Censorship of the Arts in America

I have written before of America’s attitudes to the human body, and it’s censorship practices.

I would like to expand on that and look now at Literature. It seems that in America certain standard and well known historical books are the subject of bans and restrictions to prevent unsuitable material from falling into the hands of innocent children. That sounds eminently sensible until you look at the list of books that have been censored. Such classics as Harper Lee’s – To Kill a Mocking Bird (use of real life language), Lewis Carroll’s – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (animals should not be able to speak), Anne Frank’s – Anne Frank’s Diary (it’s too depressing), and Mark Twain’s – Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (use of the word ‘nigger’) have all been on the wrong end of someone’s biased, even bigoted, censorship. And as you can see from the reasons for the censorship – there are some very small minded people out there. And they have risen to positions wielding far too much power for our good.

 

Apparently CBS even made a movie of Huckleberry Finn with no black actors or depiction of slaves.

If that is what life was like in those times, it is no use pretending it did not happen. Hiding history does not make it go away.

 

The politically correct movements in the US in particular, but elsewhere as well, are striving to create generations of citizens in their own very limited and prejudiced image. Don’t. Let go. Let people make their own decisions. Deciding that ‘We know best what is good for you’ will never work. If we want the truth, we’ll be able to find it, no matter how many restrictions and censorship bans are put in our way.

If we really want to look for something to censor, we should look at the news media and their graphic displays of gross violence on the daily news. There is a lot more happening in the world than just a few battles and terrorist attacks, but you wouldn’t know that from the news. But more on that anon.

Tags: Anne Frank, bigoted, censorship, literature, Mark Twain, media, nigger, politically correct, To Kill a mocking Bird