Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Thoughts on Censorship

Now, I know censorship is an unpopular idea. Perhaps one of the most unpopular of the unpopular ideas. Being a law student, most censorship insinuates a violation of free speech, and of liberty. But is all censorship bad? I ask this as a serious question, and it's one I'm not sure there is a good answer to. Honestly, we talked a little bit about it in my Human Rights class today, and even under the UN Convention on Civil & Political Rights the answer is unclear. In the wake of the Boston bombings, the answer has become less clear to me. Maybe it's because people, in this overly connected age of ours, feel the need to share every thought as it occurs to them, rather than processing first. Who knows. What I do know is that I feel conflicted on the topic. As an American, I believe in the right to free speech. And on its face, censorship is revolting. Repugnant, even. But then you see and hear some of the horrid, disrespectful, and downright insensitive things that people have to say, and you start wondering - in an age with no sense of social propriety (or so it would seem), would a little censorship be so bad? Is it right for people to so hastily and haphazardly process events for others, be their interpretation correct or no? Is it right for other people to tell you how to feel or how to think? I think not. I mean, I think for the most part that people agree that everyone should think for themselves, but I guess my question really is this: after something major happens, can we all just keep our damned opinions to ourselves for 24 hours? Hell, even a single hour? And to the newsmedia, I pose the following question: at what point did you realize that you stopped producing actual news? Did your soul die a little when you realized that you no longer do any of the things that got you into the business in the first place? It's cool if it didn't - sometimes we all do stuff for the money; if I were you though, my soul would have died a little. I know that's not all your fault - you're beholden to ratings and readership, so you print and report what sells. And what sells is what gets people's blood boiling. And that's a little sad.

What I think has been really lost here, though, is the ability for modern society to censor itself. I'm not saying the government should step in, and I'm not saying that mom and dad should tell you what is ok or not ok to say. What I am saying is that we've lost the ability to self-regulate. Case in point, perhaps, is this blog. Food for thought.


(SEE? I DO POST INTELLECTUAL STUFF EVERY NOW AND THEN!....mostly that was me yelling at me for the largely senseless drivel I post)

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