Blogpost # 880   THE PATHOLOGY OF CENSORSHIP

 After many years of considered, experience we have confidently arrived at the empirical, conclusion that the conception and practice of moral censorship is nothing short of delusional, pathology.

As often appears to be the case with other maladies, the basic etiology of the subject infirmity has its own mutated variants. The associated scourge of political censorship, i.e., the tactical rejection or alteration of objective truth, in aid of the substitution of official mendacity for purposes of strategic, political mind control, is one example. The latter, variant, while, indisputably, perverse and immoral, can, at minimum, be rationally, apprehended, as a stereotypical tactic for Nazi-style, controlled societies.

By comparison, it seems to be beyond the scope of humankind’s, developed, capacity for reason, to comprehend any individual’s delusion as to the personal assumption of a self-anointed, evangelical mission and the presumption of requisite, bona fide capability, to cleanse humanity from subjectively, perceived “immoral” or “impure” thoughts.

The metaphysical designation, or the foundational understanding, of the ubiquitously, relative terms, “immoral” and “impure,” would present a challenging and comprehensive subject, and one, pragmatically, reserved for a future writing. For the specifically, limited, purposes of this essay, we would merely, observe that the definitional or applied, standards, of such judgmental adverbs, do, in fact, tend, to be subjectively, or temporally, variable.

The historic, foundational right to free speech, deeply embedded, in the American psyche, is assured by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and nurtured by American, juridical precedent. The reductively, ignorant delusion of the stereotypic censor, seems, nevertheless, to perseverate, upon his own, neurotically fueled, fantasies of guilt and rectitude, rather than upon man’s liberty, artistic sensitivity and aesthetic creation. The latter is existentially requisite to Man’s development, in his search for ultimate understanding, and the satisfaction of his humanistic, desire for intellectual and artistic, expression.

While censors seem to have their nuanced, individual predilections, presumably, based upon their, respective, individual or neurotic mindset, the most common attack on the established right of free speech, is in the delicate context of human sexuality. Belief, that early exposure to language and to action of a prurient or lewd nature in literature, or, the bizarrely, ignorant belief in the “grooming” of transsexuality (rather than the chance, natural, distribution of hormones and chromosomes) raises the  hackles of the ignorantly, reductive censor. It may further, be historically, and instructively, noted, that this area of criticism far outweighs his moral outrage against societal or ethnic violence.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice, John Marshal Harlan, stated, “One man’s vulgarity, is another man’s lyric.” Nevertheless, upon the theoretical assumption, that it were possible, to construe a universally, confirmed standard of improper sexual depiction in literature, it is inarguably, clear that the same, might more, appropriately, be addressed to the young in the course of their school curricula, where the appropriate, factual information can be, beneficially, illuminated, as a rational and salutory, alternative rather than to completely, eliminate the transcribed subject, only, to thereby, relegate its inaccurate elucidation to, readily, available, misleading, vulgar influences.

The irrationality and dangerous acts of Nazi-style, book banning and the autocratic suppression of school curricula, by self-appointed, bigoted, inquisitors, are patently, presumptuous and clearly undemocratic. Such misperceived, pedantic, policies, if officially, condoned, would clear a dangerous and unpredictable, path, to the anarchical, determination of the acceptability of National speech and art, by America’s feckless, horde of self-appointed, reductively, ignorant and despicable, bush- league, moralists. 

-p.