Anarsik Essay

Serhat Arslan

EN 102
Prof. St. Pierre

Position Paper

10/29/2009

Censorship Must Be Censored

Thinking is the most important feature of humans. To think, we need knowledge first. We learn things from other people or from the universe by using our five senses. Sometimes we aren’t allowed to learn what we want to learn from the newspapers, television, books, or the internet because of the censorship. Who can decide what kind of knowledge a person want to reach? In this subject, it is mostly the government. Why? When an idea or something that causes an idea to develop which is harmful to that country it is very easy to spread out to others. Or there can be things that can cause younger people to have mixed minds or psychological problems at that time and/or in the future which affects the future of that country. That is why government censors things sometimes. But often using this power is not as innocent as it seems. It is some kind of a manipulating technique on the society.

I think that is an unjust way of controlling the people because people are not equal and every other person should be treated differently. By forbidding the data from every one the government is just preventing most of the people from improving their intelligence. This prevents the country to develop more in the long run. But there is something that the government is afraid of which is loosing the control on the people who are eligible to reach every kind of data in the world. This fear can be seen more on the third world countries. So censorship has one of the roles on this slow but accurate progress. But I don’t believe this progress is so important without the happiness of the people.

First of all you can’t change a person’s personality by forbidding the things that he/she likes. This situation is like the same thing between parents and children. You can forbid anything to the child, but he/she is going to enjoy or wander the same things. Secondly a person has to think and wants to distribute those ideas to others. This is a rule of nature, and preventing this is a crime against the act of nature.

So what I am trying to say is, censorship is not an act that people should use against others. Especially not a power that government should have. It must not be performed. I think almost all of the people are able to make decisions on what they feel is right or wrong for their children or themselves to see, read and hear. For example, on television, if a person thinks something is wrong, disturbing, or offending he/she is free to turn the channel. In another things, we are free not to read the magazine or not to listen the music which they feel is wrong or bad for us. I haven’t seen in United States, yet but in some countries governments are forbidding some internet sites. For instance, in Turkey youtube was forbidden for two years and I could never understand why a web site which is full of knowledge is forbidden to the people of that country. If people feel that is a web site that they shouldn’t be in they won’t be typing it in to the browser. That is what I think about the censorship that the governments are using on the society. So, what really should be forbidden is censorship itself. It is a real psychology damager for the young brains who are trying to understand the world.

Another thing is, by preventing society to reach or distribute the kinds of data which are used in science or arts is just putting an obstacle in humans evolving in time. Censorship is only slowing the things which are eventually going to happen. When people discover things, they are necessarily delivering these to others. If these discoveries are the natural laws there is no way to prevent it to spread eventually. Slowing these kinds of improvement of society is nobody’s right. That is why censorship is irritating for the most of us.

In conclusion, censorship should not be existed or at least it shouldn’t be done by the government and affect the society. Some of the people think that it is for good of the society, but actually it is because of the government’s affecting media to tell people that it is good. So people only see the half empty side of the censored things and do not think much about the other full half. Government somehow has this power now, but the children who are learning new things about the world everyday are having doubts and fears about their freedom because of such powers that government has. Censorship is one way of the controlling society and some of the people don’t like their lives to be controlled by others who are doing it for the benefit of a non-living organism in reality which is called country. Censorship also prevents some enjoyment from the people’s lives. Finally, the importance of clearing away the censorship would be improvement in people’s intelligence by not preventing them to learn everything they wander about and improvement in the public weal by losing some psychological effects that censorship causes, even if people can not realize those psychological effects.