Posted By crates on April 21, 2009

I read an article in the paper today which got me thinking.   Apparently back in 1999 the federal government enacted a law banning videos that show cruelty to animals.

The law was especially designed to limit the sale of tapes of fights between pit bulls and “crush videos” that show women crushing to death small animals with their bare feet or high-heeled shoes.

The federal appeals court in Philadelphia said the law restricts free speech illegally, and rejected the government’s argument that the law is justified by a “compelling interest in protecting animals from wanton acts of cruelty.”

The government has appealed this ruling and the Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear arguments both pro and con.

This got me thinking about how hard questions of censorship can be.   On the one hand, I find such acts of cruelty to animals so incredibly disgusting that it nauseates me to think of it, and on the other hand I have always been a staunch advocate against censorship and for freedom of speech.

I can understand that when a person’s cherished beliefs are trampled upon by somebody, one’s first reaction is to want to stop it immediately.  For example, my first reaction was to sympathize with the law banning such disgusting acts, because it supports my belief that animals should never be treated in such a manner.

Such in all probability is the reaction of some people to Mark Twain’s use of the “N” word in Huckleberry Finn (notice that I impose self-censorship here in not spelling the word out?).  There have been several times in which attempts have been made to ban the teaching of this book in high schools for this and for other perceived undesirable attributes about the book (Here is a list of the ten most banned books in American schools).

Also to a certain extent, it is understandable when extreme religious groups act to ban books, activities, moves, etc. which offends them.  Witness the censorship imposed by the Taliban in areas that they control.

One could go on and on listing acts of censorship and repression by various groups, governments, offended citizens, etc. down through history, but it seems mostly to boil down to somebody knowing what is best for other people, and making their minds up for them as to what is objectionable and what is not–the “I know better than you” mentality.

It isn’t so bad when such people do not have the power to censor, but it is different when they do have the power to decide for me what I can be exposed to.

It seems to me that we should be extremely wary of enforcing censorship, because I think that people naturally tend to want to censor offending items, often ignoring any extenuating facts.  As a people we should resist with all our might such tendencies in our society.

Categories: nature
Tags: banned books, censorship, Huckleberry Finn, role of censorship