censor this essay
Rich Schmidt
“Take away the right to say ‘fuck’ and you take away the right to say
‘fuck the government.’”
— Lenny Bruce (Anderson 2005)
I cringe when people say, “It’s a free country,” as if this were an excuse. Freedom of expression does not allow you to say anything you want, free from punishment.
The First Amendment is bandied about as some sort of panacea, especially by people who have recently said or done something they regret. “Free speech” has become a useless catch phrase—a buzzword devoid of meaning. As our society fills with entitlement, sensitivity and self-righteousness, the runaway freight train of free speech has slammed through the wall of decency, dragging civility behind it like a useless appendage.
At the same time, free speech and freedom of expression are at the heart of everything the country stands for, and everything Willamette stands for. The very notion of a liberal arts college would be impossible without the ability to freely exchange ideas. The government still allows its citizens a great deal of personal latitude.
This is the great struggle. On the one hand, we are raised with an ideal of absolute freedom, devoid of governmental interference. On the other hand, giving people absolute freedom allows a dangerous amount of potential trouble. At what price freedom? This is the crux of the issue which I would examine in greater depth. Surely, the ability to freely express ourselves is the theoretical foundation of our society. But how truly free are we? And how free should we be?
Certain freedoms are subjective. If I lived on an island hundreds of miles from any other human being, I could walk around naked, or play my music as loud and as long as I pleased, or shoot any kind of weapon at anything I wanted. None of those freedoms can apply in the middle of New York City. With the proximity of people, freedoms are curtailed. The many must benefit, not the one. So it is with freedom of expression.
I have three main thoughts, which I will explore in more detail below. The first is in regards to political correctness (which is, basically, a violent overthrow of free expression) and its natural repercussions. Political correctness has forced people to mask their thoughts with euphemisms while skirting the true issues. This repression, I feel, has directly led to increased frustration and the escalation of fear and backlash against the dangerous “other.” A lessening of political correctness and an increase in honest dialogue and open expression would be a good starting place for decreasing tensions.
Secondly, the issue of censorship is more important than some make it out to be. Censorship is seeded in ignorance, but more than that, it has a base in fear and laziness. We censor what we don’t understand, or what we find dangerous, because we don’t trust others to make smart decisions with controversial information. I will look at the issues surrounding censorship and why the topic is so important to modern society.
Lastly, the biggest problem with freedom of expression is that people take it as a natural right, not as a privilege for which people have given their lives. The act of self-expression should not be taken lightly. It is not a “free country.” I will examine ways in which free expression can be harmful and attempt to find the proper balance between the rights of the individual versus the rights of the many.
After all, a society with truly free expression would be anarchy, and this circumstance is something even anarchists do not really want. Anarchy could result in a power struggle that could end civilization as we know it.
But that’s a topic for a different essay.
“There’s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy
in the streets?” — Dick Cavett (Quotations About Censorship)
Perhaps the most important aspect of freedom of expression is that it
Perhaps the most important aspect of freedom of expression is that it gives people a built-in distraction from the world’s oft-stark reality. Instead of concerning ourselves with the plight of the hungry, or the homeless, or the environment, we are instead able to worry about what a “shock jock” thinks of African-American women, or what is and is not pornography, or if cell phones and the Internet really are at the crux of society’s downfall.
In other words, instead of attacking real problems, we can uselessly argue at a surface level. Racism? Too big of a topic to grasp and deal with. Don Imus saying “nappy-headed hos” on the radio? Now that we can sink our teeth into. And if it leads to a heated discussion in which the middleaged, white majority can subtly blame “gangsta” music and saggy jeans, and Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson can rail against them in rebuttal while lining their own pockets, well, so much the better. None of this will fix anything, or change anyone’s mind, but at least we’ll all be distracted for a while.
An interesting example of this attitude at work is the explosion of internet message boards. It’s the perfect sociological experiment: what will people say when they have (or believe they have) guaranteed anonymity? Not long ago, message boards were seen as the realm of the truly fanatical, and perhaps this is still the case. But instead of being limited to sites for sports fans or movie buffs, message boards are popping up everywhere. Whereas you might have once visited the site of your favorite college football team to rail about coaching decisions with other hardcore fans, now you can visit espn. com and discuss stories written by the Associated Press with people to whom you have no other link. Or visit your local newspaper and respond to stories written by local reporters.
And people do. Visit the website of Salem’s Statesman Journal (statesmanjournal. com), for example, and witness people’s initial reactions to all types of news stories. Cloaked in anonymity, people feel free to drop off little nuggets of feedback wherever they go. Their responses often evoke more responses, until a long thread of comments arises, often drowning out the original, banal story.
Are message boards a good thing? Initially, the answer seems to be yes. Everybody has an opinion and a right to share it; message boards provide an outlet. Message boards could even be seen as a venue for open dialogue, the kind that is so sorely lacking. Except, in reality, it doesn’t work that way— that would be much too easy. Open dialogues only work when the people debating have an agreement—even an unspoken one—to approach the issue with open minds. Comments on message boards are left by people whose minds are already made up; in other words, there aren’t a lot of “conversions” (“Oh, I never saw it like that before, you’re totally correct!”) going on.
Instead, people anonymously express their opinions with no concern as to the societal implications of their words. If you discard the twenty or so percent of people who just aim to inflame, there are still an amazing number of differing opinions expressed by people who, in the past, might not have had a constructive way to do so. In the end, this is a relatively harmless way for people to discuss often-complex issues. So, while message boards might not be a bastion of intelligence or Socratic debate, perhaps they are a healthy outlet.
When examining the notion of freedom of expression, the thing I kept coming back to was racism. For whatever reason, racism has always fascinated me, and the notion of race itself is an interesting one.
Let me start by saying: we are all prejudiced. Everyone fears the unknown, the unfamiliar. This fear sometimes causes ridicule, or violence, or hatred, because that’s just how we react. It can be as simple as a Chevrolet driver disliking someone for driving a Toyota, or as complex as a world leader hating Jews even though he himself is of Jewish descent. Often, the combination of prejudice and fear reaches such a magnitude that it manifests itself as racism. Racism, then, is the physical act based on the belief or prejudice.
Of all the divisions that exist in American culture, race seems to be the most prominent. Why is this? For one thing, aside from perhaps gender, race is often the most obvious difference between people; it can be seen on a surface level. Every racial group has its own history in America, and this history is the elephant in the room. Blacks were brought here as slaves and have been treated as second-class citizens (or worse) ever since. Asians were rounded up and put in camps during World War II. Native Americans were killed off or sent to live on reservations because they stood in the way of Manifest Destiny. And the list goes on. This embarrassing and tragic history is a constant presence, and no amount of guilt or reparations will ever make it disappear.
Part of what makes race and racism so complex is that we often do not know how to handle our own feelings. Almost everyone has likely watched or read “Roots” at some point in his or her academic life. Watching it probably made you feel sad. Is that a good reaction to have? Empathy is a good thing, but it can lead to pity, which can lead you to consciously act differently toward someone because of his or her race. That’s how I just defined racism. So how do we handle this reality?
We all have instantaneous reactions to things, all the time. Malcolm Gladwell examines this reality in his book Blink: the Power of Thinking without Thinking (2005), in which he has readers conduct experiments upon themselves. The end result of the experiments is that we equate words like “white” and “light” with Good and “black” and “dark” with Evil. This seems like common sense; when was the last horror movie filmed in the daylight? But the amazing thing about Gladwell’s display was that he showed how hard it is to equate “black” with “good,” even when you’re trying to. Despite making a conscious effort, it’s difficult. So, if I’m walking down the street and see a person of color, even if I am consciously trying, I likely will have a subconscious, negative response, a voice somewhere in the back of my head filled with fear, or loathing, or pity, or some response I’d be ashamed of were it conscious.
This could even trace itself back to our ancestors, who would no doubt have equated light with good and dark with evil because their physical tools were no match for the beasts prowling in the darkness. Light/dark is a true human archetype, and it seems only natural that this would translate, at least some of the time, into skin color.
What does this dichotomy mean? It means that prejudice and the fear of the other may be so culturally embedded, so deeply set, that they go beyond conscious effort and become part of the cultural subconscious, undermining any puny efforts to rid ourselves of it. Racism is the physical expression of this fear, and, as such, could be considered indestructible. It may be lessened, but it will always exist in some form within our culture. The concepts of race and racism do not exist in a vacuum; each generation learns how to handle them from previous generations. This is true on both a macro and a micro level: children learn from their families and from their surroundings, while the generation as a whole learns from their parents’ generation. It can take generations to break commonly-held beliefs: it wasn’t that long ago that black men were legally considered three-fifths of a man. As long as all people do not look the same, it would likely require a massive cultural revolution, one which may not even be possible, to become a passably non-racist society.
Near-impossibility has never stopped mankind, for better or worse. In the last generation, this country has tried to alleviate racism by blaring political correctness at every turn. We have replaced epithets with hyphenated euphemisms, but is the effect really any different? We are still categorizing people by something which is, in the grand scheme, almost completely irrelevant. Of all the differences between humans, somehow skin pigment became the central concern, and highlighting this by saying “African- American” or “Indian-American” doesn’t do any more to aid us in addressing the underlying problem: the fear of the other.
But racial euphemisms are only the surface level of political correctness. To me, political correctness also encompasses the regulations set forward by government agencies like the FCC. The world is multimedia. High-definition televisions, cell phones, iPods, Blackberrys—all of these are ubiquitous in American culture. Movies, television shows, video games, and music are defining cultural forces, from both artistic and marketing perspectives. These media are still regulated from the original, skewed, Puritanical mindset brought over on the Mayflower.
For example, television crime shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation or NYPD Blue often depict brutal murders or crime scenes, complete with blood, guts, rigor mortis and decay shown in gory detail. Yet, sex and nudity are not allowed. People often rail about the negative effects violent music and images have on our society, but the amount of blood and gore on television is relatively unchallenged. Violence has always been a part of human nature and, as such, of human culture. Realistic television should reflect this, and does. Sex is also a part of human nature; in fact, it is one of the most basic instincts. What television and mainstream movies do with sex is the same thing political correctness does with racism; that is, they take a serious topic and euphemize it. In both cases, the topic being covered up is a fact of life, but it’s a fact of life with which the culture doesn’t want to deal.
We handle each topic differently. Racism is seen as almost a physical object, one which used to be around and isn’t so much anymore. Sure, we used to be a racist culture, but that’s a thing of the past because we don’t use uncomfortable words like nigger, chink, kike, honky, or any other. And when we do…it’s nearly a criminal offense. But people still think these words, all the time. Sometimes they sing them, sometimes they whisper them to friends at a bar, sometimes they type them on a message board. The words are still a part of our lexicon. We know what they mean, and we use them with discretion but intent, like putting a silencer on a pistol.
And, of course, the words are not the important part. As the saying goes, it’s the thought that counts. It really doesn’t much matter whether or not I say the word “nigger” out loud if I am thinking it, right? Merely by thinking it, I am acknowledging that I think less of someone because they are black, and not for any other reason. This belief will influence my words, my actions, and my reactions, and will have more effect than if I say one stupid word out loud. Instead of attacking the root cause, the reason I would want to say “nigger,” we are content to publicly castigate me for saying it. This is something of a running theme. Instead of attacking the root cause of poverty, we throw money at the problem, leading to corruption and kickbacks but very little assistance to the impoverished. The intent is there, but the execution is poorly thought out and lacking. Instead of attacking the root causes of crime (of which, interestingly, racism and poverty are two), we build more prisons and hire more cops.
I have a terrific example of political correctness run amok. Earlier this year, an Ultimate Fighting event came to Oregon in early May billing itself as Cinco de Mayhem. This seems like a fairly harmless pun on the holiday celebrating Mexican independence, right? Apparently not; it caused a minor uproar in Salem as people deemed the title insulting. Of course, I recall not too long ago, a certain car company held a Ford of July sales event every year and no one ever made a fuss about it. It’s the same basic pun about the same basic holiday, so why the uproar? These are the types of battles we shouldn’t be fighting because there is no disrespect intended. It’s just a stupid pun. But because of the often-strained relations between different races and cultures, we end up expending mental and physical energy on these types of ridiculous arguments.
The real issue is a lack of respect, real or perceived. If a culture feels as though it is being subjugated, every slight is magnified that much more. Even if the organizers of the Ultimate Fighting event meant no disrespect, it did not seem that way to the local Latino culture. (And, I must admit, the difference between the words “Ford” and “mayhem” is noticeableÑperhaps the reaction would be similar if someone called an event “Fracas of July.”)
This basic misunderstanding is why race relations should be at the forefront of the nation’s agenda. So many problems would be easier to attack if the different races and cultures in the country had at least a decent relationship with each other. It’s not that everybody has to agree, or even get along. It’s more about intercultural understanding and respectÑthe anthropologist’s dream. How is this accomplished? Instead of sheltering children, we should be pushing them into situations that make them uncomfortable. That goes for adults, too. Unfortunately, the most “cultural” many people get is eating Thai food. Learning things about other cultures is a good start. The initial discomfort will pass, and we will likely have an entirely new respect for a culture outside our own. Why not play on a sports team with people outside your comfort zone? Visit “the other side of the tracks.” Visit a temple. Visit a synagogue. Visit a cathedral. Visit a mosque. Perhaps following Stephen Colbert’s example and making “a new black friend” is not the ideal solution, but then again, perhaps it is. If we never force ourselves into these situations, the chances are good that they may never present themselves.
The most important thing we can do, though, is to understand our basic fear of the other, which may go deeper than we can control. Only when we do so can things start to change. Before that admission, most people just feel guilty for their fear and prejudiced thoughts, and castigate themselves or others. Guilt and reparations are not the answers to solving racial tensions. Instead, we should focus on fostering cultural respect, not attacking words which, in the grand scheme of things, are not as much evil as they are uneducated.
Sex, on the other hand, is treated like an evil, which has never made any sense to me. An enlightened culture would take the topic of sex and make it as open as possible. No hiding. No “evil-izing.” No use of words like “illicit” or “innuendo” or any other Puritanical bullshit. Sex is practically an illegal drug. Pornography is sold in dingy stores with no windows, or wrapped up in cellophane high up in the bookstore’s magazine rack. Sex and pornography are not the same thing, but if we had a more enlightened view of sex, maybe there would be no such thing as pornography. Instead, sex is something to be hidden, to be done in secret; yet everyone knows it happens and, what’s more, it’s necessary for the survival of the species. The only effect this Puritanical attitude has is to make it even more desirable.
It’s like no one has ever figured out that making something illegal, illicit, or somehow dangerous makes it that much more attractive. Remember the “Just Say No” campaign? Drugs are terrible and evil and addictive and they’ll ruin your life, just trust us. That wiped out the drug problem in America, right?
Sex is an act of free and natural expression. Political correctness, along with an uptight Moral Majority has seen to it that we not see it that way. So, instead of treating the issue of sex as an enlightened culture would, we hide it away and demonize it. Ask yourself what’s worse: showing a graphic sex scene or showing someone’s head getting blown off, a la Saving Private Ryan?
“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” — Noam Chomsky (Quotations About Censorship)
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States has been in the precarious position of attempting to balance the right to privacy with the basic protection of the nation and its inhabitants. The heavilydebated Patriot Act, which weakened individual rights in order to allow the government more access to personal information, has shown that the notion of freedom of expression is in peril. It’s a foregone conclusion (yet, strangely, not very well known or decried) that our email is being read, our cell phone conversations are being listened to, and our daily lives are being increasingly videotaped. Everything from attendance at political rallies to books checked out at the public library is being increasingly scrutinized as the government attempts to sniff out threats to the nation’s security. “Random” people are patted down in airports to give the illusion of safety, but no matter how many personal freedoms are taken away, the country can never be truly safe. Freedom of expression, then, seems to be suffering.<
At the same time, certain types of freedom of expression are booming. In the not-too-distant past, the only way a “normal” person got on television was either on the news or on “America’s Most Wanted” (the original reality show?). Now, reality television —which, contrary to what people thought when it burst onto the scene, is showing no signs of dyingÑtempts people with that most American of promises: you, Joe Schmo, can be a star! No training required!
Reality TV’s easy-to-follow, contrived plots, natural and manufactured drama, and low number of larger-than-life, impossible-to-relate-to stars have made it popular with viewers; its low production costs and the ease with which a bomb can be cancelled (no mega-contracts) have made it popular with networks. Genuine hits like “American Idol,” “The Real World,” and “Survivor” become cultural touchstones, while useless duds like “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?,” “Celebrity Mole,” and “All American Girl” fizzle out without concern.
Perhaps “American Idol” is the most telling of the touchstone reality shows. Singing is an art form, a pure expression of emotion. Everybody does it, to some extent, whether it’s singing in the shower, singing along with the car radio, or humming a commercial jingle. Of course, almost no one is any good at it; this is freedom of expression at work. In a different culture, perhaps only the good would be allowed to sing, lest noble ears be stained with off-key caterwauling. It’s debatable if this would be positive or negative. In America, with freedom of expression, everyone is allowed to sing. “American Idol” is proof of this. As most people know, even non-viewers, the early weeks are filled with the best and the worst of the auditions, including contestants who are clearly advanced through the early portions of competition just so they may be humiliated on national television.
“That’s outrageous!” some say. On the surface, it does seem like unnecessary cruelty to allow someone who clearly can’t sing through the early levels just so that Simon Cowell can say something particularly nasty about them on television. But reality television doesn’t work that way. Reality TV places the infamous on the same level as the famous; just think of William Hung from “American Idol” or Puck from “The Real World.” In today’s society, it doesn’t seem to much matter what you’re famous for, just that you are famous at all. And, as William Hung can attest, the pay is the same. If you are willing to be humiliated, you, too, can be a star.
And what could be more American than dreaming of being a rock star? Rock stars live fast, make money, and party hard; that lifestyle could be considered the new American dream. Singers on “American Idol” express themselves (though they use other peoples’ songs) in the hopes of landing a record deal that hinges on their popularity with a nation of television watchers. Now that’s freedom of expression.
Reality television is not the only medium in which freedom of expression is booming. The Internet’s explosion of popularity has given rise to a whole array of possibilities which are just beginning to be realized. YouTube™, a popular online video site, has thousands of hours of homemade video, from squirrels on water skis to people hurting themselves playing with their Nintendo™. Sites like MySpace™ and Facebook™ give everyone the ability to have their own website, from a fledgling band to a sports team to a grandmother.
And then we have the world of blogs. Anyone can have a blog, and anyone can say just about anything they want in a blog. They’re used to vent, to brag, to gossip, to spread rumors, to report on events, to lie, to make announcements, and, most importantly, to influence public opinion. The notion of blogs seems to be a direct response to the old concept of “news;” that is, newspapers and television stations decide what is news and what is not, then they report that news and that’s what the people know. If society’s feelings about politicians have regressed since Watergate, their opinions about the media have followed. Many people feel that the news is biased, that it’s too liberal or too conservative, too negative or too focused on showing rather than telling (that is, is something newsworthy if there’s no film or video?). Then there’s the timeliness issue: people want news now, not tonight at eleven or tomorrow morning.
So, in step blogs to fill that void. Blogs—even those written by newspapers, which have grudgingly realized that blogs are more than a fad—do not have to follow the traditional rules of reporting. Confirmation and quotes are less important than breaking the big news, even if it has to be reported as a rumor only. If I visit a rally for a politician and he uses a racially insensitive phrase, I can write about it on my blog that very second if I have the proper technology. Five minutes later, the word is out, and no one had to wait for the official story. This speed also alleviates the spin that will no doubt come from the offending politician. The vision of bloggers as lazy twenty-somethings who live in their parents’ basements and sit around working in their underwear is going by the wayside as people begin to realize the importance of some of these sites.
Blogs and message boards prove that everyone has an opinion, and that it’s often easier to type it than to say it. It’s also much easier to post something online than to get on television, or to get people to show up to hear you speak.
Of course, this is a slippery slope. Giving people this type of freedom can have some dangerous side effects. What’s to stop me from going on my blog and spreading deceitful rumors, or using insulting language? Nothing, really, at least to a degree. The Internet is not truly anonymous; anyone can be traced if someone wants to try hard enough. If I post on my blog that I’m planning to kill the President, I’m just as likely to get in trouble as if I proclaimed this at a bar or airport. And if I claim something hurtful and untrue about someone, I can still be sued for slander or libel.
In my mind, all of this is a de facto response to political correctness. Reality television, blogs, message boards, all of it. It’s as though having thoughts repressed and rewired has caused us to need to vent. It also opens people’s eyes to the fact that they are not alone; they’re not necessarily crazy because they think something. In the end, these outlets create a series of communities of like-minded people, people who root for the same team or vote for the same party, people who hated the movie Titanic or people who are obsessed with the band Linkin Park or want to be the next American Idol. And, whether on national television, in semi-moderated forums, or on their own blog, they express these beliefs and desires. It may not be in a medium imagined by the Founding Fathers, or even this generation’s fathers, but it’s a fairly pure form of self-expression.
As I sit back and think about it, I wonder if this isn’t some sort of trap. I wonder if the government isn’t performing a magic trick, pushing this relatively harmless “freedom” with one hand while hiding something more meaningful with the other. I no longer can assume any sort of privacy when I make a phone call, but it’s okay, because I can go on my blog and vent about it and nobody will come to my house and make me disappear. It’s not South America during the 1970s, but it’s not exactly America either. It’s the same paradox it’s always been: technology has made the world greater; technology has ruined the world. Email and cell phones are wonderful inventions which make communication easy and inexpensive, but they also make institutional eavesdropping incredibly easy. The Internet offers a wealth of information at your fingertips, full of facts, figures, opinions, Star Trek analysis, and the starting lineup of the 1972 Dallas Cowboys. It’s also full of videos of sex with animals, hateful messages, and your bank account numbers. You might use it to track down a long-lost relative or friend from high school; someone else might use it to solicit your 12-year-old daughter. Technology reflects, and perhaps magnifies, human nature, so new technology always reflects the best and worst we have to offer.
(An aside: Could the government be that smart? Could they be fooling us so? The answer, of course, is no, they are not that smart. But this doesn’t mean pop culture isn’t used as a distraction, that these types of events aren’t hyped up to take our minds off the terrible things happening in the world. We can’t control Iraq, or Darfur, or Guantanamo, so we might as well watch “Survivor.” If we all paid more attention, things would be very different; but, of course, we would all go insane and kill ourselves. It’s human nature to be distracted.)
This is why freedom of expression is such a dangerous thing. Allowing people to freely converse lets things out into the world that many people would prefer not be there. It also allows genius a chance to grow and bloom. No one said this was easy.
Of course, there are alternatives to free expression.
“Censorship offends me.” — Unknown
Censorship always lurks around the corner and, much like the Ku Klux Klan, is always strongest when the society is weakest. Also like the KKK, it’s an easy answer to what is perceived as a grave danger, but an answer which actually weakens the country and society further.
I work in a library. Censorship is a big deal here. I sometimes think librarians view themselves as the last line of defense against the tools of censorship. What other profession would celebrate Banned Books Week? (Well, maybe teachers, too.) I remember when I was hired, all the way back as a freshman work-study student. My supervisor at the time launched into a spiel about the library as a haven from censorship and governmental interference, complete with instructions on how to handle FBI agents should they come to the library demanding to see patrons’ records.
It was 1999, pre-September 11th. I was 18 years old. All I thought was, “are you kidding me?”
Not too many years later, after the Twin Towers came down and American society was irreparably changed and freedom of expression was again on the endangered list, I found myself in the position of supervisor at the library. And I found myself giving almost the exact same speech, in the exact same fervent fashion, to a group of incoming freshmen workers. At this time, governmental interference was something I could actually see happening. And I didn’t notice many skeptical looks as I was delivering the message.
This is how fast things change. At one point, who could imagine a war on something as abstract as terror? Another memory I have, from my sophomore year of high school, is of a visiting teacher in my history class. He was from the Czech Republic, and a pretty sharp guy. One day, offhandedly, he mentioned his belief that the United States military could defeat a combination of the rest of the world’s military in a war. The rest of the world! And, what’s more, the class believed him. Why would we not? His words reflected the view of the United States as the world’s only superpower, a view which, it should be noted, became very popular. Now we are proving that we cannot defeat a single country even after we deposed its leader.
As always, at times in which the strength of the country is called into question, the issue of censorship comes to the forefront. Some people claim that any criticism of the government, the president or the country is insulting to our troops overseas, fighting and dying for our freedom. They strive to rally everyone behind the leaders, to show support across party lines and across belief systems. Instead of challenging our politicians to make tough decisions and find alternate solutions, we are expected to blindly follow the abstract notion of “patriotism” wherever it leads us. Of course, this is a dangerous path to follow, since it encourages the suspension of critical thought and substitutes in the easy answer. And that, in a nutshell, is censorship.
“Books won’t stay banned. They won’t burn. Ideas won’t go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.” — Alfred Whitney Griswold (New York Times 1959)
As I mentioned before, library-types don’t take kindly to censorship. Ask most anyone who works in a library and they can trot out examples of books being banned from libraries for ridiculous reasons, from the Harry Potter series (wizardry apparently equals Satan-worshipping) to Lolita (again with the Puritan stuff). Censors don’t want people thinking too much. They have a certain view of the world and some things just do not fit in it. Banning books from a library may not seem, on the surface, to be all that egregious. There are worse crimes, right? Certainly, this is true, but that doesn’t make the concept of censorship any less important. Book-banning is the easy answer. If no one reads a book, no one is forced to deal with the issues raised within. Another question I was asked, as a freshman hire, and which I now ask to freshman hires is: “How do you feel about handling books you don’t necessarily agree with?” Most students laugh when they are presented with this question because, well, it seems laughable. Sure, no problem.
But what happens when you check a book out to a patron about a religion you disagree with? Or a religion which pretends that your religion doesn’t exist? What about a book that blatantly, perhaps unfairly, attacks your religion? Or one that supports abortion? Or one that supports illegal immigration? Or one that gives instructions for building a weapon? Or one that…you get the point. Suddenly, the question isn’t that laughable. Will you look down upon the person checking out the book? Make a snide comment? Get in an argument? Tell the government?
The point is, someone, and most likely many someones, agree with the viewpoints espoused in those books. So, really, who are you to censor it, no matter how fervent your beliefs? Inside all of us, though, is a fear that everything we believe in might be wrong. This fear is more advanced in some people than in others, but we all have it to some degree. And this fear causes people to do rash things, like insist people not read books because of the wizardry portrayed within. Yet this is always disguised in some way.
“Did you ever hear anyone say, ‘That work had better be banned
because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me?’”
— Joseph Henry Jackson (Andrews 1989, 41)
In the television show “The Simpsons,” Helen Lovejoy’s character has a catchphrase: “Won’t somebody please think of the children?!” Yes, it’s always the children. Children are untouched lumps of clay constantly being corrupted by the surrounding world. Offensive books are just the start. Instead of having faith that children can read varying points of view and make their own decisions, it’s much easier to put blinders on and shelter them. It’s the same kind of thinking that’s causing school districts to do away with games like dodgeball and tag. Learning the lessons these games teach may not always be fun, but they are necessary; otherwise, how do children learn to deal with people who are stronger than them or try to bully them around?
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” — Voltaire (Tallentyre 1906)
Freedom of expression always seems to be at a crossroads. Landmark Supreme Court decisions, F.C.C. rulings, your teacher disapproving of you wearing a Mötley Crüe t-shirt to class—all of these mark the ebb and flow of the First Amendment.
Of course, most people don’t think about the big picture of freedom of expression, they just complain that Mrs. Crabface made them change their shirt. Any restriction on one’s own personal freedom elicits an oft-haughty backlash. There was, of course, a grace period after September 11. People sucked it up and realized that airport lines were going to be long and police officers were going to be less lenient.
That grace period lasted about a month.
Now, it’s right back where it started. It’s a staunchly American perspective, too: we want to be safe when we fly, but we don’t want to have to wait in a long security line. For the most part, we have passively accepted many of these restrictions, but we complain about them constantly. The interesting thing about the complaints is that, in general, people seem more put off by the inconvenience than the overall lack of privacy. We also want competent security people, but no one is willing to fork over the money to pay for more TSA employees or to raise the wages to make it a more desirable job. I guess it works that way in all walks of life; we want the best but don’t want to pay for it.
And that raises the worst aspect of the freedom of expression. It’s not a “free country.” As stupid as the bumper stickers were, the message was correct: “Freedom isn’t free.” The notion of free expression has raised the whiniest, most hypocritical society, one in which people show up to environmental fundraisers in stretch Hummers and so-called “pro-life” advocates (who I refer to as “anti-abortionists” because, well, pretty much everyone is pro-life, at least to a degree) get their message of how terrible it is to kill innocent fetuses across by blowing up abortion clinics and the people inside.
But this is the price you pay when citizens feel that the freedom of expression is a natural, God-given right as opposed to something that was fought for and consciously placed, by humans, in the Constitution and The Bill of Rights. This feeling of entitlement is so pervasive that we all find ourselves slipping into it, even though we may consciously fight it: “It’s my right to drive a Ford Excursion with no passengers in it, whenever I feel like it. Hell, I’m paying for it, and the gas ain’t cheap! Even better, I’ll complain that I dropped $90 last time I went to the gas station so everyone will pity me and my gas budget.” This is not a basic right, no matter what we think.
A couple hundred years ago, a bunch of guys got together and wrote some documents, told Great Britain to bugger off, and decided they didn’t want autocratic rulers in their fledgling nation. So they gave the people rights: things like voting and freedom from torture and the freedom to worship whatever god they chose, or to not worship any god if they so chose. And people liked these ideas, and the nation grew, and these freedoms became a cultural and political backbone.
But it’s not a natural right. This is the point which is so often lost. “It’s a free country.” The patriots who wrote these timeless documents put themselves at grave risk doing so. The hundreds of thousands of soldiers who have defended the nation since then have done so knowing they were risking their lives for people they would never meet, and for freedoms they might not live to enjoy. These people earned their freedom of expression.
Me? What have I done? Well, I wrote this essay, but that’s not much. I take so many things for granted. I can purchase books or music with anti- American, anti-Christian or anti-war themes and not be dragged in for questioning. I can go to school, any school I want, study anything I want, play any instrument I want, play any sport I want. My vote counts, even if its value is sometimes debatable. I am not forced to worship in any certain way, or obey the rules of a king. I wasn’t selected at an early age for having a certain talent, then forced to spend the next 10 years of my life honing that talent to serve my country’s wishes.
And yet I have these freedoms. I have done nothing to earn them, but I get them anyway. I’m as much of a hypocrite as anyone, because I take them for granted, and I complain at the smallest slight. And that’s the beauty of free expression—I have the right to complain. My complaints are listened to or they are ignored, but they are not punished. More often than I would like, my needs or desires are forced to take a backseat to the needs of the culture, like when the Resident Assistants used to come and make me turn down my music in the middle of the night. Now, as then, I’m not happy about it, but I go along to get along. I enjoy more freedoms than the majority of the world, and this allows me to rant and rave about politics, sports, race, popular culture and all of the other distractions in the world.
In the end, freedom of expression and the First Amendment occupy a place in our culture that is constantly in flux, but are always of the utmost importance. Our culture’s ability to fight against the forces who desire and conspire to limit our freedom will determine our ability to survive and continue to thrive.
Now, if only we could learn to use our freedom of expression for things that are truly important.
“I have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” — Thomas Jefferson (Text on the Jefferson Memorial)
References
- Anderson, Steve (director). 2005. FUCK. THINK Film and Rainstorm Entertainment in association with Bad Apple Films; a Mudflap Films production.
- Andrews, Robert.1989. The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Gladwell, Malcolm. 2005. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. New York: Little, Brown and Co.
- Intellectual Battler: Alfred Whitney Griswold. 1959. New York Times (1857-Current File), February 24, http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed August 29, 2007).
- “Quotations About Censorship.” http://www.quotegarden.com/censorship.html. (accessed August 3, 2007)
- Tallentyre, S.G (pseud. for Evelyn Beatrice Hall). 1906. The Friends of Voltaire. London: J. Murray.