Censorship

I

Introduction

Censorship, supervision and control of the information and ideas that are circulated among the people within a society. In modern times, censorship refers to the examination of books, periodicals, plays, films, television and radio programs, news reports, and other communication media for the purpose of altering or suppressing parts thought to be objectionable or offensive. The objectionable material may be considered immoral or obscene, heretical or blasphemous, seditious or treasonable, or injurious to the national security. Thus, the rationale for censorship is that it is necessary for the protection of three basic social institutions: the family, the church, and the state.

Until recently, censorship was firmly established in various institutional forms in even the most advanced democratic societies. By the mid-20th century a revolutionary change in social attitudes and societal controls weakened the existence and strength of censorship in many democracies; however, all forms of censorship have not been universally eliminated. Today many persons, including some civil libertarians, object to the “new permissiveness” in the arts and mass media; they claim it debases the public taste, corrupts all sense of decency and civility, and even undermines civilization.

In nondemocratic societies censorship is a dominant and all-pervasive force, felt on all levels of artistic, intellectual, religious, political, public, and personal life. Hardly any act, expression, or relationship is exempt from official surveillance and accountability.

Although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, says nothing explicitly about the right of freedom from censorship, certain articles, if strictly observed, would tend to mitigate the rigor of censorship in nondemocratic countries. Among such provisions are those that prohibit interference with a person's home, family, privacy, or correspondence, and those that provide for the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, opinion, and expression without interference. Thus, the worldwide struggle for human rights often involves problems of censorship as well as the fate of those dissidents who are its victims.

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II

Early History

Censorship and the ideology supporting it go back to ancient times. Every society has had customs, taboos, or laws by which speech, play, dress, religious observance, and sexual expression were regulated.

A

Greek Censorship

In Athens, where democracy first flourished, Socrates preferred to sacrifice his life rather than accept censorship of his teachings. Charged with the worship of strange gods and with the corruption of the youth he taught, Socrates defended free discussion as a supreme public service. He was thus the first person to formulate a philosophy of intellectual freedom. Ironically, his disciple Plato was the first philosopher to formulate a rationale for intellectual, religious, and artistic censorship.

Plato believed that art should be subservient to morality; art that could not be used to inculcate moral principles should be banned. In the ideal state outlined in The Republic, censors would prohibit mothers and nurses from relating tales considered bad or evil; and in his Laws Plato proposed that wrong beliefs about God or the hereafter be treated as crimes and that formal machinery be set up to suppress heresy.

In the 5th century bc, the Athenian philosopher Anaxagoras was punished for impiety; Protagoras, another leading philosopher, was charged with blasphemy, and his books were burned. These instances of repression and persecution in Athens were not truly typical of Greek democracy, for usually the freedom to speak openly in private or in the assembly was respected.

B

Roman Censorship

In Rome the general attitude was that only persons in authority, particularly members of the Senate, enjoyed the privilege of speaking freely. Public prosecution and punishment, supported by popular approval, occurred frequently. The Roman poets Ovid and Juvenal were both banished. Authors of seditious or scurrilous utterances or writings were punished. The emperor Caligula, for example, ordered an offending writer to be burned alive, and Nero deported his critics and burned their books.

The far-flung Roman Empire could not have lasted for some four centuries if it had not maintained a policy of toleration toward the many religions and cults of the diverse nations and races it ruled. The only demand made was that Roman citizens, as a political act, worship the imperial person or image; beyond that, all citizens were free to worship their own gods and to observe their own rites and rituals. To Jews and early Christians, however, emperor or image worship was idolatry, and they refused to obey. They were persecuted and frequently martyred for their religious beliefs.