Censorship: The Landmine In The War Against Democracy

Democracy is beautiful, but democracy is not easy to achieve. Within every individual whom resides in a democratic society, lies the responsibility to protect and use the rights that they are given. In America, the 1st Amendment right to free speech is the most essential of our basic entitlements, because it allows us to express our approval or disapproval of anything pertaining to our morals. Coinciding with that right to speak out is the right to protest, in which the cases of verbal dissent can evolve into physical action. Both of these fundamental rights were reserved for “we the people,” so that citizens of this country will contain the tools necessary to ultimately decide and hold more power than the political body of authority in which they appoint. When either of these components are not easily obtainable by citizens who make up society, the validity of democracy is threatened. When an authority figure begins to dictate what is to be said, seen, or heard Fascism becomes prevalent, which means your rights are no rights. Those who obey rules blindly with no individual conscience become dangerous even though their intentions are toward a greater collective good. That element of obedience combined with an authority figure’s ability to silence society in any way undermines autonomy and is unacceptable. Ideally, everyone would agree on what is classified as art/expression and what is viewed as obscene and vulgar, but utopia is yet to be discovered. In order to avoid being a biased, misinformed soldier for authority, it is extremely important to individually analyze and critique the media you digest rather than ignorantly concurring with someone else’s morals. Within the passage, I will apply Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram’s extensive research on human obedience, and his

descriptions of various socio-psychological aspects that contribute to obedience to authority in his study titled “The Perils of Obedience.”

From a historical perspective we have seen human beings blasted with high powered water hoses and bitten by police patrol dogs simply because they exercised their right to speak out and peacefully revolt against the ridiculous injustices they had to face daily. The world has witnessed this in a democratic society, more specifically America, which shows the possibility of loop holes and imperfection of what we choose to follow to this day. But the strength and power of the media has made it possible for the most important of issues to be confronted and not shunned away by those who wish to remain conservative and passive when change is absolutely necessary. In most healthy nations, the media is the primary source of both objective and opinionated viewpoints alike. When voices begin to be tampered with by an authoritarian figure, whether it be by the censorship of books, music, internet eavesdropping or any other fashion of disrupting communication techniques, be afraid. The media is the shadow of reality, the possibility of true information or lack there of is inevitable in a free society. Therefore, authority intervention with the media should be held to a scintilla, to avoid the potential violation of the right to free speech. Author John Vivian alludes to this notion when he presents the history and construction of the American media in his book The Media of Mass Communication. Throughout the research essay I will also explore contents from the insightful book, Parental Advisory: Music Censorship In America by the Kent State graduate and Pop culture critic Eric Nuzum because they support my research that censoring is a potentially dangerous tool that should be avoided as much as possible.

Within the text he describes the history of music censorship in America chronologically

and factors that contribute to being censored, a couple examples being race (ethnicity), religion, and political commentary. Along with music, literature has been heavily scrutinized for its powerful influence on the masses. The prestigious American Library Association intensely disparages censoring books, while encouraging intellectual freedom by way of reading. They created a detailed list containing many legendary novels titled, Banned and/or Challenged Books from the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century, and this list shows how innocuous words are often twisted to fit an objectionable agenda. Fitting that category is the history of the “Index Librorum Prohibitorum” of the Catholic Church. That index being a list that was used for over 400 years to categorize and ban writings that were supposedly evil. The advocating of censorship derives from a fear of sort. This fear can ultimately undermine freedom and the fluidity of intellect, therefore should be avoided as much as possible.

“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 of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.“ This quote from the 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution, was a promise that assured citizens that the government would not intervene with their freedom of expression (Vivian 460). Ever since the early development of the American government, a superior authority has always attempted to silence an opposition. For instance, during the Partisan period (1796-1815) of the country many of the foremost thinkers discussed their viewpoints on how they believed the governing

should be in their young nation by way of exchanging essays in newspapers called the Federalist Papers. The debate often got heated and name calling was not out of the picture. President John Adams took offense to some of the commentary, thus leading to his passing of the Alien and Sedition Acts. This act “discouraged criticism of government” and prohibited “false, scandalous, malicious” statements about the body of politic, and violators could be and were jailed. This lasted until Thomas Jefferson succeeded John Adams in the presidency (Vivian 229). Even though the context of this act was as vague as the phrase “The War on Terror,” it brought about an interesting point. That point being the question, when does our right to express freely cross the line of civility? To create a forum of common understanding the mass media follows a distinct code of ethics. Within this code is the explanation of hate speech and libel. Hate Speech is described as offensive expressions, especially those aimed at racial, ethnic and sexual-orientation minorities, while libel is simply a written defamation (Vivian 466-467).