Censorship

Certain political liberties are essential to the development of critical thinking. The repression of free speech is a
major hindrance to critical thinking. Without adequate information, judgments and evaluations of issues will be
slanted and biased. The main reason for censorship is to control the thoughts and actions of people. When
information is controlled, thought is controlled. When thought is controlled, actions are controlled.
Every parent knows that there are times
when censorship is justified for the good of
one’s child. Graphic violence or sex,
depictions of cruelty and the like, are reasonably
excluded from children’s books and
television programming. However, no child
will ever learn to think for herself if she is
only allowed to see or hear what her parents want her to see or hear. Some nations treat their adult citizens as
children and prohibit such material to everybody. They assume their citizens not only should not but cannot think
and act for themselves.
Freedom of speech, however, is sometimes repressed in “free” countries. Three examples should suffice: the
censoring of books in our public schools; the censoring of art by public programs such as the National Endowment
for the Arts; and the censoring of information by the military.
Each year in hundreds of school districts around the country, there are attempts to ban certain books from the
public schools. In 1990-1991 there were over 200 such book-banning confrontations between the “protectors of
decency and truth” and “the defenders of liberty.” Some of the works the protectors wanted to ban were The
Grapes of Wrath, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Huckleberry Finn, Lord of the Flies, and Webster’s Ninth
Collegiate Dictionary. The justification for banning the books varied, but usually the protectors cited items such as
offensive language, pictures, or ideas. The would-be censors range from religious conservatives wanting to ban
stories about witches, to political liberals wanting to ban stories that depict women or minorities in “demeaning”
ways. Some found offense with Bible stories; others were offended by scientific theories. Some wanted to censor
anything sexual; others wanted to censor sexual material that reflected disdain for homosexuality.
Another group of censors, led by Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, wanted to ban public funding of
“indecent” art. The National Endowment for the Arts agreed to require the signing of a “decency document” by any
person or group applying for funds. Some prior beneficiaries, such as the Ashland Shakespeare Festival, refused to
sign the document and became ineligible for a grant. Those who refused to be censored did so not out of a desire to
be indecent, but out of concern for the loss of liberty. Those who defended the censorship did so out of concern for
spending public money on art that offended certain Christians. The American censors reminded the art community
that things could be worse. Irate Muslims, led by the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini, were calling for the execution by
anyone at anytime of Salman Rushdie for having written Satanic Verses, a book that is said to blaspheme
Muhammad.
Finally, the United States military has become more and more controlling of information regarding its
invasions of such countries as Grenada, Panama, and Iraq. Military censorship and control of information reached
unprecedented heights during the Gulf War. The Gulf War was a television war, but not in the sense that many
journalists and much of the public had hoped for. It was a Nintendo War for the deaf. We did not get to see and
hear live coverage of bloody battles. We never got a ground level video of bombs being dropped, of explosions in
our ears. What we got instead were soundless videos taken from airplanes or from bombs as they entered buildings.
No loud explosions. No screams. No dead bodies. We did see a few thousand burned out vehicles.
We didn’t see many pictures taken from the ground. Many of those we did see were censored by the Iraqis.
Especially dramatic was the film of the bombed out building that became the tomb for hundreds of Iraqi women
and children. U.S. officials called the building a military headquarters; Iraqi officials called it a bomb shelter. There
was also the video of the bombed out factory which Iraqi officials say was a baby formula factory, while U.S.
officials insist it was a chemical warfare plant.
The first video of ground damage, including pictures of charred and dismembered Iraqi soldiers, was released
on March 27, 1991, long after the war had ended. The U.S. military released the videos to the mass media, not the
other way around. Other videos of damage done by bombs dropped on Iraq, such as the one narrated by former
U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark, have not been shown by the major networks.
What television brought us was a highly censored view of war. What wasn’t censored by the military was
censored by the networks themselves. We saw, for the most part, only what the U.S. government wanted us to see. There were a few dramatic exceptions. There was the
reporter in Israel showing us a map of Tel Aviv with a clear marking where a Scud missile had landed. Back in Baghdad they might have thought this report interesting, if not valuable, from a military perspective. However, it doesn’t appear that the Iraqi military leaders were watching too much television. After the ground fighting ceased, we were informed by the
Pentagon that the only information that might have been vital to the enemy had passed through the military
censors’ hands and was reported on television. Several of our reporters figured out General Schwarzkopf’s plan
*“If kids don’t run up against ideas that are disquieting,
or challenging, or different from what they’ve always
believed, or different from what their parents believe,
how will they ever grow as human beings?...Banning
books shows you don’t trust your kids to think and you
don’t trust yourself to be able to talk with them.”
--Anna Quindlen
from a piece of information about engineers working in the western Saudi Arabian town of Rahra. The reporters
voluntarily kept silent about it. They even encouraged their bosses to keep silent about it. So, it was selfcensorship,
rather than military censorship, which proved more important in the end at keeping vital information
from the enemy.13
What television brought us during the Gulf War was what the U.S. Military information managers wanted us
to see. The military set up a pool system whereby a select number of reporters were taken by the military to
designated places in the war zone. What they saw and who they had contact with was strictly controlled by the
military. But the reporters were then free to pass out what information they had garnered to other reporters waiting
at the home base. The military flew reporters with cameras out to sea so they could make stunning visuals of the
preparation for the massive amphibious landing. The assault from the sea never took place, of course. That was a
ruse, a feint. Television was used to help dupe Hussein into thinking we were planning a massive attack from the
sea. (See how busy we are sweeping those Iraqi mines in the harbors. See how concerned we are about all that oil
which might be ignited and burn to death our marines as they try to make their way through heavy seas to the coast
of Kuwait.)14
Despite the furor such debates cause, much of the debate over books in the schools, government-supported
artists, and press coverage of military operations is not about censorship per se. It is about the appropriateness of
certain materials for certain age groups, or the appropriateness of government-funded art that is irreligious or
unpatriotic, or the appropriateness of releasing information which might prove harmful to the national interest.
Still, a good part of the debates is about censorship per se. There are many people in our society who do not want
anyone to be allowed to express certain ideas or use certain language. Such people, whether they are conservative
or liberal, are always a danger to critical thinking. They are a danger not because of the ideas they defend or
express, including the idea of censorship. They are a danger because often what they want to suppress is offensive
to many of us and, as a result, we will be less likely to challenge them. Unchallenged, the censors will get their way
and the result will be stifling. It is inevitable that freedom of speech will be abused. The price of preventing
abusive speech is to censor it; the additional cost will be a severe reduction in critical and creative thinking.
There is, however, a benefit to the existence of would-be censors: they can serve as a stimulus to the defenders
of liberty and critical thinking. They make us reflect on our beliefs and argue to defend them. That is always
valuable. Furthermore, sometimes the censors make us aware of what is happening in the schools or in the world of
art or on the battlefield. Maybe we are introducing children to inappropriate materials. Such dialogue can be
healthy. Maybe the government is too influential in the content of the art it supports. Maybe the military is
censoring information because they have a lot to hide about their own incompetence or evil. The censors, at least,
initiate a dialogue on the issue.