Student
Mr. Maite
HE9
29 October 2000
Censorship: Is There a Danger?
Suppose for a moment that you lived in an utopian society. Everyone seems to be at peace, having fun, no emotional distress even over death and war casualties. Everyone seems to talk alike, dress alike, behave alike, and even, yes, think alike. There are few disagreements between people, and whoever is in charge is in charge, no “if”s, “and”s, or “but”s about it. People accept things for the way they are. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? However, let’s take it from another angle.
You live in a cage. A mental cage, where everyone is forced to go along with whatever the government or whoever is in charge says. They try to buy off the stress of the mental prison by giving everyone entertainment and so forth, but it doesn’t work perfectly. People attempt suicide all the time, having no reason why except that something is wrong. Society is so screwed up that when people die, they say “Too bad” and forget the deceased. No one is allowed to think, because, as the government puts it, “Thinking is dangerous.” Doesn’t seem so appetizing anymore, does it?
This is the world that Ray Bradbury depicted in his book, Fahrenheit 451. The plot revolves around a man who is made by the government to burn books, but he doesn’t know why. What he ends up discovering is that the government of the United States started to censor literary works because of controversial messages contained in their pages, and eventually it spread so that all books were banned to prevent any thought of uprising. Bradbury’s message seems clear after finishing the novel; if censorship starts working against small messages, what’s to stop it from reaching all messages? Where will censorship end? Obviously the novel takes things to an extreme to get its point across, but it does make you think. What could happen? The possibilities are frightening, and several have been presented in the past. Simply put, censorship should not be used in our society because it violates the Constitution, limits thinking, and could potentially cause harm to the average citizen.
What
the Constitution says
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. (Farish 12)
Now, those forty-five words may not seem to be much by themselves, but when put together, they gain almost deity-like power.
The First Amendment is just one of the Ten Amendments making up the Bill of Rights, but it is probably the most talked about. It deals with religion and state (another controversial subject), and it deals with the freedom to speak and express opinions. In other words, the First Amendment deals with censorship. It, essentially, outlaws it. Unfortunately, the motion forbidding the suppression of freedom of speech is somewhat suppressed itself, mentioning only that Congress can’t make a law against censorship. This is a loophole that organizations have been able to get through, regulating what things people are and are not allowed to see and/or know. However, it is an argument against censorship to simply say what has just been said: that the Constitution outlaws censorship.
Limits
on thinking and control that it provides
Let’s face it. It’s a given fact that not allowing information to reach a person doesn’t allow that person to respond to that information. It’s an absolute impossibility for someone to think about something if they haven’t encountered it. Take this example: back in the sixteenth century, the Catholic Church had nearly absolute control over any scientific ideas formulated in that time period. Galileo Galilei, now undisputedly considered one of the world’s most influential astronomers, was imprisoned by the Church in 1632 because the Church believed that the earth was the center of the universe, and Galileo proved that this was not the case by studying how Venus appeared in the night sky (Lauber 6-7). Despite the Church’s attempts to censor his views, the ideas of Galileo Galilei got out and helped to result in today’s view of the universe. If censorship had one this particular battle and Galileo’s ideas were entirely suppressed, then we would still be studying astronomy with the Ancient Greeks, as the Church believed in the views of Aristotle (6). This is a prime example of how censorship can restrict thinking.
There are other examples of this. When Hitler came into power in Germany, his people followed him and those who did not were placed into concentration camps. Stalin exterminated those who disagreed with him. When referring to this instances, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote:
The important thing to remember is that in none of these countries were these cruelties put upon the people by foreign conquerers. They were initiated and executed by their own leaders when the people abandoned to them the unbridled power to rule. . . . Thus, it was the evasion of responsibility—not the subjugation by force—that led to the erosion of rights and, eventually, to cataclysmic disaster. (qtd. in Pascoe 114)
Those who argue for censorship essentially are saying that right now, in this day and age, the argument against censorship has ended up creating a society where “things have not worked out as they were supposed to, and many civil-libertarians have said this is not what they meant. They wanted a world in which...James Joyce’s Ulysses could be published...they also got a world where homosexual rape is simulated on stage...” (Kristol). In other words, they are saying that those who are against censorship got more than they bargained for. This is, quite probably, true; there are certain things available that no one really cares for, such as hate literature, but could all the good things that have come out since censorship was loosened have done so without letting a few bad apples escape too? Should we have censorship to stop these “bad apples?” Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, was in the majority opinion of the case Texas vs. Johnson, wrote that if “there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable” (qtd. in Pascoe 12).
What censorship
could mean for the average citizen
In 1733, a group of citizens in New York believed that the colonial governor, William Cosby, had overstepped his authority in illegally acquiring some land and rigging colonial elections (Pascoe 22). A printer named John Peter Zenger began to publish a paper called The New York Weekly Journal which openly critized the governor and was very successful. The governor, however, found it offensive and charged Zenger with seditious libel, which supposedly meant that Zenger’s paper rebelled against the government. The judges in the case were biased but the jury was still open to suggestion, so Zenger’s lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, put to them that as citizens they had the right to criticize the government, as long as the arguments were truthful. He told the jury:
The question before the court and you gentlemen of the jury, is not of small or private concern. It is not the cause of the poor printer, nor of New York alone. . . . It is the best cause. It is the cause of liberty. . . . Nature and the laws of our country have given us a right—the liberty—both of exposing and opposing arbitrary power . . . by speaking and writing—the truth. (qtd in Pascoe 23)
The jury found Zenger not guilty.
Now, what exactly did this case study just show? Very simply put, this shows that we, as people, have the right to criticize what we believe is wrong. In this case, Zenger was protesting the acts of Governor Cosby. The motive behind the lawsuit was obvious; the governor did not like what Zenger was publishing about him, and he wanted it stopped. He wanted to censor it. Going back to an earlier point, had the paper been censored then all of the opinions that Zenger let out would not have reached people, would not have allowed those people to think for themselves about the governor. If this case had never happened, anyone who said anything out of line with the authority’s take on things would be silenced. Would you want to be silenced just for saying that the government made a stupid decision?
In conclusion, the worst thing we can do in our society is to use censorship. It violates the very principles this country was founded on by defying the First Amendment of the Constitution. Censorship also has the ability to restrict people’s thinking. The Catholic Church tried unsuccessfully to use it to silence Galileo from getting out a theory that eventually led to the theory of the universe that is accepted today. Hitler effectively censored those who spoke out against him and, in doing so, brainwashed an entire country into killing six million people based upon religious views. And then, there is the threat that censorship could land ordinary people in trouble just because they have an opinion. With all of these dangers, it should be clear that we should not use censorship.
Works Cited
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Del Rey/Ballantine: New York, 1953.
Farish, Leah. The First Amendment: Freedom of Speech, Religion, and the Press. Enslow: Springfield, 1998.
Kristol, Irving. “Pornography, Obscenity, and the Case for Censorship.” 1995. <http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wbutler/kristol.html>.
Lauber, Patricia G. “Galileo”. The New Book of Knowledge. Vol. 7: 5-7. Grolier: Danbury, Connecticut, 1989.
Pascoe, Elaine. Freedom of Expression: The Right to Speak Out in America. Millbrook Press: Brookfield, Connecticut, 1992.