1984 Censorship Essay

More and more policies are made everyday to take away our rights and freedoms, and intrude our privacy. There are endless amounts of ways that the government infringes upon our freedoms everyday. Listing all of these would take an exceedingly long amount of time. Within 1984 the people of Oceania live under strict government policies that encroach on their freedoms everyday. As stated previously, they are watched by cameras, spies, and telescreens. “The logic at first was, since people have nothing to hide, they allow the government to spy on them with whatever resources deemed necessary. Unfortunately in time, you will have nothing to hide, because the agencies at all levels will already have everything documented: (Mosca 2). It doesn’t

The problem is some people consider certain text to be inappropriate, and want it to be censored or even banned. “By removing or banning books from schools, you are depriving the students from having these experiences and learning from them” (McNeil 1). Censorship prevents the learning process. If we censor everything that someone feels is offensive, how long will it be before we have nothing left to learn from because it’s all gone because people got offended? In the novel 1984, words are destroyed in order to narrow people's minds through the process of Newspeak. The idea is to take away certain words every so often to lessen the vocabulary of people. Eventually, there will be little to no words left. When that happens, there will be no way to communicate, and no way to even think. Humankind won't know anything. At the core, you’ll be nothing more than an average animal. Censorship of reading materials is damaging to the development of

“Censoring intolerant or offensive speech can be all but impossible to manage without threatening legitimate debate” (Gillman & Chemerinsky 1). If speech that is deemed to be “hateful” or “offensive” to others is censored, then you can not have a talk about something with someone. There can be no debates, because someone might be offended by it. In a free world, the right to express oneself is