for authorities to truly implement.

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)