Censorship the Banning of Books, or Literary

Censorship

The banning of books, or literary censorship, is nothing new in the. The idea is that there are certain books, works of art, speeches, or entertainment that, through political, religious, or moral means, offend the sensibilities of the general populace and therefore should be removed from public circulation. This can be adopted on a national, regional, or state level; for instance a certain book may be banned from a local library but not be on a censored list for the state or country. In fact, almost every country, at one time or another in its history, placed some sort of restriction on what may or may not be published, printed, or distributed. There are a variety of reasons for this -- materials are often banned due to the perception of obscenity -- sexuality, race, drugs, social standing, or critiques of the government. Governments often ban certain books because they perceive them to contain material that could threaten the legitimacy of that government; or, under the reason that the content is contrary to public safety and sensibility (Skold). It is interesting to note that not only does the perception of what is and is not subversive, obscene, or dangerous changes over time based on society and religio-cultural morality. It is rather dependent on the point-of-view -- at various points in history, the Christian Bible has been considered subversive as well, since it promulgates an authority greater than that of the state. Sometimes, even certain ideas that are taught in school are considered "too dangerous" or inappropriate for young people and are censored (e.g. Darwinism, certain literary classics, etc. (Scheilfer).

Analysis - It seems that the real problem and crux of the argument is who has the right to censor and what materials should be censored. It is likely no one would argue that extremely graphic sexual pictures or books are not appropriate for all ages. One might also argue that the nude body is quite different from sexually explicit actions or verbiage -- that the Venus di Milo or David sculptures are as different from pornography as comics are from literature.

Still, the very crux of the argument comes to the central point of censorship -- who must be protected and why must they be protected? Ideas, political, social, or otherwise, may be the most dangerous form of literature ever. For instance, in 19th century autocratic regimes, the ideas of Karl Marx, even Voltaire, Locke, and Jefferson were seen to be subversive because they challenged the order of things, the idea that the monarchy should rule by divine right, and that certain people had, by manifest destiny, the right to be more equal than others. So, too, do images and verbiage change over time regarding public acceptance. At the turn of the century bathing suits covered almost 90% of the human body, and a day at the beach would've been far different had some of today's skimpy G-strings or bikinis shown up. Similarly, sexual activity was hinted at from the early days of film, usually with a door closing, a fade to darkness, or a blur; audiences of the 1940s would be shocked to see nudity and depiction of sex on television.