Then the politicians started interfering
Think of the spotty Herberts.
Today’s censorship dilemma is about tales of actual villains. Politicians, being hysterical reactionaries who believe that the picture of crime in the media causes crime in reality, want Maurice the Censor to become Maurice the Censorious. They even have a little 19th century evidence which backs this up and the opinion of the Chief Constable of Birkenhead in 1936, who thought that depictions of criminal activities shouldn’t be allowed because of the deleterious effects it might have on young people.
Surely censorship is good for everyone, especially the young.
I got onto the matter of censorship and youth in yesterday’s entry. My inclination is to suspect that claims about censorship being necessary to save young people from their own stupidity is often based on a comparatively small number of incidents where a link between books or film or television and crime can be demonstrated, which results in the generalisation that because some were affected, all should be deprived of this particular source of entertainment. That’s not to say that anything which might be viewed by adults should be freely available to children, or that it doesn’t have an effect on young people; but often the materials in question seem to be being censored because of the few rather than the many.
The main problem, though, is the old Sorites Paradox. At what point should this material be censored? When 30% of readers imitate it? 60%? Or even numbers like 2% or 5%? I suppose it’s easier (and perhaps lazier) for politicians to ban it altogether as soon as possible so that the Daily Mail doesn’t want to know why it took them so long to react hysterically in accordance with their hysterical readers’ wishes.
Surely censorship is good for everyone, especially the young.
I got onto the matter of censorship and youth in yesterday’s entry. My inclination is to suspect that claims about censorship being necessary to save young people from their own stupidity is often based on a comparatively small number of incidents where a link between books or film or television and crime can be demonstrated, which results in the generalisation that because some were affected, all should be deprived of this particular source of entertainment. That’s not to say that anything which might be viewed by adults should be freely available to children, or that it doesn’t have an effect on young people; but often the materials in question seem to be being censored because of the few rather than the many.
The main problem, though, is the old Sorites Paradox. At what point should this material be censored? When 30% of readers imitate it? 60%? Or even numbers like 2% or 5%? I suppose it’s easier (and perhaps lazier) for politicians to ban it altogether as soon as possible so that the Daily Mail doesn’t want to know why it took them so long to react hysterically in accordance with their hysterical readers’ wishes.
It seems that I jumped the gun yesterday in more ways than one because tomorrow’s dilemma is about standards, and there’s even mention of the Daily Mail. But don’t let that put you off.
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