Censorship

We had an interesting discussion about censorship around our breakfast table. Those who feel that censorship is a bad thing always amaze me. What I dislike is the superior intellectual attitude that they often adopt. I think they need to think a few things over.

Mention censoring explicit sexual content and they cite how violence bothers them more. Ok, limit that, too.

Let’s look at a world with no censorship and see if you want it.

In this world snuff films would freely exist. What is a snuff film, you ask? It is where a person is murdered and the action captured for people to watch. I wasn’t even aware that such things existed until I saw the film “Pornography” starring George C. Scott.

The tapes of Paul Bernardo would be accessible to anyone. They depict the torture of two teenage girls and the sexual acts they were forced to perform. Who knows how seeing these may encourage others to mimic the contents.

The problem, of course, is that the Internet is here now with very little censorship. However, some things are taken off. For example, You Tube removed a clip that showed a US Marine throwing a puppy over a cliff to its death.

However, there are some who would argue that nothing should be censored and that people should have the option to decide for themselves what they should read or watch.

The main problem is what to allow and disallow and who makes that decision.

One of my teachers at Ryerson once sat on the Ontario Film Censorship Board. The dilemma was that if a film was censored, they would be asked if they had seen it. If the answer was no, the response was, “How could you censor it if you didn’t see it?” If the answer was yes, then the argument was made that they had seen it, so everybody should be allowed to do the same.

With freedom there is responsibility. For every action there is a reaction. In an anything-goes society, we have to accept the fact that many things will be allowed to happen that will not be good for that society. I think the majority of people want some limits, which means censorship is not necessarily a bad thing at all.