America Needs Censorship Essay - 1567 Words

Being frustrated is disagreeable, but the real disasters in life begin when you get what you want. For almost a century now, a great many intelligent, well-meaning and articulate people have argued eloquently against any kind of censorship of art and entertainment. Within the past twenty years, courts and legislatures have found these arguments so persuasive that censorship is now a relative rarity in most states. Is there triumphant exhilaration in the land? Hardly. Somehow, things have not worked out as they were supposed to, and many civil-libertarians have said this was not what they meant. They wanted a world in which Eugene ONeills Desire under the Elms could be produced, or James Joyces Ulysses published, without interference.†¦show more content†¦That those who certainly know this are moved to deny it merely indicates how a dogmatic resistance to the idea of censorship can result in a mindless insistence on the absurd. For the plain fact is that we all believe that there is a point at which the public authorities ought to step in to limit the self-expression of an individual or a group. A theatrical director might find someone willing to commit suicide on the stage. We would not allow that. And I know of no one who argues that we ought to permit public gladiatorial contests, even between consenting adults. No society can be utterly indifferent to the ways its citizens publicly entertain themselves. Bearbaiting and cockfighting are prohibited only in part out of compassion for the animals; the main reason is that such spectacles, were felt to debase and brutalize the citizenry who flocked to witness them. The question with regard to pornography and obscenity is whether they will brutalize and debase our citizenry. We are, after all, not dealing with one book or one movie. We are dealing with a general tendency that is suffusing our entire culture. Pornographys whole purpose, it seems to me, is to treat human beings obscenely, to deprive them of their specifically human dimension. Imagine a well-known man in a hospital ward, dying an agonizing death. His bladder and bowels empty themselves of their own accord. His consciousness isShow MoreRelatedEssay on America Needs Music Censorship550 Words   |  3 PagesAmerica Needs Music Censorship â€Å"Obscene: so excessive as to be offensive† (http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary). This is the way the Webster dictionary defines obscene. How do you? Some say obscene is vulgar; others say the best way to describe obscene is through disgust. No matter how it is thought of, obscene material is everywhere in society. Television is becoming more liberal, magazines are less edited, and music is more abrasive. At some point, the public must put its foot downRead More Internet Censorship Essay - America Needs Censorship of Cyberspace1330 Words   |  6 PagesAmerica Needs Censorship of Cyberspace      Ã‚  Ã‚   In June of 1998 the country was horrified to learn of the death of James Byrd Jr. He was a 49-year-old black man who had been found horribly mutilated after being dragged to death. Authorities have charged three men with murder and violation of civil rights (A Fatal Ride in the Night 33). Obviously, if convicted, these men are guilty of a horrible crime, but what if this crime had been committed after viewing a racist website? If a personRead More America Needs Media Censorship Essay2288 Words   |  10 PagesAmerica Needs Media Censorship Introduction In a world in which acts of heinous violence, murder or crude and shocking behavior seem to be a normal occurrence, it may lead one to wonder what has put society onto this slippery slope. How did this type of behavior come to be so acceptable and in some cases glorifiable? A careful study of society may lead to multi media as being the main cause in this changing of ideals. The modern world has become desensitized to the acts shown on televisionRead MoreAmerica Needs Internet Censorship Essay1046 Words   |  5 Pagesher computer screen. This could not have happened though. All she was doing was casually browsing the internet before a pop-up appeared. Although it may seem hard to believe, the major cause of events such as this is the lack of censorship on the internet. Internet censorship relates to the removal of offensive, inappropriate, or controversial content published online. The current problem with the internet is that there are few restrictions on what can be published or viewed. Several sites on the internetRead MoreCensorship Of The Beat Generation1062 Words   |  5 Pagesperiod for America so many turned to writing to reflect their situation as a form of comfort. However, there were restrictions on what was read, written, heard and spoke due to the influence of communism. During this period of suppression, there a group of young, intelligent and anti-conformist boys who were studying at Colombia University. Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg are the ‘founders’ of Beat Generation. The group beliefs focused on individuality, lack of censorship and salvationRead MoreCensorship And Its Effect On Society1680 Words   |  7 PagesI. A. Censorship. This single word describes the world’s history of literary sabotage, the idea of rejecting a concept or other medium of propaganda simply because it exhibits a disagreeable or supposedly immorally tepid aspect, then forcibly substituting a more ‘ethical’ ide al. Since King Hammurabi stamped out the first cuneiform laws in Babylon, human society has experienced relentless episodes of chronic censorship. It wasn’t until the Roman Empire however, that the word censor was coined, meaningRead MoreEssay about Censorship in America1048 Words   |  5 Pages Censorship in America nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Since this country was founded, we have had a set of unalienable rights that our constitution guarantees us to as Americans. One of the most important rights that is mentioned in our constitution is the right to free speech. â€Å"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; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and toRead MoreCensorship Essay1325 Words   |  6 PagesCensorship â€Å"Congress shall make no law†¦prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right to petition the government for a redress of government.†(Ravitch, 118) As stated in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, the people of this nation have the right to exercise their beliefs out loud, or in writing. With this in mind, does the government have the right to undermine the foundation of our nation, and censor what we readRead MoreThe Freedom Of Speech Across The World Wide Web1133 Words   |  5 PagesResearch Paper #1 Internet censorship has been a growing issue in America. Many bills like The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) are trying to be passed that are trying to control the internet. If the internet is censored and controlled by the government we will be losing our freedom of speech across the world-wide web. This is huge issue in other countries where people are jailed and prosecuted forRead MoreCensorship Is Not Limited Repressive Regimes Or Network Television?1522 Words   |  7 PagesCensorship is not limited to repressive regimes or network television. Weather we know it or not censorship is happening all the time throughout the day. We censor ourselves, we listen to censored music and as students we see the internet being heavily censored in school. The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) was signed into law in 2000; the law requires any public schools or library to filter any inappropriate content from the computers being used by minors. Since the law has been put in