Is Censorship Justified?

Is Censorship Justified?

Ever wondered the reason behind racial discrimination, sexual discrimination, children committing crime or violence? The main reason is that censorship is not properly imposed or there is a need of censorship in the society. Censorship is the suppression of ideas and information that certain people, individual, groups or government officials find it objectionable, offensive or dangerous on others. There are varieties of other definitions but all have in common the concept of withholding information and/or resources from those who seek it. Hence censorship is essential in society to eliminate discrimination on basis of race and sex, protect children, maintain stability and restore what censor sees as lost moral values. Censorship occurs when expressive materials like books, magazines, movies, videos, music or work of art are restricted to particular audiences based on their age or other characteristics. (http://www.ala.org/oif/intellectualfreedeomandcensorship.html)

Censorship is not a recent development. It wasn’t imposed properly or there weren’t strict regulations before. In the article “Hate Radio” by Patricia J. Williams, the writer says that radio was a powerful source of media. It had influenced a lot of people. The power of media can change the course of history. The host on the radio such as Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern were also influencing a lot of people. The theme was not merely the specific intolerance on hot topics as race and gender, but a much more general contempt for the world, a verbal stoning of anything different. Most of the audience on this radio shows were white and male. Most of the callers have spent their lives walling themselves off from any real experience with blacks, feminists, lesbians or gays. Rush Limbaugh tell his audience “what you believe inside, you can talk about it in the marketplace.” Unfortunately what’s inside is then mistaken for what’s outside, treated empirical and political reality. Most of the talks on the radio were being racist against the blacks. This had influenced so much that a statistics showed that 53 percent of people in America agree that blacks and Latinos are less intelligent than whites, and a majority believed that blacks are lazy, violent, welfare-dependent and unpatriotic. Hence this stereotype among the people was due to the lack of censorship.(Williams,502)

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... between exposure to pornography and commission of violence, but this research was conducted in 1993 which is now outdated. Another point, which she emphasized, was that a greater availability of sexually explicit material seems to correlate with higher indices of gender equality. But when the sexually explicit material shows the subordination of women or women presented as sexual object who enjoy pain or humiliation, how can they be equal as men when the men are shown as the gender that enjoys subordinating women. (Strossen,550). Feminist author Diana Russell notes in her book Rape and Marriage the correlation between deviant behavior (including abuse) and pornography. She also found that pornography leads men and women to experience conflict, suffering, and sexual dissatisfaction.

(http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/porno.html)

Hence censorship is essential in order to maintain peace and stability in the society. It will decrease the crime rates. Children can be exposed to sexual matters in school in a different manner as education. Excessive amount of sexual explicit material would surely be harmful. Censorship does not have a downside and it will be a better society.