Any attempt to suppress the expression of thought or to alter or restrict information is called censorship. It can be applied to the written or spoken word or to images. Books, newspapers and periodicals, public speeches, paintings, photographs, films, television programs, popular songs, and e-mails have all been targets of censors.
Advocates of censorship generally feel morally justified in their actions, which may be intended to protect the innocence of children, to promote national security, or to support positive role models in society, among other goals. However, calls for censorship have been opposed with equal moral conviction. In 1644 the English poet John Milton argued that censorship is counterproductive and impractical, causes “the discouragement of all learning, and the stop of Truth,” and is a moral affront, so that “he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself .…”
In the United States the First Amendment to the Constitution seems to guarantee freedom to take unpopular sides of issues. However, one ongoing concern in the debate about censorship is where to draw the line, or whether there is any kind of speech that is not entitled to First Amendment protection. Freedom of speech for such people as pornographers and racists is still very much at issue.
People attempt to apply their own moral codes when defining “acceptable” speech, which leads to disagreement over what might be permissible. Some adults, for example, would censor Judy Blume’s Forever, Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War, and other books dealing with adolescent sexuality, while others would recommend such works.
Whether or not the pen is in fact mightier than the sword, its might has been sufficient to worry many people who have sought to gain or hold onto political or social power. Fear of the new and unfamiliar may be the underlying cause of much censorship.
Political censorship occurs when government leaders or other groups feel threatened by critics of the government, especially when journalists allege that illegal activities or abuses have occurred. China, Indonesia, and numerous other countries with authoritarian traditions have long censored political dissenters and investigative journalists. However, even in countries with generally democratic traditions, censorship is often advocated for reasons of national security or public safety. In the United States, where the First Amendment prohibits the government from interfering with free speech and a free press, the United States government enacted strict controls on the press during World Wars I and II, the first Persian Gulf War, and other conflicts.
In some cases these restrictions are not questioned. Information about such sensitive matters as planned troop movements or maximum effective ranges of weapons has long been censored with little controversy. But in other cases such policies have been questioned and even defied. In 1971 The New York Times and the Washington Post newspapers chose to print a secret, government-commissioned history of the Vietnam War, then still in progress. Although the government objected to this, the Supreme Court sided with the newspapers against the officials who were trying to block publication of the documents known as the Pentagon Papers. In 2004 several news organizations objected to a policy that prohibited them from releasing photographs of the coffins of American military personnel killed in wars.
Books containing language, political ideas, or religious views that some find offensive are also popular targets of censorship. Among the books that have been censored in Europe and North America alone—by different groups and for different reasons—are various translations of the Bible, the Koran, the Talmud, and Greek and Roman classics, as well as such works as Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four, and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye.
Religious groups have been among the most pervasive advocates of censorship. Many have banned media that they consider sacrilegious or blasphemous, sometimes including science textbooks, the sacred texts of other religions, and works that examine beliefs in unorthodox ways. In the late 1980s, Christian groups boycotted the film The Last Temptation of Christ, and Muslims protested Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses. However, vast numbers of readers and moviegoers defied the bans, making these controversial works highly successful.
Censorship has been enforced through harassment, imprisonment, and even executions of alleged offenders. The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates was sentenced to death for “corrupting” the youth of Athens and for questioning the religious beliefs of the times. In medieval times numerous writers were arrested or executed, particularly in areas under the control of the Roman Catholic religious courts of the Inquisition. Similar methods are still used today in some countries.
In some cases, it is the product rather than the creator that is attacked. Book burning is a particularly vivid method of censorship that dates back to ancient times. In the 3rd century bc Chinese authorities burned books of all kinds in order to control the information that was available to the people. In the 16th century Spanish priests burned many of the pagan Maya manuscripts that they found when the Spanish conquered Central America. In the 1930s in Germany, Nazis made bonfires of tens of thousands of books by Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Ernest Hemingway, and numerous other writers. Although books have not often been burned in the United States, people opposed to certain books have attempted to prevent them from being read by removing them from school reading lists and persuading librarians not to buy the books and booksellers not to stock them.
Censorship can be exercised indirectly as well, in the form of economic pressure. There are many forms of commercial and economic censorship, such as canceling contracts, imposing fines, or dismissing people from work. During the “Red Scare” of the 1950s, screenwriters and other film industry workers who declined to cooperate with Communist-hunting congressional committees were “blacklisted” and thereby became unemployable. Censorship pressure can also be exerted through actual or threatened withdrawal of advertising money. Some social critics have argued that corporations pressure the mainstream media to create uncritical news reports and that this hidden censorship acts like a pro-business propaganda campaign. Corporations also use the threat of lawsuits to silence critics.
Censorship often occurs by omission or deletion. For instance, a newspaper editor or television producer may ignore or de-emphasize a story because of political loyalties. Or a publisher may decide not to include a story in an anthology out of concern that it may be controversial. Another “hidden” method is self-censorship, which arises from fear of retribution. As an antidote, opponents of censorship prescribe an atmosphere of openness, which they believe will more than compensate for the increased risk of giving offense.