Censorship: Opposing Viewpoints
Censorship is one of the gauges of civilization; it is a measure of the rationality and liberalism of an individual in an evolving society. Its origins are unclear, however, it is certain that it has been around for thousands of years. Fustel de Coulanges said in his writings: the citizens of the ancient city-state “knew neither liberty in private life, liberty in education, nor religious liberty. The human person counted for little against that holy and almost divine authority which was called the country or state” (Intro xii). The powers in charge during these pre-Renaissance times controlled what the everyday person saw or heard often because the opinions of a few could challenge this “divine authority” that was never questioned. “Often the church’s attempt to keep the gospel out of the hands of their congregations was based on a belief that untutored minds might be led into heresy by reading the Gospel, through misunderstanding” (Intro xiv). Today, the nature of the community determines the goals for the selection of library and classroom materials. “In public libraries, the curriculum can be equated to any topic with sufficient community interest to warrant inclusion in the collecti . . .
He is most concerned with the separation of church from our school system and quotes one of our founding father John Adams as saying: “Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of this life and studies is to know God, and Jesus Christ which is eternal life. The new guidelines for determining whether a work is protected by the First Amendment (or if it is censorable or not) is based on the following considerations: “(a) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that work taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interest…(b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and (c) whether the work taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” (Intro 2). “The results has two opposing points of view: one believes that more suitable materials can be found…the other maintains that intellectual freedom can be upheld only if students are given an opportunity to examine any available relevant materials in order to gain the insights needed to reach their own conclusions” (Intro 1). For those who think there is nothing to gain from reading fiction but moral degradation Card states: “Unlike life, it [fiction] begins and ends; we can close the book and draw conclusions. The issue of censorship is relevant to us today because a person from either of these view points whichever we agree with determines what we and our children are exposed to. She also wants to bring religion back to our schools and wonders, “who gave the curriculum dictators the authority to select books that challenge the children’s religion, values, or parents?” (Schlafly 183). And therefore lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning” (Falwell 163). It is he feeling that sex education or value clarification acts as a disguise and many textbooks actually pervert the minds of millions of students. For this reason it is of the most enormous importance that immorality should be protected” (Shaw 335). Author Kurt Vonnegut fights back against those who wish to censor him and those like him when he relates the First Amendment to an unambiguous light switch that can neither be turned on or off because of its strong use of absolute negatives (i. He looked to create an ideal society where he would “try to give every man in our state the job for which he is best suited. This serves as an explanation for why Playboy is seen as a men’s life magazine because it contains more tasteful nude pictures along with news articles and similar although varying magazines such as Hustler are labeled as smut and not sold in as many areas as Playboy. Such use of satire makes the reader believe the commission is going against what they preach and devalues their positions as just opinions and not clear facts. Schlafly suggests censors who ban educational materials are just concerned people “exercising their First Amendment right of free speech and their parental rights to protect the faith and morals of their children” (Schlafly 184) and goes on to give a sampling of these complaints including parents in New Hampshire objecting to the use of “Dungeons and Dragons” in a junior high school because it promotes Satanism and community members in Texas objecting to the Invitation to Psychology textbook because it “very blatantly teaches transcendental meditation” (Schlafly 185).
Common topics in this essay:
Viewpoints Censorship, Supreme Court, Jesus Christ, Madison Palestinians, Card Unlike, Scott Card, Guardians Plato, Phyllis Schlafly, Bernard Shaw, Kurt Vonnegut, intellectual freedom, academic freedom, moral upbringing, card 71, phyllis schlafly, intro 1, divine authority, restricting materials, jerry falwell, falwell 165, |
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