Censorship has long been an issue in today’s society of freedom. Many argue that censorship intrudes upon the basic rights that humans have. Furthermore, they believe that no single entity, such as the U.S government, should have the power over the information that reahces the public. Although these points do have significant merit, selective censorship is required in today’s media attached society not only to protect the children from harmful exposures but also to ensure the protection of our entire nation.
Many who argue against censorship argue that censoring media sources, especially the daily news, doesn’t give children the proper perspective of the world. Instead censorship gives them an extremely sheltered view. Censorship of the media doesn’t allow the children to properly view the problems outside of the United States, creating a mentality that the entire world revolves around the United States. This mentality, when carried through to adulthood, causes arrogance in a person, especially when that person is interacting with people of other nationalities. Opponenets of censorship also say that this sheltered view of the world doesn’t give children the oppportunity to explore avenues of life different than the expected four year collage experience. Some of these points are true. Without censorship, the world, in some aspects, may be impacted in a positive way. However, without censorship, children would be able to view violence, sex, etc, daily. At such a young age, children most likely will not realize that the aforementioned effects are used to keep an audience engaged and is not meant to replicate life. In this case, the child may look up to the violent character as a role model instead of his/her own parents. ISIS, for example, operates similar to this. They use propoganda to lure U.S citizens into respecting them and eventually looking up to them as role models. At this point, ISIS has control of the person and is able to use him/her as a puppet to carry out violence. Without censorship, especially of the media, groups like ISIS will have the opportunity to do unimaginable quantities of harm.
Detractors of censorship also argue that censorship bestows too much power in the government. With the government controlling what information reaches the public, the public no longer has any power. THe public can only believe what the government allows them to believe. With the corruption that commonly comes with power, detractors say that this situation can become very dangerous very quickly. This situation was modeled by the novel 1984. In this novel, government censorship is at a maximum. No newspaper article is released into the public with the approval of the government. In this society, the people are slaves to the government without even knowing it. Despite this, government censorship is required to keep the nation safe as expressed in the social contract. This figurative contract, which every citizen “signs” when becoming part of a state, states that the common must give up some form of libety and freedom to advance the government. When combined with others who do the same, the social contract states that those who give up liberty give up nothing. This means that a successful government will only be run well when the common man gives up some of his basic freedomes. What liberty is taken by the government is replaced by security and trust in the government. The freedom that must be given up is in the form of government secrets. These government secrets are imperative to our nation’s survival. If these secrets were not censored and instead in the public, not only would the nation be vulnerable to outside attackers, the common man would not believe in the power of the government. This would shake the very foundation of government and may even cause the government to collapse.
Selective censorship is the most practical way to protect the children and government servers but also allow children to experience the whole world for themselves. Selective censorship falls back to the basic roots of parenting: parents are fully responsible for the actions of their child. This idea allows the parents to asses their child’s matrutiy level to choose material for them. The child will recognize the power that the parents holds in their life and will immediately look up them instead of anyone else. Selective censorship also caters to the fact that no child is the same. Parents will be able to choose content that allows the child to be introduced to the world at his/her own pace instead of having their child be exposed to multiple different paces of learning at the same time. This also eliminates any competition that the child may feel with his/her peers or siblings, causing the child to feel no stress from outside influences.
Although both sides of the censorship arguement both have merits, selective censorship is the most practical way to preserve a safe and healthy society. Selective censorship not only protects the future from violent gruops such as ISIS, but at the same time allowimg children to explore the entire world at their own pace. Even though it seems as if the battle over censorship will never end, selective censorship is the healthy medium that will keep safe the foundation of society.
Big thanks for grading this. Currently I feel like if I’m struggling with analysis and wordiness. If anyone has any tips please post (even in general). I’m normally scoring around a 35 on the rest of the test and when HereToHelpYou graded my last one and i got a 22 i was pretty damn dissappointed lmao :/. Got about a week to perfect my essay writing so please help. Thanks 