Censorship of the Arts

Civil rights should not be curtailed in the absence of a clear and present danger to the safety of others. The Proposition has a duty to demonstrate this risk is genuine. Furthermore, we would argue that so long as no illegal acts were committed in the creative process, the public should have a choice in deciding whether to view the resulting content. Proposition arguments about child pornography and bestiality being filmed and then displayed as art are irrelevant arguments, as these acts are illegal in the first place.

Censorship, even when age rating systems are used, is a very blunt tool. It takes no account of the differing standards of education or maturity between children and youths, or the varying attitudes towards parenting in different households. By imposing an external standard of censorship, the government is depriving parents of the right to raise their children in a manner that they see fit. We lose the element of parental discretion, which is arguably part of the right to lead a private and family life as one sees fit – a right that is enshrined in many international human rights conventions. Looking at adults, we see that they have the right to vote, bear arms, and die for the country. Why should they be deprived of the ability to decide what they wish to see, or what their children should be allowed to watch?Lastly, we should note that people are not being forced to view artwork at gunpoint. Every member of the public has the right to avert their eyes and not look at art that offends them. Similarly, they can refrain from entering a gallery with an exhibition of offensive works.

Censorship is far more likely to hurt the Arts – if something has been decreed by the Government to be unsuitable for children, the odds of the general public wanting to buck the trend and fund it are somewhat slim.

The risks of stifling free expression far outweigh the potential for unacceptable material. Content which we consider perfectly acceptable today would have been regarded as taboo 50 years ago – if the Proposition had their way, we would all still be stuck in the Victorian Era. Besides, if a novel and controversial art form proved to be completely out of touch with society, then the individuals in society would reject it rather than be corrupted by it.

The statistical correlation between watching sex & violence and committing such acts is dubious. Firstly, these studies are not exhaustive and are often funding by special interest groups. We must also realise that correlation is different from causation – an alternative interpretation is that people with violent tendencies are more likely to be connoisseurs of violent art, and the same applies for rapists and pornography.Even if we believe that some people with weaker morals are likely to be corrupted, why should the rest of society be penalised for the moral weakness of a few? Why should innocent people have their civil rights curtailed when the small minority we are concerned about has not even committed a crime yet! There are far better ways of reducing the crime rate, with far less cost in civil liberties, such as better policing, tougher penalties on actual crimes being committed, CCTV cameras, and improved street lighting.

Censorship is ultimately infeasible. Try censoring art on the internet, for example! With the advent of modern technology, text, photography and film can now be distributed on the internet. The sooner we recognise the reality, the better. In addition, if we censor art which depicts an unacceptable act or viewpoint, it merely sends it underground. It might also glamorise the prohibited artwork and play to the forbidden fruit and counterculture tendencies inherent in human nature. Far better to keep such art accessible to the public, where people can see for themselves that it is “bad”. If the censorship board is truly acting in line with public morals, it has nothing to fear from transparency and letting the public decide for themselves that a piece of art is unacceptable.