Saturday, April 28, 2007
To what extent is censorship necessary and why?
Regarding censorship, I believe that the necessity of it lies in the eyes of the beholder.Imagine watching a soap drama full of profanities, uncut sexual intimacy and violence with your family at home and your curious younger sibling bombarding you with questions. The majority will be at loss of what to do because explaining the sexual scenes and unpleasant vulgarities will make one feel uncomfortable, yet not explaining it would lead to the sibling's increased curiosity and continual asking. You would feel awkward and offended, won't you? This is the time where you truly hope that censorship exists.
Censorship acts as a mean of protection against negative influences. The young will be negatively influenced and traumatised by free media, where gore, horror, pornography are showcased and the list goes on.
Without this filtering system, the world would be in chaos as offensive words will be arrowed towards almost everyone and there will be repeated occurrence of conflicts and misunderstandings. Why do i say so? Because if the media publicises extremists' speeches with intentions to stir up discontentment towards certain racial groups and it does not make the effort to clarify the doubts and questions, riots and fights will definitely take place.
If audiences are allowed to access any forms of media, their values will be tarnished, positive values may not be uphold regardless of how adamant they are to outside influences.
Perhaps the most important area that censorship is targeting on would be national security. If military strategies of a country, let's say Singapore, are disseminated, can this little red dot on the world map survive attacks from other countries? Would media exists without its supporting nation?
Even though censorship provides means of protection and prevention against negativity, loosening the grip on it can also benefit the society.
How would we know about the disgraceful acts done by our former CEO of NKF, the once trustworthy organisation, if a certain extent of freedom of speech is not allowed for the media?
By presenting the truths which the audiences have the rights to know, we can relate that the absence of censorship allows transparency.
If we protect and disallow the young to view certain censored media content, we are actually triggering their curiosity, indirectly urging them to get to these contents by any means. As the famous saying goes,'curiosity kills the cat', the society's method of protecting the young against negative influences will actually backfire. With technological advancements, how difficult would it be to get access to the 'forbidden's if one is determined to do so?
Furthermore, early exposure to the media and the more materialistic side of the society is also as a mean to educate the young, make them less ignorant towards the society and feed their never-ending curiosity. Adults should not be overly protective towards the young or these flowers would definitely find it problematic to adjust themselves to the society when they step out of the greenhouse.
After all that there is to say about censorship, i should say that it provides more merits than demerits and it is definitely necessary. If not, the huge degree of freedom of speech will actually kill.
Dreamt by Shurlene min at
