Censorship : Must or Boo

Consider the merits and demerits of censorship and state your reasons why you think it is un/necessary.
Definitely censorship has its good points, otherwise it would not be implemented at all and the use of it would not be sustained. Is censorship a must or is it a boo? Some merits of censorship are namely, to protect and to preserve a society's certain mindset and values.

Through censorship, people can be protected from extreme violence, rude forms of images such as pornography, profanities and the list is infinite. People are protected from these because they are damaging. Some like extreme violence and pornography may affect a person's mind negatively causing a person to do things which he would normally not do in a right state of mind. Such examples can be found daily in the newspapers. For example, when a person watches an excessive dosage of violence and is obsessed with it by wanting to emulate what he sees, a serial killer may be born. So in this case, if violence and such are censored, many crimes and troubles would not have arise. Another more common example is when faces or body parts are censored in television programmes. A person's face may be blurred, that is censored, to protect his identity. In reality shows like "Survivor", it is inevitable that certain private parts of the participants' bodies are disclosed. It is then necessary to censor these images to protect the participants and also for the discretion of the viewers.

Some movies and films contain an anti-peace or anti-government message. These films promote conflict and may even disrupt social peace. By censoring these films or even disallow the screening of these films can preserve the peace that a society enjoys. Take for example if a film were anti-Christinity or any other religions, it would stir up a commotion here in Singapore. Social order would then fail to exist. A society such as modern Singapore is not conservative yet a portion of Singaporeans cannot accept concepts such as gay marriages which are approved in some countries. If television programmes do not censor such concepts deemed unacceptable by the society, it would influence people's mindsets and even values. Such is the influence of images.

On the other hand, censorship has its minus points too. Censorship witholds pieces of information from people, sometimes blurring the big picture. People would then be unable to have a factual overview and thus would have to infer. These inferences may not be justified and be wrong. There is also the issue of too much or too little is being censored. The line between too much and too little censor is fine and indeterminate. Censorship could also just simply be a delay of information.

Pornography may be censored in films and given a rating. However, people are able to find means of obtaining these censored materials. Censorship is not foolproof, it only helps to prevent or acts as a barricade. Its big failing point is it is not infallible. Censorship acts as a shielding screen but this screen is thin and penetrable. So censorship is not useful in this sense. Censorship causes naivety in people. Innocence by default is good but when is it naivety and when is it pure innocence? Knowledge is power as the saying goes. Does witholding knowledge from people equate to leaving them powerless? These are the pitfalls of censorship.

Despite the loopholes censorship has, I think that it is necessary. Censorship helps to shield and protect regardless of how effective or ineffective it may be. The absence of censorship will result in rampant widespread of extreme violence and other unhealthy materials. Therefore censorship must not be eliminated. Even though censorship may simply cause a delay in access to information, it is nonetheless helpful. Perhaps an older person has the maturity that a young child may lack in dealing with violence, pornography and controversial materials.

In my opinion, should there come a day where censorship is no longer present, it would be an age where more eccentric acts will occur, acts which are beyond my brain. As such, in this century where we receive protection, there are still abnormal behaviours. Just like the recent killings done by a Korean student in the States. His behaviour is obviously not what people would define as normal. What caused such peculiarity is a question asked. So, I conclude that if censorship were not in place, far more bizzare and unusual acts will be commited and shock the rest of the world-the normal people. This leads to another question though - what defines normal?