Rethinking the Censorship Issue

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The right to read is considered sacred. It is based on an ideology of literacy which associates reading with progress, with competence, serving the interests of social and political stability. There is an unspoken assumption that given the opportunity, people will read something of value, making reading a social good instead of a social evil. But reading can be a double-edged sword. Even early reformers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century recognized that literacy might be counterproductive. Some scholars were concerned that the extension of reading to the masses might cheapen and debase reading. Pressures from church organizations and local citizen groups demanded careful selection of reading materials suitable to common perceptions of proper socialization. As a result, the Sedition Act of 1798 imposed severe restraints upon the freedom of citizens to read, followed by cultural censorship of books on charges of obscenity as evidenced in the court battles in Pennsylvania, Commonwealth vs. Sharpless, 1815, and in Massachusetts, Commonwealth vs. Holmes, 1821 (Haney, 1974). Controversies related to censorship are based on two contradictory theories of freedom (Gelhorn, 1960). Advocates of censorship regard it as a means to prevent the debasement of individual virtues and protect cultural standards and democracy. Opponents see it as a danger to the freedom of choice, without which democracy can not survive. But there is another issue in the censorship debate which has not significantly been addressed. Underlying these controversies are three implicit theories regarding the power of print and the effect of reading. One assumption is that reading influences the opinions and beliefs of the readerespecially children-the significant measure (Beach, 1976). Fundamental cultural values, beliefs and attitudes are transmitted, and these materials affect our views toward the world and ourselves. The second is that the effect of a book, article, or passage is universal, implying that there's one correct meaning for a particular work and that all who are exposed will respond in a uniform manner (Purves and Beach, 1972). A book, accordingly, is a stimulus that causes a specific effect. The third posits that the effects of reading are context independent. Here, the assumption focuses attention narrowly on the interaction between the reader and the content of