by Jaie Helier
(12/06/00)

So what's this censorship thing?

When a large group of people -- the residents of a country like Australia, for example -- present a few of their number with the authority to decide which information should be made available to them, they can be said to have chosen a system of censorship. Because I live in a democratic country which has a system of official censorship, it follows that I must have chosen to have the availability of information to me controlled by my government. Otherwise I would have to conclude that my government was behaving in an undemocratic way.

Why would I choose this?

Perhaps the most obvious reason is the assumption that certain kinds of information are harmful to me or to the community to which I belong. I might then further assume that my government will use the power I have given it to filter out of the available information anything which could be expected to damage the health and welfare of myself and my fellow citizens.

We are talking here, of course, of temporal health and welfare. Spirituality was removed from the purview of governments centuries ago, when the powers of church and state were separated. We now disapprove of, and frequently ostracize, governments run by clerics.

So what are the dangers that censorship of information might help us to avoid?

When I turn on my television each evening, the first thing I notice is that violence is not one of them. American action movies, British detective series, Australian police shows -- they all feature machine-gunnings, stabbings, stranglings and lots of good old-fashioned beating up. In fact, information about violence, as a good and glamorous solution to most of life's riddles and difficulties, abounds on almost every channel available to me. Luckily, the government has now insisted that each show should be preceded by an announcement of its contents, so I never accidentally miss a good killing because, nowadays, it is forecast by a government warning. Matters such as gambling, drug-taking, psychological abuse, excessive greed and the consumption of unlimited quantities of alcohol are also apparently unlikely to cause me any concern in relation to health and welfare. Indeed I note that my government gives considerable encouragement to these activities and to others that I, with my untutored instincts, would tend to worry about.

But perhaps I shouldn't dwell on what information censorship doesn't block, but rather on what it does. It would appear that the main risk I face from unlimited availability of information lies in the area of sexuality. My government, therefore, focuses on this area. In a recent international survey, people in many countries replied positively to a question on whether they thought a means of censorship should be available to them, but overwhelmingly negatively on the question of whether they felt governments should do the censoring. Interestingly, my government chose to leave this second question out of the survey. This was apparently an important question of cost -- the additional question was going to increase the cost of the survey to an extent where my government felt it would be an irresponsible use of the funds with which I provide it. It's a great pity, because I'm certain they must have been longing to know the answer.

So what does get blocked?

Sometime ago, there was a program on a commercial free-to-air channel here called "Sex/Life." I didn't watch this program because, to be honest, it was a little boring. There had been a raunchier version simply called "SEX" which was more fun, but although this was approved by official censors, there was an outcry from a vocal minority. The advertisers took fright and the program disappeared. "Sex/Life" was a sanitized successor that focused not just on sex as a varied and pleasurable activity, but more broadly on matters of sexual health and personal hygiene. It still, however, had a few partly naked bodies and some badly simulated sex -- and herein, it seems, lay its downfall. In the absence of renewed public outcry, our government's Minister for Telecommunications took it upon himself to decry this program along with other programs that presented nude or partially nude bodies, and his admonishments saw "Sex/Life" canned, and a much more cautious approach taken thenceforth.

Perhaps inspired by this success, the minister, backed by the rest of our country's leaders, then modestly decided to censor the Internet. It has been said that they did this partly to appease a particular God-fearing senator whose vote they needed in order to sell off a large public asset. A bill was duly passed, stating that no Australian company was allowed to put objectionable material on to the Internet. Complaints were made; orders were put out against the relevant companies, which simply shifted offshore and continued trading without even a change of URL. On another front, a French film called "Romance" was banned as obscene -- a decision which had to be reversed after a leading newspaper polled a focus group of typical Australians, none of whom could find anything much wrong with it. In the same period, restrictions on sexually explicit material were tightened several times. None of these restrictions has, to my knowledge, prevented publication, but they have served further to marginalize the sex industry.

All of this activity leads me to several areas of puzzlement.

Why is my government ineffectually using its censorship powers to protect me against a phenomenon, the danger of which is entirely incomprehensible to me, rather than the many phenomena featured in our media which seem fraught with risks for my health and safety? Is there, in the sight or description of naked people making love, a risk of serious harm that I do not understand but which my government, with its greater knowledge and wisdom, does? Is there any possibility that my government might be mistaken about what is and what is not unhealthy for me and the community in which I live?

My government appears to promote an atmosphere in which ordinary people are afraid to explore their sexuality for fear of being thought perverted and ridiculed or despised -- or, in some cases, physically attacked. Artists, who might be able to improve the standard of sex as portrayed in the media, do not feel that they can be involved in the prevailing atmosphere. Ordinary people do not feel they can enjoy the lower end -- generally ugly, cheap and unimaginative -- media products available. The result is that the market is locked into low-grade exploitation, distributed in an atmosphere already marked as depraved, against which all governments can easily make a case.

Why would my government want to prevent people from exploring their sexuality with the help of the media?

I wonder if my government fears that a people which began to appreciate the beauty of love and love-making between humans would lose its appetite for war, and therefore its ability to defend itself. Perhaps they also then fear that people who are encouraged to explore their individual needs and desires will cease to be a simple consumer market, a people which can easily be led by the nose. Perhaps they fear that people who know themselves will insist on being treated as individuals; will refuse to be patronized; will demand to be informed. Fully informed.

Oh, dear -- perhaps that's it. Censorship exists so that censorship can exist.

It's the self-fulfilling prophesy of popular ignorance and it's causing us and our poor overworked governments lots of trouble.