Censorship

Censorship has existed in humanity, since it was learnt, that it is far easier to control humans when they are less informed and, to not mince words, more ignorant. Stop the peasants learning to read or they may rise up against the rulers, don’t allow education, don’t teach subjects, don’t let them dream, don’t let them create art against the people who control and belittle them. Censor them. 

Art censorship has historically served as a tool for authorities to control narratives by suppressing works deemed obscene, blasphemous, or politically dangerous by social normality. It has evolved from top-down restrictions by religious or state powers.

We saw this with ancient religion, against graven images.

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image” – Exodus 20:4-6

The Vatican ordering Daniele da Volterra to paint clothing on the nude figures in Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment, after his death. Michelangelo’s statue of David was considered scandalous upon its creation in 1504. Throughout its history, it has been subjected to covering its nudity, including in 2012 when it was pixelated on Chinese television. They actually fired a principal in Florida for teaching about the statue, even though it was part of their curriculum…

The Nazi’s  banned modern art movements like cubism and expressionism as they were against their ideology. The Soviets censored avant-garde artworks. Picasso’s Guernica was banned by Franco’s regime for its political nature. 

Robert Mapplethorpe’s photography exhibition The Perfect Moment ended up in a trial! His work featuring homoerotic imagery and S&M practices became a key target in culture wars, challenging conservative norms.

The removal of Hylas and the Nymphs by John William Waterhouse from the Manchester Gallery of Art. They removed it due to female depictions being seen as a problematic and pejorative system of treating the female body as a passive, decorative art form.

 Where many critics warned that the removal was a slippery slope toward censoring historical art, arguing that artistic, historical, and mythological contexts were ignored. Critics noted the irony that in the myth, the female nymphs are the active, predatory figures who destroy the male protagonist. But luckily the debate was seen as a mistake resulting in the painting’s quick return a week later. 

The L’Origine du monde by Gustave Courbet was officially banned on social media in 2011. 

Literature is often targeted to be banned a couple of famous examples being;

• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
• Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
• The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

and even Harry Potter has been challenged!There are around 2500 attempts to censor books per year. It’s actually gone up a lot in the last two years…

Songs beeping out swear words are very common, which often confused me as music is all about sound, so instead of muting the word they put a bad disharmonious sound to cover a bad word? Do they like destroying music? Then songs that are banned like The Doors’ Unknown Soldier for being anti-war. The Beatles’ A Day in the Life and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds were banned by the BBC because of drug references. Billie Holiday’s song Strange Fruit was blacklisted by many radio stations due to its powerful protest against racism. 

So looking at all this, why do people in control, ban things? It’s because they do not understand or are unable comprehend what the artist is saying. They then label it as controversial (which by the way, has a total opposite effect due to natural human curiousity). It’s also a sad and often idiotic attempt for power. We can see this by politicians trying to govern the World Wide Web. I am not saying they shouldn’t enforce international laws. That is a very noble thing to do. But when you act like everyone in the world is a child and need to be protected by invading their privacy…

Content creators are needing publishing delays, Australia has actually been banned from using over a thousand websites, because the esafety is asking that everyone places their personal information into unsafe websites. Unfortunately, most of these people are young children that haven’t learnt about privacy information and how it’s dangerous. 
So, instead of protecting kids, it’s actually made them way less safe.

I kind of think that if they had of spent five minutes setting up blocks on sites on their home computers and having a talk with their kids, it may have been a better place to start.

They are threatening content creators that if their content contains anything they find inappropriate then users will need to login, with their private information, to your site, or you pay fines. Now they don’t specifically say what is banned (we all know the obvious laws) but they don’t say what level of violence? I write a lot of horror and am rather graphic in details, I also make fun of political issues, religion is mentioned, I swear when I’m angry, I don’t think I have any porn (actually for fun I’m going to add the pics of the artworks mentioned above lol), but I’ve covered violence, political controversy, bad language and religious themes. They aren’t against any law, but they claim they can punish if you don’t stop their children reading it? When did it becomes my responsibility to look after their kids? Still trying to figure this out…

See, when they start on their moral crusade, they don’t have a clear goal. So, suddenly they get a little power and then start creating their own agenda e.g. 

1. Let’s make sure all porn is censored so the kids are protected.

2. My kid said swear words and I can’t be bothered teaching them manners, so let’s just ban all swear words from the internet.

3. I don’t really understand this poem and I’m pretty sure it’s mentioning LGBTQIA2S+ stuff that I don’t want to talk to my kids about, so we should just censor it.

4. This person is a different religion than me, I need to protect my kids from learning about other cultures!

5. Someone said something about something that I disagree with, let’s make sure no one else says that.

See how quickly it disintegrated because there was no real backing? It becomes quickly about opinion, not public, just one person. Because the other ideas went through it ends with them literally becoming bigots!

It’s a horribly slippery slope that humanity can fall down if they aren’t careful…

But saying all this, there are obvious ways to get past the bigots that think that everyone needs to agree, only, to their opinion… For this current problem, just get VPN and it protects your location. Security, to fight “security”. I find it hilarious!

Keep art safe by not allowing them to discriminate against it. Art is the last true freedom society has in an increasingly unstable world, with the uneducated and intolerant politicians that are in power positions. Let’s hope they don’t start more wars and destroy the last beauty that the world has. If they win then the ones they say they are protecting will become ignorant and bigotted as well…