Up with censorship!
OK, I realize a post on censorship is nothing new. And yet, I’m continually bugged by the sanctimonious railing against it as if it were always evil, and the worst of evils. The fact is, our current bias against it is a product of culture. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not for Nazism, and I’m not in favor of many types of censorship, but I do believe it has its place, and I’m particularly suspicious of diatribe against:
1. self-censorship
2. editing or censoring art for our personal use
3. using our collective power as consumers to affect the content of media
Self censorship is nothing more than making a good decision in most cases. If an author, artist, etc. decides that something may be either too inflammatory, too degrading or inappropriately vioaltes standards of decorum, bravo to them for deciding to exclude it. And if an artist decides to censor their songs so they can play a certain venue or a director cuts their movie to please a certain demographic, good. That’s part of the give and take of the artistic process. Art cannot be solipsistic. It has to connect with someone. That means considering the audience’s sensibilities. (The Stones had to edit their show to play China. Good for China–Good for the Stones–I never thought I’d say good for the Stones, but)
While editing movies is its own issue on which I’ve posted, and which I don’t really think solves much, I’m also tired of hearing it does some violence to the art. Most of what is being cut isn’t art anyway. It’s garbage, and once I buy the movie, its garbage I own a piece of, so if I want to throw some of it away, so be it.
Boycotts, as well, are not universally wrongheaded. If the cause is just, there is no reason why I should spend my money to support an organization that I feel is unworthy of my support. I have no opinion on Big Love, but if you think it’s wrong for HBO to produce it, and if other people think so as well, then those people are simply following their conscience to vote with their dollars. It’s the only vote we get in the today’s marketocracy. I think it’s simply giving up our best tool if we buy the argument against it. And it works the other way around. If Larry Miller doesn’t want to show Brokeback at his theater, hey, it’s his theater, he has no obligation to provide any particular film.
The biggest argument against censorship that I hear is that it restricts agency. Poppycock. The scriptures tell us we are free to choose eternal life or eternal damnation. They don’t say anything about making sure that there’s an ample suppy of whatever violates collective standards of decency so that we and our children can be tempted by things that are admittedly attractive, but which we may wish to avoid. Free speech was always about expressing ideas, not about forcing others to hear them or about providing for the availability of whatever media provides a particular pleasure for a praticular viewer.
Bravo!
I wouldn’t change a thing.
Comment by Eric — 4/10/2006 @ 7:44 am
Amen! Refusing to self-censor, allow private censorship, or allow cultural and economic markets to influence content leads (eventually) to chaos and anarchy, which, besides severely constraining free thought in itself, is an invitation for “real” censorship of the bad sort.
On your #2: Freedom of thought requires freedom of expression AND freedom of impression. Divorcing them and elevating one over the other gives us either tyranny by noise or tyranny by silence. We are safest in the taut middle between them.
Comment by Edje — 4/10/2006 @ 10:12 am
I partly agree with you, but I also think you’re a bit off track. I think it’s fine for people to decide for themselves not to buy some product or service that they object to. But there’s something profoundly problematic in trying to destroy that product or service to make sure that others can’t have access to it. When we try to wipe things out completely, rather than simply avoid them, we’re involved in an effort to restrict other people’s choices–and that is an agency issue.
Also, with respect to Brokeback Mountain, Larry Miller did have an obligation to show that particular film because he had signed a contract to show the film. (But that’s a side note; he was not, of course, under any prior obligation to have signed that particular contract…)
Comment by RoastedTomatoes — 4/10/2006 @ 10:13 am
I want to agree with you Steve, but there are a couple things that prevent a wholehearted concurrence. I’m typically fine with people editing out portions of movies that they deem offensive; however, the idea that someone would buy a book and edit out words and scenes is deeply offensive to me. In the forward of the most recent edition of Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury goes off on people that went to “censor” his writing. To paraphrase: I Mormons and Baptists don’t like my books, they can write their own. This resonates with me. Is it because I am a snob that editing books bother me and editing movies don’t?
The China example is also deeply uncomfortable to me…mostly because that government applies the same logic to quench discourse on so many things that are fundamental to our ideas of human freedom.
So, yes to not buying media that you deem inappropriate. The rest doesn’t logically follow for me.
Comment by J. Stapley — 4/10/2006 @ 11:33 am
I can’t say I agree with you.
1. By my defintion only, censorship is the act of supressing something for someone else, in other words, I don’t think self-censorship really exists. Here’s why — We all make choices in what we watch, as LDS members we choose not to watch pornography, and I would say most pornographers don’t choose to watch General Conference. But, I think only an LDS member would say he’s choosing self-censorship; despite the fact that both persons (the LDS member and the pornographer) are doing the same thing – using their agency to not view particluar material. Maybe that is just a symantic distinction, but I find it useful. However, you are right that censorship (my defintion) is not all bad. Even the most liberal of persons would say children should be protected from certain things (“protection” being the substitute for the “C” word)
2. In regards to editing or censoring art for personal use — what about the 12th AofF “We believe in being asubject• to bkings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in cobeying, honoring, and sustaining the law”? Most persons who edit movies for content are breaking some sort of law. Additionally, while not gospel, many members like to say “Satan will tell 10 truths to sneak in 1 lie” – why support it at all? Maybe persons should just choose not to see that Rated R movie instead of “waiting for the edited version to be on TV.” (I personally believe in 10-1 folklore, but believe I’m the best peson to make the distinction between the lie and the truth, not a TV censor)
3. You are absolutely right. Boycotts are not all bad – the Montomery Bus Boycott immediately comes to mind. However, unlike the recent email chain re: boycotting HBO, the bus boycott involved persons who were intimately involved in the proces (they decided to boycott the same bus system that was taking advantage of them). I would guess that for ever 100 members who recieved the email, maybe 10 actually subscribed to HB0, and maybe 1 of them actually chose to cancel HBO because of Big Love (I think I’m being generous here).
Comment by Jared Christensen — 4/10/2006 @ 1:41 pm
Roasted tomatoes,
Again, I think the agency bit is a fallacy. There is only so much money to be used in producing art, media, etc. If we don’t fully use our ability to affect how that money is used, we subject ourselves to media we don’t want to watch, art we can’t stomach. If I go to a museum, I can’t simply look the other way from every other piece. I have to deal with what’s there. I think it is our duty to use our influence to promote what is good, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy. What that is would be a matter of debate, but trying to get more of it and less of other stuff is obvious, in my estimation.
J,
I’ve never been much on Bradbury’s tirade. I’ve never been a fan precisely because he’s that sort of artist that refuses to find common ground with his audience. As far as China, I think that the issue is to what extent their censorship of the concert represented standards of decency commonly held in the society. Certainly they aren’t set up to recieve input on that in the right ways. To the extent that they are expressing societal standards of decency, however, I have no problem with them insisting on those standards.
Jared,
1. When I talk about self-censorship, I don’t mean on the part of the viewer, though part 2 addresses this to some extent. I’m primarily concerned with the author/artist that changes their work because they don’t think their audience will appreciate it otherwise or because they think better of its possible effects.
2. I, too think that most movies are not changed essentially by editing them. My thoughts are here:
I do, however, think that laws should allow folks to do whatever they want with the video they buy. As I said, it may be trash, but its trash that they bought. And, for me that goes for books, as well.
3. If not enough of us are upset enough about Big Love to cancel HBO, then either we don’t think it is bad enough to cancel HBO over or we are too attached to the other shows to care. Either way, our vote is cast. We will accept HBO as it is and pay for it. Those without HBO are obviously not involved.
Comment by Steve H — 4/10/2006 @ 3:12 pm
Steve,
I guess I have to agree more with RT and J, when you try to eliminate something for anything other than your own consumption, you are removing the choice for others.
Further, Bradbury can the option of alienating his market, and the consequenses. However, when we attempt to make something he has created more acceptable to ourselves and others, we have crossed the line. So I must agree with Bradbury:
In sum, do not insult me with the beheadings, finger-choppings or the lung-deflations you plan for my works. I need my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs to shout or whisper with. I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book.
All you umpire, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It’s my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases. At sunset I’ve won or lost. At sunrise, I’m out again, giving it the old try.
And no one can help me. Not even you.
The complete coda can be seen here
http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/451/451.html
Comment by Craig S. — 4/10/2006 @ 3:47 pm
Steve,
I think you’re completely sidestepping my argument about agency. Of course you have the right not to spend money on things you don’t want to spend money on–that’s your entire argument, and I agree without reservation. But it’s one thing to choose not to participate in something yourself, and it’s another to try to make sure that the thing doesn’t exist–to make sure that nobody else can choose to participate in it, even if they feel that it would be beneficial to them. For example, I have no objection to people cancelling their HBO subscriptions if they object to “Big Love.” But I’m profoundly unsympathetic to petition campaigns that try to convince HBO not to run “Big Love.” If you don’t like it, don’t watch it. If enough people don’t watch it, the series will die by aggregated individual choice. But when we petition, for example, we’re trying to coerce those individual choices!
Comment by RoastedTomatoes — 4/10/2006 @ 8:39 pm
Craig,
Yes, Bradbury can alienate his audience all he wants. That’s his choice. But can we really read the words you quote: “It’s my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases.” and not see this as solipsistic? The man’s an ego maniac. He reacts quite violently to requests to alter his works–authors have been living with such requests for longer than he has been alive, and they find the balance they can accept between what they would like to write and what people will pay them for, and they go on with their lives.This is why I say that our ideas of censorship are a product of culture. There’s no reason why this sort of extreme individualism is natural. Our ideas of authorship as some lone crusade, a monolithic utterance, as Bakhtin would say, of a singular soul, are no more valid than other models in which authorship is recognized as a broader cultural phenomenon. Bradburym indeed, gets quoted a lot, but we should recognize that he represents the extreme expression of the sacredness of individual authorship.
Comment by Steve H — 4/10/2006 @ 8:40 pm
I think it does pivot on the willingness of the artist/expositor to be edited. The Stones submitted, which is fine. If the Stones want to play in Tehran, they will likely have to edit further. A society has the right to determine what is acceptible discourse…something pornography legislation has sadly shown in the US. But is it not the owner of a work that is the one to who should choose to be edited?
…and RT is espousing a free market? Whoa. Though I do agree.
Comment by J. Stapley — 4/10/2006 @ 8:51 pm
Roasted Tomatoes,
I’m not sidestepping your argument. though there are several issues here, adn I think that, indeed, boycotts are diffferent than petitions, I also have no problem with the petitions. If they are problematic at all, I think it’s because they are probably a waste of time. Making sure something doesn’t exist, to the extent that we peacably can, seems like me to be a way to control our environment without being isolationist. The fact is, the images that are being presented, both verbal and visual, are often enticing. to say taht we can simpy turn them off ignores the fact that those in control of the media are not about to sit back and let us turn them off. They stick their images in our faces to hook us. We have to control that. the just turn your head option is a myth. After a while we need orthodics to keep us facing the right way. I should be able to turn my head. Anything else is what constitutes the coersion in this case. This stuff is everywhere–in the grocery store aisle, in the comercials for things that are worth watching, on every chanel as one flips to see what’s on. We need to get involved in influencing content generally.
J,
I’m assuming you are saying that pronography legislation has proven our standards to be quite low. I know some people who would see your statement as ambiguous. I think the determination of what is acceptable discourse is at the heart of what I’m claiming here. We will never be able to say that everyone gets what they want here, and in the end, what the majority wants will be come our standard of discourse. I think the scriptures advocate the coice of the people precisely because it will most often be the minority that chooses evil. If the majority is choosing it, we should be worried, because it is also clear what happens in such cases.
Comment by Steve H — 4/11/2006 @ 1:45 pm
Indeed, I meant to say they are low. Pornography legislation states that a community can set its own standard for what is obscene. Pornography is now ubiquitous, it is not considered obscene by the majority, it would seem.
Comment by J. Stapley — 4/11/2006 @ 1:54 pm
Steve, I would assume that there are substantial components of the media that both of us dislike. I wouldn’t mind if they went away, and obviously neither would you–although someone somewhere would clearly mind, or else those aspects of the media wouldn’t exist. But things become trickier when the things at issue are things we disagree on.
For example, I think that Fox News has probably done about as much damage to the U.S. in the last seven or eight years as any other media source. So I certainly wouldn’t mind if the network closed up shop and went away tomorrow. I don’t know whether you would agree with me or not, but it’s clear that a lot of people don’t agree. Would it be appropriate for me to mobilize market power to impose my views on those others, for example by requiring my employees (if I had any) to cancel subscriptions to cable systems that include Fox News? How about political power? Would it be reasonable for me to lobby or vote for a law banning Fox News? And so forth…
By the way, what is the difference between a boycott and a simple decision not to watch, read, etc. something you’re not interested in? Organization and communication: a boycott attempts to send a message by both market and extra-market means…
Comment by RoastedTomatoes — 4/11/2006 @ 4:49 pm
Roasted Tomatoes,
I think the difference here is that most people aren’t offended by the mere sight of Fox news reports. When you see the report, I’m sure you do not feel tainted by the images. Fox doesn’t push images that many find offensive, though they might advocate ideas that people may find offensive. What you are talking about is free exchange of ideas, rather than standards of decency.
You are, of course, right that mobilization is at the heart of a boycott, but what is the problem with those who have less market power, and who might be ignored one by one mobilizing to make apparent that they collectively have more market influence than might otherwise be recognized. Boycotts send a collective message that the concerns of a certain economic constituency won’t go away. A network may assume that one show won’t affect your decision to order their services. A boycott is no more than a way of saying, hey, shouldn’t we be upset enough to jsut cancel our subscription? If you agree, then it’s great that someone helped you to realize that you should have been upset enough. If not, then I would assume you won’t join the boycott. To say that that is wrong would be to argue against argumentation, since the boycott is voluntary and is simply an effort to persuade others that they should join you in voting with their dollars.
Comment by Steve H — 4/11/2006 @ 5:01 pm
Boycotts and protests are double-edged swords and must be used very judiciously. HBO’s bean-counters would love nothing more than a huge Mormon uproar over Big Love. It would translate into more profit. They know who their primary audience is, and it sure isn’t active members of the Church.
The Evangelicals have gotten more sophisticated in this regard. They chose not to protest, boycott, or even say much about Brokeback Mountain. Why? They realized they could not stop the movie’s distribution and would in effect only be providing free advertising for it.
Comment by Mike — 4/12/2006 @ 12:24 am
Steve, I can’t make sense of your claim that words and ideas can’t be as offensive, indecent, and dangerous as images. I simply can’t find any basis for this idea…
Comment by RoastedTomatoes — 4/12/2006 @ 11:09 am
Roasted Tomatoes
Interchange of ideas is meant to be processed at the level of ideas. It is an excercise of the intellect. Admittedly, we might feel that some intellects are unequal to the task, but the same might be said of us. We can’t have a standard for the decency of ideas. We can’t tell people what to think.
Images of the sort we’re talking about here are meant to be processed on the level of emotion and even hormonal physicality. One can become addicted to pornography or senseless violence, and we have a right, I think to protect both our children (the usual argument) and ourselves (the thing we are less willing to note–we can’t admit we are vulnerable as adults). While I may not be able to control the fact that the people around me believe stupid things (that’s how a democracy works, we put up with each other while we present our ideas, stupid or not), I can use whatever influecnce I have to affect my environment (also the idea of a democracy–and I don’t see democracy as a simple matter of one person/one vote–things don’t work that way in reality. If the greater influence is on the side of an environment that promotes wickedness, I have to put up with that or try to create a shelter zone. I can, however, assert my influence, and hope that there is enough influence that things do’t become so bad that I have to create such a large shelter zone that my children become “sheltered.” Though I don’t hate that word as much as some, it is better not to have to deal with the resulting diconnect with the world. Becoming sheltered myself, at this point, isn’t so much of a concern.
Comment by Steve H — 4/13/2006 @ 1:58 pm
Too bad reverse boycotts are illegal – it seems unfair doesn’t it?
What is a reverse boycott? If you don’t like me (or things I do) you are free to refuse to buy what I have to sell. If I don’t like you (or things you do) I am NOT legally priveledged to refuse to sell to you.
Comment by ed — 4/13/2006 @ 10:42 pm
Steve, it would seem that nationalism/patriotism and militarism can have effectively addictive effects, as well. The same with partisan political appeals. All of these have been shown recently to eventually produce distinctive neurology that makes the recipient of the messages in question filter out contradictory information and only believe information that reinforces the original belief pattern. This is fundamentally similar to addiction, so I think ideas are as dangerous as anything else on this count, as well.
The biggest problem arises, of course, when it comes to demarcating the boundary between ideas and “pornography or senseless violence.” Just exactly because different groups of people will disagree about that boundary — for reasons that are non-neutral with respect to ideas, I think it’s dangerous for society when individuals try to destroy expressions that seem unacceptable to them. A free and open discourse is best served by all of us just disregarding the things we can’t abide.
Do you remember when someone’s broadcast career was destroyed, in late 2001, for arguing that a terrorist who dies in the course of an attack is certainly evil, but doesn’t meet the definition of cowardice? At the time, that statement was taken as being out of bounds — it was not a mere expression of an idea, but in fact an evil act… That kind of attitude is the very real danger we face in these kinds of decision-making…
Comment by RoastedTomatoes — 4/14/2006 @ 6:59 pm
Roasted Tomatoes,
You make a good point about determining what is pornography, and it is certainly not easy to do so. This doesn’t however, mean that we should not exert our influence to control what is publicly viewable. the only hope we have is that the best overall standards will prevail. The problem is that we can’t simply diregard what is disagreeable, and therefore, we can’t simply not have standards of public decency, which is what I think you don’t address in my argument. I’ll be the first to admit that there are things that I find enticing phhysically that I also find revolting at the level of the spirit. When I encounter these things, it is obviously my duty to do the best I can to look the other way. When they clutter my view, however, I have to look increasingly at my shoes (unless I’m in Vegas or Soho, where I have to find somewhere to look other than down), which is every bit as restrictive as saying someone can’t put up posters that show X, Y, or Z. Why should we cede that control over our necks and eyes?
The first part of your argument in 19 I feel to be problematic. Surely ideas can dupe us. We can feel that we have been fooled by an idea, but if we are convinced of the erroneousness of an idea, and if we are courageous enough to leave it behind, it is, it seems to me, not likely to return to that idea because it is enticing. That, to me, seems like a danger inherent in any argumentation–that we might believe an idea that has been argued well, but which isn’t sound. It doesn’t seem to me to be similar to addiction, which is very difficult to shake, and which leads us to do things that we are utterly convinced are wrong. I think the experiences of overcoming addiction is fundamentally different from changing our ideas. I’m wondering if your ideas here on the addictive nature of ideas are that different from simply believing that anyone that holds ideas different from your own (on the war perhaps?) simply couldn’t have made a judgement of the evidence from themselves that has any basis in rational thought?
Comment by Steve H — 4/14/2006 @ 8:42 pm
Steve, pornography isn’t a problem for me at all. I just don’t find it enticing, addictive, or problematic in any way. Not even interesting, in fact. So, that’s that; I can disregard what I find disagreeable. The point is, people differ; some are more at risk from dangerous ideas, whereas others are more at risk from dangerous images. So it’s problematic to extrapolate from our own experience.
By the way, I fully agree that ideas I support can be as embedded in identity and thus essentially self-reinforcing and addictive as any other. I know I’m fallible. But I also realize that I can’t ban ideas that I don’t like; my point here is that images are really no different from any other ideas…
Comment by RoastedTomatoes — 4/14/2006 @ 10:27 pm
One last bit to make a difference, though I think we’ll just hit an impasse here. I think it is the very soul of public discourse that we should encounter ideas that we do not agree with, that we, perhaps, find reprehensible. I do not think it is vital, and I don’t think most people would say it is, that we encounter pornography or gratuitous violence. In fact, we are best not to encounter it and to get away if we do.
Comment by Steve H — 4/15/2006 @ 2:15 am
Censorship sucks …
http://www.timesandseasons.org/?p=4027#comment-231983
Comment by Chino Blanco — 8/19/2007 @ 4:08 am