Some Controversial Problems Regarding Censorship
“Nobody, the compiler learned in preparing this volume, believes in censorship....No one goes as far as to suggest prohibition of the publication of anything,” writes Walter Daniels, the editor of an anthology published in 1954 concerned with The Censorship of Books. In the same volume an editor of the Washington Post asserts emphatically: "There is not such a thing as good censorship.” If these statements, as their writers imply, reflect the majority opinion of the people of the United States, there would seem to be no room for further discussion of the problem of censorship—it is bad in principle; it is to be abandoned in our age of enlightenment. Laissez faire is the motto of the liberal man, intent on securing the maximum freedom of expression. He would quote this adage of the sage Lao-tzu as the last word on censorship: A sensible man says: If I keep from meddling with people, they take care of themselves, If I keep from commanding people, they behave themselves, If I keep from preaching at people, they improve them­selves , If I keep from imposing on people, they become themselves. Yet there is endless discussion about censorship; its use by state, church, city, and self-appointed authorities flourishes in the United States. Not so long ago (July, 1957), the Supreme Court upheld the right of the states to censor obscene literature and to prosecute those who violate the anti-obscenity laws. The Congress in recent years has spent months and thousands of dollars investigating the effect of movies, television and comic books on juvenile delinquents--needless to say with a view toward "cleaning-up" (censoring) these areas of vital influence on growing adolescents.
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