Censorship

The study of censorship is important for Americans. Censorship as a phenomena should be explored because it is a conflict between powerful opposing forces in society that can threaten its very foundation and ideals. It is a conflict because reasonable individuals in our society disagree as to what defines the limitations of creativity and expression and who should decide what has passed beyond the limits.

It is a dangerous conflict because the arguments used by opposing forces during censorship conflicts are played out in the political arena both locally and nationally by organizations and groups that possess real power. It is this power struggle that has the potential for reordering our democratic and constitutional principles, especially if a monopoly of power is secured by one of these forces or the struggle is won in the political arena by those who wish to restrict the Bill of Rights. Berns ( 1979) reported that a 1972 poll showed that two thirds of the respondents would not permit free speech to those who promote communism or atheist causes, for example. Given such facts, can we be sure that the First Amendment would continue to exist if a new constitutional convention were to be called and then controlled by the likes of the Moral Majority? It is highly doubtful.

It can easily be argued that a parent who files one formal complaint with a library about the access to one book will not destroy our democratic republic as we know it. It might even be said that a total accumulation of such events is not a serious threat to the nation's moral and intellectual fiber. The fact of the matter is that censorship of many books and other creative works has happened for years and our democratic ideals are still respected and revered by significant portions of the populace as well as notable national institutions. Intellectual freedom is enjoyed in the United States in a more unfettered manner than in any other nation on earth. In most third world nations, for instance, the press is strictly controlled or state owned and manipulated. In many industrialized nations, political expression is proscribed in some manner. Germans cannot form a Nazi party. The British cannot speak ill of the queen, for example.

However, the real problem lies within the question of what constitutes intellectual freedom as embodied in the First Amendment and constitutional law, both statutory and case law. A censorship incident is not only a struggle in a community for the rights and privileges of access to a created work, but also a struggle to determine if a society's desire for law and order, as often manifested in the cry for parental rights, outweighs individual liberties, especially freedom of speech and of the press. This conflict attracts powerful interests seeking to gain influence and control by taking sides and gaining mass support.

Because these groups acquire power, they have the potential for redefining what constitutes the line between society's needs and individual rights. Such groups can elect politicians who will introduce legislation to restrict or change what can be said or created, lobby to influence the passage of such laws, and work for the appointment of judges who could interpret such laws or write court opinions affecting changes, in our liberties, with or without similar legislation often as a result of one local controversy. In recent years, this country has witnessed just such a scenario in the national debates over abortion laws and over hate-speech legislation.