Defending the Poor from the Jaded Rich
A CASE FOR CENSORSHIP
Thomas Storck
Anyone currently undertaking to defend censorship has to reckon
not only with considerable abhorrence of the practice, but even
with distaste for the word itself. It seems that even those who
would like to restrict publications, broadcasts, or films shy away
from the term "censorship." They are at pains to distinguish what
they would do from what censors do. When the head of the National
Coalition on Television Violence testified before Congress in
December 1992 and presented a "10-point plan to sweep violence off
TV and off our streets," it is interesting that the first point in
the plan was "no censorship." No one wants to own up to being a
would-be censor, and thus very few are willing to stand up and
openly defend this venerable practice. But I am happy to do so,
for censorship has long seemed to me a necessary, if regrettable,
part of practical political wisdom and an opportunity for the
judicious exercise of human intelligence. For, human nature being
what it is, it is naive to think we can freely read and view
things that promote or portray evil deeds without sometimes
feeling encouraged to commit such deeds. And if this is the case,
then censorship can sometimes be a necessity.
But before defending censorship I need to define it. And I define
censorship simply as the restriction, absolute or merely to some
part of the population (e.g., to the unlearned or to children), by
the proper political authorities, of intellectual, literary, or
artistic material in any format. I want to note two things
especially about this definition. First, I am not talking simply
about censoring pornography. I also include censorship of works
that are expressions of erroneous <ideas>, a position which I
realize is extremely unpopular today, even more hated than the
banning of obscene works.
Secondly, I am concerned only with censorship by governments. The
determination of intellectual or cultural matters for the sake of
the common good, such as what books and other things the nation
may read or view, is not properly the work of private pressure
groups or crusading individuals, though their work may sometimes
be necessary when the state does not carry out its proper
functions in this area. But the state alone has general care of
the temporal common good, and censorship is one of the most
important ways of safeguarding that good.
I am concerned here only with censorship in the abstract. That is,
I am not defending or advocating any particular act of censorship
in the past, present, or future, or in any particular country or
legal system, though I do need to offer some hypothetical
examples. I am simply arguing that there is nothing intrinsically
wrong with censoring. All I hope to achieve is to make a
compelling case that censorship <as such> is an appropriate
exercise of governmental power and that the practical difficulties
necessarily involved, while great, are not overwhelming.
Since I am speaking of censorship in the abstract, considerations
based on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution or on
decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court are not relevant to my
argument. Whatever restrictions the American Constitution wisely
or unwisely imposes on governmental power with respect to freedom
of expression do not apply to governments <in general.>
What then is the case that can be made for censorship? It can be
stated in the following simple thesis: Ideas lead to actions, and
bad ideas often lead to bad acts, bringing harm to individuals and
possible ruin to societies. Just as the state has the right to
restrict and direct a person's actions when he is a physical
threat to the community, so also in the matter of intellectual or
cultural threats, the authorities have duties to protect the
community.
It is obviously necessary for me to explain and defend these
assertions, and the place to begin is with a discussion of the
question of whether we can actually identify good and evil. I said
above that "bad ideas often lead to bad acts," but if we cannot
identify what is the bad, then clearly we cannot know either bad
ideas or bad acts. One problem in discussions of whether we can
know good and evil is the assumption that we either know all good
and evil or we know none. It seems sometimes to be assumed that
proponents of censorship are claiming to know good and evil
exhaustively, that they know the moral status of everything that
exists. But this is not the case. If we knew with certainty that,
say, only one thing was evil, and if that evil were great enough
and threatened society enough, then we might well decide to censor
expressions and advocacy of that one thing, regardless of how
ignorant we were about other moral questions.
Can we actually know any evils? I think each reader already knows
or thinks he knows many more than one. So I will select an
instance of evil-rape. I suspect that all readers would readily
say that rape is clearly an evil. And an evil not because they
think so, but an evil in and of itself. Not an evil because most
people or most thinkers condemn it, but an evil independently of
what other people might believe. If this is the case, then human
beings <can> know with certainty at least one example of evil.
Now here is an example of something I think most people would
agree was not only evil, but likely to encourage evil conduct. I
have read that at some time during the 1970s there were billboards
in Los Angeles and perhaps elsewhere advertising a Rolling Stones
album which showed a pretty woman with bruises- black and blue
marks-with the legend, "I'm black and blue from the Rolling Stones
and I love it." Abuse of women is an evil, and the not too subtle
encouragement given to the practice, by insinuating that women
really want to be abused, seems to me an almost textbook example
of the need for censorship.
To return to my first example, suppose someone wrote a book
arguing that women really want to be raped, that they enjoy it,
and that men do them a favor by raping them. Suppose, in addition,
the book maintained that rape is the best sex going and the best
way to prove one's masculinity-including, by way of an appendix,
statistics on how few rapists get caught and the light sentences
often given. Now rape, I think we agreed above, is clearly an
evil. Would anyone argue that such a book would not promote rapes?
Even if it were true that many men would not be affected by such a
book nevertheless can we confidently say that such a book would
not be responsible for rapes? Do we want to remove whatever
inhibitions there may be that restrain even one potential rapist?
Now if we can identify certain evils, and if advocacy of those
evils seems likely to encourage people to commit them, then why
should we not take the next and logical step and prohibit such
advocacy? If to commit certain evils is harmful to others and a
crime, then why should advocating and encouraging such evils be
perfectly lawful? Must a community be unable to protect itself?
Must the authorities be helpless to restrain the source of the
evil?
This constitutes the best case that can be made for censorship.
But in most people's minds the case <against> censorship looms
much larger than any assent to this argument. It looms so much
larger that in effect the real case for censorship is largely the
removal of people's overwhelming fears of censorship. Most
people's objections to censorship are based on fear. So with this
in mind, I will discuss the chief <objections> to censorship.
The most fundamental objection, already touched on above, is to
deny that we know with certainty any goods or any evils. If this
were true, then in practicing censorship we would be just as
likely to restrain some newfound truth as to protect society from
some dangerous evil. And though this professed ignorance of good
and evil is popular today, the only people who can consistently
make such an argument are those who are not advocates of anything
at all. I have never met any of them. Many may profess moral
skepticism in a broad philosophical sense, but they are often the
most passionate defenders of this or that cause or opinion. How
they reconcile this with their supposed skepticism, if they even
try, I do not know.
The argument from skepticism is put very forcefully by John Stuart
Mill's <On Liberty>. But those who hold this opinion, and who
argue most passionately against censorship on the grounds of our
lack of certainty of good and evil, must face the fact that every
time society makes a law it is making a judgment of good and evil.
If some street thug had stolen Mill's hat, and when he demanded it
back the policeman and magistrate replied that for all they knew
private property might be immoral and therefore they could not
compel the thief to return the hat, Mill might have been more than
a little annoyed. Yet to support the punishment of thieves while
allowing the publication of books advocating theft-on the ground
that we do not know whether theft is right or wrong-seems a trifle
inconsistent and even hypocritical.
Another objection is to deny that there is a connection between
advocacy of evil and any actual instances of evil. But even among
those who tend to oppose censorship, there is a recognition that
ideas lead to action and bad ideas lead to bad action. For
example, many liberally-minded people attempt to prevent their
children, and everyone else's too, from reading books that
perpetuate what they consider sexual stereotypes. They believe
they have identified an instance of evil, "sexual stereotyping,"
and that reading books that promote it or take it for granted will
tend to form "sexist" individuals who in turn will commit "sexist"
acts. Regardless of whether one regards "sexual stereotypes" as
evil, and regardless of whether one regards such liberally-minded
people as in fact illiberal, this position is certainly a coherent
one. It is easy to understand why such people do not want children
reading books that contain what they consider to be evil. They
have made the obvious judgment that writings tend to influence
action, and almost all of us would understand such a judgment,
even if we disagree with their application of that judgment in
this particular case.
Take a couple different examples: How many of us would think that
it would be of no consequence were the Ku Klux Klan or the neo-
Nazis to own half the newspapers and television networks in the
country? Or how many of us wouldn't mind if our children were
regularly taught by outspoken racists in the schools? Indeed, if
ideas expressed in written or spoken word do not lead men to act,
then why does every political, religious, philosophical, or
cultural group or movement attempt to persuade us by the written
and spoken word how to live and act? And why are millions of
dollars spent on commercial advertising?
Perhaps few will now be bold-or illogical-enough to attack
censorship on either of the above grounds. But there are two other
arguments against censorship. The first is that whatever the
formal case in favor of censorship, in actual practice censors
have always stifled creativity and hindered the discovery of
truth, so that whatever danger there is to society from the
advocacy of evil, much more harm will result from the always
stupid-and in some cases malicious-actions of the censors
themselves.
Strictly speaking, this argument is not opposed to the state's
right to censor. It simply says that since we will always or
nearly always do it unintelligently, it would be much better not
to do it at all. Some of those who would argue thus might even
admit the (purely theoretical) point that were there someone
endowed with superhuman intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, and
probity, it might be safe to allow him to be the censor. But never
anyone else. Although I am arguing for censor ship in the
abstract, I <am> thinking of the world as it actually is. And
though I willingly admit that many instances of censorship by
individuals and pressure groups have been stupid or perverse,
still I believe that in a society fully committed to its practice,
censorship can be carried on no more foolishly than we manage the
rest of human affairs. Restrictions on books, films, or broadcasts
always carry some danger. To give fallible men the power to decide
what we can read or view or hear will surely sometimes allow
excesses and even outrages. But so does giving some men the power
to arrest or to punish. The question is: Is an activity necessary
enough that we will accept inevitable abuses for the sake of the
good that needs to be done? We make some men policemen and give
them guns and the right to arrest others and even in some cases
the right to use deadly force. Obviously there have been and will
be abuses. But most of us do not advocate doing away with the
police, even though they sometimes shoot and <kill> innocent
people. Instead, things such as more and better education for
policemen and more and clearer guidelines for use of force or of
arrest are usually suggested. I would say similar things about
censors. The ideal censor is not some ill-educated, parochial
bigot, but someone of liberal education and continued wide
reading, someone with a grasp of first principles and enough
experience and wisdom to see how they should be put into practice.
Of course, even then our censors will make mistakes. As in all
legal matters, there must be room for reconsideration and appeal.
But if we know that something is evil, and see that its advocacy
is likely to bring about or increase actual evil acts, then to do
nothing because we anticipate that censors will sometimes err is
not a responsible position to take. Those who think that, with
censorship, literature and creativity will dry up, forget that
most of the great works of the past, up to and in some cases
beyond the 19th century, were produced under government or
ecclesiastical censorship. When we think of a society in which
censorship is practiced, we should think of the one that produced
Shakespeare's plays or Cervantes's <Don Quixote>, not of the Bible
Belt's narrow provincialism or the tyrannies of Hitler or Stalin.
Censors need not be ignorant fanatics.
The other argument commonly made against censorship is this: That
in the free play of ideas, truth will ultimately and necessarily
triumph. Censorship, therefore, is at best unnecessary and at
worst a hindrance to the discovery of truth. Strictly speaking,
this argument is really not against censorship, and when examined
carefully will actually be found to support it. For even if it is
the case that truth will always emerge from the give and take of
free debate (a questionable proposition), how can the suppression
of evident error harm that process? If a number of assertions are
competing for acceptance, and (let us say) we know that two of
them are false, how can removing those two from the debate make it
harder for the truth to be discerned among the rest? Surely by
narrowing the field and leaving us more time to examine those
theories that might be true, we have made it even more likely that
the truth will be found in our free examination of conflicting
ideas. Moreover, most of those who make the claim that truth will
always emerge from totally free debate are not really interested
in discovering truths. They simply use this argument to foster a
climate in which relativism flourishes and mankind is perpetually
in doubt about truth and error, right and wrong.
A final point that must be noted is the connection between anti-
censorship arguments and the free market. Both glorify
individualism at the expense of the common good, and the rich at
the expense of the poor. It is primarily the rich who promote and
subsidize ideas and art that undermine traditional ways of life,
and it is primarily the poor who suffer on that account. Society
exists to protect and promote the welfare of all, but especially
of the poor and the workingman. To exalt the free and
irresponsible expression of the individual is to take up a
position contrary to the community's duty of protecting the poor.
Only those with sufficient money and ennui have the time or
resources to produce ideas or art that corrupt or debase.
Censorship is a protection of the poor from the acting out of the
perverted fantasies of the rich, from the Marquis de Sade to
Leopold and Loeb. Who benefits today from the continuing
corruption of the public by movies, television, and music filled
with sex and violence? Studio owners, directors, actors, and
suchlike. Like unfettered capitalism, complete freedom of
expression is simply a means by which those with money and
influence remake society at the expense of those without these
things.
This, I think, is what can be said on behalf of censorship. Our
opposition to it is largely based on fear and the emotional
effects of slogans. If we could free our minds, we might be able
to consider the case for censorship and see that it has merit.
That there is no consensus today about what is right and wrong
does not disprove what I have said. For though now we could never
actually produce a censorship code that commanded a consensus of
support, yet we can still recognize in the abstract that
censorship is a legitimate practice. It never hurts to order our
thoughts correctly, even if we cannot just now put them into
practice.
This article was taken from the May 1996 issue of the "New Oxford
Review". For subscription information please write: New Oxford
Review, 1069 Kains Ave., Berkeley, CA 94706, 510-526-5374.
Published monthly except for combined January-February and July-
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