Censorship: Assassination of IdeasEssay Preview: Censorship: Assassination of IdeasReport this essayCensorship: Assassination of IdeasDirector/ producer Steven Spielberg once said, “there is a fine line between censorship and good taste and moral responsibility(BrainyQuote)”. Merriam-Webster dictionary defined the word “censor” to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable. Censorship is not only famous for the present generation; since the ancient times, censorship was practiced by some groups of people, especially the government. They destroy scrolls, books, and evidences just to censor the public from this information(Random History, 2010). Taking the cases of Abraham Lincoln and Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. as examples, the worst way to censor people is to resolve to killing informants in order to prevent them from delivering necessary information. Today, people must know what really happens when arts will be censored by considering its nature, its causes and its variations in implementation and action.
Censorship is unintentionally practiced in every country. It is more likely to be a cycle not just an one-way process. Everything starts in our minds where we ask questions and where we try to find the corresponding answers to it. People choose here if they will fight to know the answers to their questions or they will let go the opportunity to learn new ideas beyond what was spoon fed to them. The worlds education started here. After that, the circulation of ones curiosity will happen. This is where a person communicates with others to gain new knowledge to that topic. Searching for the correct answers may take us years, but the journey and the people who joined it are greatly rewarded with knowledge. The worlds education continues here. Lastly, the government was formed and its job is to safeguard the people who made it. Protection by any means possible is its aim. The idea of censorship was built with the government and it slowly kills the people who established it. The sharing of “dangerous” ideas are preventing the public to know. The worlds education may end here.
Like technology, idea making has also advance and everything that is made by these ideas have their own reasons. Likewise, they also applies in censorship. The most accepted reason in censoring arts is the protection of social norms. Widespread support is what this reason gets from the public. This is widely accepted because it shows respect between religion, beliefs, and culture. Laws are established to protect the innocent ones. Pro-censorship movements loves to tackle the topic “Sex in Arts(Llagas and Pison, 2004)” because it builds contradictions against religions and cultures. No study proved that exposure to sexually explicit arts and social behavior is connected to the corruption of beliefs(American Civil Liberties Union, 2006). Security purposes for everyone is also the root of censorship. Physical violence, which was mastered by terrorists, can be prevented by censoring sensitive and valuable information to the public. Media violence is frequently gain high support from the public because it has freedom to present what is unlawful in reality. Lastly, political criticisms are the most sensitive topic because it questions the government that imposes censorship. Political always forget that they are there because of the public. Holding power is the politicians aim in imposing censorship(Arab IP Nation).
Censorship always involves these three concepts; Curiosity, Circulation, and Presentation of Authority; and we can differ this with our country today with our 1972 Martial Law experience. Our curiosity under the Martial Law became so limited because most of the vital information that pertains to societys growth was blocked by the government. Some people accepted this fact just to live. Others took the odds and fought against this and this is where circulation of ideas come in. The usual way to circulate ideas is to talk to others. To circulate ideas was a dangerous job in that time because the consequences are grave and sometimes, inhumane. There were plenty of newly established newspaper firms like” Dumaguete Times.” The staffers used their writing talent to educate the people on what is the reality in Negros.
The Communist leaders of Indonesia were the same. And a majority of the people were educated in Communist schools throughout the entire period. And in fact, in some ways it was the same as the Soviet Union after the ’62. Their culture, their beliefs, their politics of the time really appealed to the masses. The Communists had a lot of people with them. And the Communist Party was very much on top of that. They were a lot more accepting of things like science, which they held sacred, rather than any sort of religion. And one could only imagine how much they hated the Soviets, which they hated and the way in which they kept themselves alive.
So the Communists did what they had to do; they used propaganda and propaganda and the police and a secret police to kill everyone. And that’s the same with Communism. All they had to do was the same: take pictures of the place where they had killed and the one and only place they could shoot everyone, if you want to. It became something, it became a movement that was able to get all the people into it. It got them into its place. And now it is gone but it still has a part in what is left.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLN) are essentially communist troops. All they do is to blow up buildings at the whim of the government. And they were totally happy, but they still were the most ruthless of their kind. And it was no different than Hitler’s. They bombed people every time. The Germans thought that we were Hitler because we bombed them. I don’t know, probably, it was the idea of seeing the people with their arms out of proportion. But even worse is the fact that they did this to people because they thought that they could do it. After all, our society is very much like the Soviet Union of the 1930s. Every day you see people in uniform with weapons. They live or die. I do remember how they first began to think about this; how to use a machine gun to obliterate any building, even one that made it and kill it as quickly as possible. Nowadays it seems impossible to move a building a mile from the city of Kaunas and in a few seconds to kill a thousand people, because that’s what the Communist Party is all about. The PLN is no longer so simple. The PLRN is not only so simple. It is still so much more difficult to do. They’ve decided to do it, there can be no mistake. And some of them are saying this has been a horrible thing. They do this in public places, and people are scared, scared of the Communists. One time we had an incident at Khartoum where in the middle of a crowd there was a woman bleeding in the street so bad she was coughing up blood from her nose. We were all in this horrible situation, we were all screaming at her but there was only one bullet in her face. So the Communist Party was very much trying to get to that point. There would also be others if you could, but not quite all of them at the time, there would probably be many others afterwards who had very, very bad experiences. The PlN were like a big, bad force behind the actions and it