Name: Chin Wei Tieng

Class: M10408
Date: 23/4/10
Word Count (article): 471
Title of Article: Books, plays and films should be censored
Author: Alastair Clark
Date of publication: March 18th, 2009
Article:
Let us suppose that you are in the position of a parent. would you allow your
children to read any book they want to without first checking its contents?
Would you take your children to see any film without first finding out if it is
suitable for them? If your answer to these questions is yes, then you are
either extremely permissive or just plain irresponsible. If your answer is no,
then you are exercising your right as a parent to protect your children from
what you consider to be undesirable influences.
Now, of course, you will say that it is one thing to exercise censorship where
children are concerned and quite another to do the same for adults. Children
need protection and it is the parents responsibility to provide it. But what
about adults? Arent they old enough to decide what is good for them? The
answer is that many adults are, but dont make the mistake of thinking that
all adults are like yourself. Censorship is for the good of the society as a
whole. Highly civilized people might find it possible to live amicably together
without laws of any kind: they would just rely on good sense to solve their
problems. But imagine what chaos there would be if we lived in a society
without any laws! Like the law, censorship contributes to the common good.
Some people think that it is disgraceful that a censor should interfere with
works of art. Who is this person, they say, to ban this great book or cut that
great film? No one can set himself up as a superior being. Be we must
consider two things. Firstly, where genuine works of art are concerned,
modern censors are extremely liberal in their views often far more liberal
than a large section of the public. Artistic merit is something which censors
clearly recognise. And secondly, we must bear in mind that the great
proportion of books, plays and films which come before the censor are very
far from being works of art.
When discussing censorship, therefore, we should not confine our attention to
great masterpieces, but should consider the vast numbers of publications and
films which make up the bulk of the entertainment industry. When censorship
laws are relaxed, unscrupulous people are given a license to produce virtually
anything in the name of art. There is an increasing tendency to equate
artistic with pornographic. The vast market for pornography would rapidly
be exploited. One of the great things that censorship does is to prevent
certain people from making fat profits by corrupting the minds of others. To
argue in favor of absolute freedom is to argue in favor of anarchy. Society

would really be the poorer if it deprived itself of the wise counsel and the
restraining influence which a censor provides.

http://alastairclark.com/2009/03/week-13-books-plays-and-filmsshould-be-censored/
Summary
Censorship is important and benefits our community because it helps
to work out issues and protects children and even adults. Although
censors may cause artistic media to be portrayed incorrectly,
nowadays they are not too restrictive and they do give due respect to
artworks. Since written materials, operas and shows which get
censored are not classified as artistic portrayals, censorship can help
prevent undesirable content to be viewed by young people. This
content includes pornography which would be manifested in our
community by immoral people should there be a lack of censorship.
Censorships also help to stop these people from earning undeserved
money from dirtying other peoples thoughts. Censorships make our
community richer by giving advice and implementing restrictions.
[120 words]
Reflection
This article is highlighting the importance and need of censorship for
the society as a whole. There is no doubt that society cannot do
without censorship, because this would inevitably affect the way
people think and affect the young ones negatively, giving them wrong
impressions on how certain things should be viewed. However,
censorship is a lot more important for children than adults because
children tend to mimic what they see. Therefore, in order for them not
to become serial rapists or violent individuals, they have to be
protected from inappropriate media. However it is a totally different
case for adults. Adults have should have the right to make their own
choices and know what is right and what is not. Should they choose to
go without censorship, they should be aware of the content they would
be exposed to and be ready to accept it but not get influenced
negatively by it.
In modern society, it is very common for kids as young as 5years old to
be surfing the net. It is essential that internet providers maintain some
sort of censorship so that children would be kept away from
pornography, violent games etc. Should they be exposed to these, they
may end up like the people they see or read about, and ruin their
futures. In my opinion, it is acceptable to include a bit of violence etc.
in books, plays and films if there is a need to because by completely
removing that, the content would not be as rich and the plot may be
affected and ruin the entire story line.

The social institution involved in this article is mainly the media. The
media is there to provide entertainment and news for the public.
Everyone is affected by the media because it is all around them. It is
what the society sees, hears and reads. Hence it is important not to
include explicit content especially not when the public can view it
because this includes children. But the problem is that by censoring
things, the media may not be able to achieve their main objective of
providing entertainment even if this form of entertainment might not
be morally upright. Hence the media have to take censorship into
careful consideration and look at it from all points of view in order to
cater to the publics preferences.
This article shows a counter argument along with various arguments;
however it could be better if it included more counter arguments. The
writer could also have brought in more information about different
types of areas censorship is used in for example internet, music, press,
radio, speeches and video games censorship. The scope of this article
is quite narrow; it mostly talks about moral censorship and neglected
political, religious and corporate censorships.
The good points of this article is that it uses rhetorical questions as a
form of introduction and the writer stated his stand clearly and
provided reasons why his hypothesis is correct. This is definitely a
learning point for me which can help in my essay writing in this
module.
[511 words]