 | The Cavalier daily Wednesday, July 11, 1973 |  |
Thoughts For The Censor
OBSCENITY...
Obscenity is whatever
happens to shock some
elderly and ignorant
magistrate.
Obscenity and witches
exist only in the minds and
emotions of those who
believe in them, and neither
dogmatic judicial dictum nor
righteous vituperation can
ever give to them any
objective existence.
I know that the wiser sort
of men will consider, and I
wish that the ignorant sort
would learn, how it is not the
baseness or homeliness,
whether of words or matters,
that makes them foul and
obscene, but their base
minds, filthy conceits, or
lewd intents that handle
them.
So we can dismiss the idea
that sex appeal in art is
pornography. It may be so to
the grey Puritan, but the grey
Puritan is a sick man, soul
and body sick, so why should
we bother about his
hallucinations?
... AND CENSORSHIP
In the long run of history,
the censor and the inquisitor
have always lost.
Literature should not be
suppressed merely because it
offends the moral code of the
censor. ... Restriction of free
thought and free speech is the
most dangerous of all
subversions. It is the one
un-American act that could
most easily defeat us.
The first condition of
progress is the removal of
censorship.
If we think we must
regulate printing, thereby to
rectify manners, we must
regulate all recreations and
pastimes, all that is delightful
to man.
Don't join the book
burners.
| The Cavalier daily Wednesday, July 11, 1973 | |