Censorship

Essay by 666Finch666High School, 10th grade April 2010

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Censorship

The freedom to read is essential to the democratic way of life. But

today, that freedom is under attack. Private groups and public authorities

everywhere are working to remove both books and periodicals from sale, to

exclude certain books from public schools, to censor and silence magazines

and newspapers, and to limit "controversial" books and periodicals to the

general public. The suppression of reading materials is suppression of

creative thought. Books and periodicals are not the only ones being

suppressed by pressures to the political and social systems. They are also

being brought against the educational system, films, radio, television, and

against the graphic and theatre arts. However or whenever these attacks

occur, they usually fall at least one of the following categories:

Religion

War & Peace (Violence)

Sociology & Race

Language

Drugs

Sex

Inappropriate Adolescent Behaviour

What is Obscenity? Clearly something hard to talk about

constructively. "Obscenity" is difficult to discuss honestly.

After all,

what makes a thing obscene? It is Something too vague perhaps to be

defined. It's an elusive term we use, but can't explain. Different people

often see things differently. Some see obscenity in nude pictures, statues,

paintings, etc. While others find less obscenity in these things. All the

same, "obscene" isn't the same as "wrong" or "bad". Clearly obscenity is

not identical with evil. It only covers a single segment of it. But what is

that segment? A look at the words "obscenity" and "pornography" suggests

that it is a segment that didn't worry people very much till relatively

recently.

Though censorship was known in english law quite early on, it wasn't

for obscenity but for heresy and sedition."Undue" exploitation of sex" is

what criminal law in Canada prohibits. This is how criminal law defines

obscenity. But it is rather vague. It doesn't differentiate...