Throughout the history of mankind, there have been times and places in which censorship of fiction thrived and others in which it was next to non-existent. This is the result of the socio-cultural context, itself the consequence of historical events and processes. Censorship is not only a form of expression control, but of thought control as well. The censorship of ideas, texts and depictions considered dangerous to the ruling class is the most classic reason for censorship, along with forms of expression that go against established dogma (see Galileo, 1633) such as religion. For instance, Socrates was executed on charges that he corrupted the youth and that he did not acknowledge the gods that the city did but other new divinities of his own. His own pupil Plato supported in his work (Republic) that any art that could corrupt the morality of the nation should be censored. In 440 BC a law was introduced that would impeach or exile “those who denied the Gods or taught about celestial phenomena”.

Censorship is put in place by the State (we will not discuss self-censorship since it usually lacks the weight to forcibly enforce its views) coincidentally with the occurrence of several factors. An authoritarian-leaning political climate is usually the prerequisite of such measures as they require that the government monitors the people’s actions to a great extent. Furthermore, the people – or at least those who hold significant influence – must be in a state of relative social insecurity (examples: In 213 BC, the Chinese government burned all of the books that included information on history that occurred before the organization of China as a nation. In 1563, Charles IX of France decreed that nothing could be printed without the special permission of the king. From 1721 through 1726, Benjamin Franklin’s brother was imprisoned for his association with the New England Courant in Boston – a political publication. In 1791, the works of Thomas Paine were prohibited in England based on the charges that his works were political propaganda). That is, they must obviously have a motivation to think that censorship is something that is worth fighting for.

Censorship being equivalent to actively prohibiting certain forms of expression from being accessed by certain people, the motivation must be one that implies that the material to be banned is inherently and fundamentally bad. Historically, religion has thus been the main motivation for censorship¹: as an ideology, the definitions of “right” and “wrong” it advocates are likely to be claimed as absolute (like the case of the VENUS DE MILO. The armless classical statue was tried, convicted and condemned for nudity in Mannheim, Germany, in 1853. Reproductions of that day chastely renamed Venus the Goddess of Liberty. In 1911 – in what critics ridiculed as an “elephantiasis of modesty” – Buffalo alderman John Sullivan and local Catholic clergy sought to cover up several reproductions of classical statues including Venus. Circa 1930 reproductions of the statue in Palmolive ads got censor’s dots over Venus’s breasts, and in Hungary, police burned her photo in a shop window. In 1955, in Winona Lake, IN, a full-scale reproduction was covered in poison ivy by a puritanical housewife hoping to disguise the statue’s nudity)².

However, nowadays culture is becoming increasingly global, and religion – and ideology as a whole – is gradually losing the power of law it once had. The younger generation worldwide, or at least in economically developed countries, is noticeably libertarian when compared to their grandparents, a tendency that originated with the few years of peace the world enjoyed after World War II. New ways must thus be found to justify labelling certain types of content as bad.

A clear sign of the times, the latest justification that was found by detractors of “obscenity” and the like is none other than science. Indeed, the cultural conception of knowledge has changed from a ideological one to one based on testability and methodology. Incidentally, we can now read several studies that intend to prove the detrimental effects of material the majority of a given society loathes. Or, dare some say, society as a whole loathes. Other studies were subsequently produced to counter the claims of those who promote censorship. And, in some cases, studies attempted to prove the very opposite, namely that prurient fiction could be inherently good. Of course, none of all these studies for, against and related to the effects of the material in question could infer anything but correlation.

For example:

Suppose that sometime in the future scientists discover two chromosomes that hitherto had escaped detection. The A chromosome gives an individual a propensity to smoke, and the B chromosome gives an individual a propensity to develop lung cancer. There are 2,000 individuals total, and 1,000 are smokers and 1,000 are non-smokers. We assume that the first 1,000 have the A chromosome and the second 1,000 do not. The total number of people who are both smokers and develop lung cancer is ninety-three; hence ninety-three persons have both the A and B chromosomes. Finally, the total number of people who have only the B chromosome is sixteen; they develop lung cancer even though they do not smoke. What, then, causes lung cancer? Clearly the B chromosome. The A chromosome has nothing to do with it. To be sure, there is a greater likelihood that any given person will have the A chromosome (and thus a propensity for smoking) than that a person will have just the B chromosome. Yet it is clearly fallacious under my hypothetical to subtract sixteen from ninety-three and conclude that the A chromosome (propensity for smoking) caused cancer in seventy-seven persons or even in one person.³

This example, and many similar to it, proves only correlation and does not prove causation. And the very methodology of science suffices to say correlation, no matter how clear, cannot be the basis of any outright ban. A good example of why correlation should not be the basis for ban: in 1686, the Japanese storyteller Shikano Buzaemon was banished to Izu, Ōshima when one of his stories sparked a rush on the Edo plum market. A plum seller inspired by one of his stories circulated a rumour that a talking horse said that a plague was on the loose and infection could be prevented by eating plums. Authorities investigating the rush faulted Shikano Buzaemon for inciting the seller and thus provoking the rush. In this examples there is correlation, the story that Shikano wrote gave the seller the idea, however there is no causation. Shikano did not cause the seller to spread the rumour, the seller’s own greed did that. The fact that he got the inspiration from Shikano’s story does not shift the blame to the storyteller⁴.

But why is censorship so widely accepted by the masses? Societal pressure might be the answer, since to rally against something that is socially accepted would tend to make those rallying outcasts in the eyes of society. That phenomena is known as the spiral of silence. But why does this happen? The answer is simple: culture and education. If you are told from a very young age that something is bad or improper, if you see the same characterization applied everywhere in your society, if you see the same characterization in your textbooks, in your friends’ opinions, in the newspapers, in art, then find yourself having a different opinion, expressing it would in your mind equal to go against everything your society/culture stands for. If you then add religion to the mix, then you have a classical case of a sheep with citizenship, the dream of every form of ruling and government from time immemorial and the raison d’être of censorship.

While censorship might be a phenomenon with socio-cultural ramifications, it is obvious even to a casual observer that the root lies in the authoritarian needs of governments, religions and social groups with enough clout and power to impose their opinions on the rest of society. Can you say “baaaah”?

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Authors: Ikigami and Azarius
This entry was posted on Monday, March 29th, 2010 at 20:25, filed under Perspectives, Society/Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.